First record of the Pacific oyster Magallana gigas (Thunberg, 1793) in the Baltic Sea proper

Since its introduction in the 1960’s for aquaculture, the Pacific oyster Magallana gigas (Thunberg, 1793) has successfully spread along almost all European coasts with far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. Up to now, it has not been recorded from the Baltic Sea proper. This was considered...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine Biodiversity Records
Main Authors: Ewers-Saucedo, Christine, Heuer, Nele, Moesges, Zoe, Ovenbeck, Kira, Schröter, Nicole, Brandis, Dirk
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
article
ScholarlyArticle
ddc:570
ddc:333.7
Published Version
Oyster
Magallana gigas
Baltic Sea
Salinity anomaly
Invasive species
Adaptation
Pacific
Pacific oyster
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s41200-020-00193-2
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:8:3-2022-00218-0
https://macau.uni-kiel.de/receive/macau_mods_00002595
https://macau.uni-kiel.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/macau_derivate_00003716/s41200-020-00193-2.pdf
Description
Summary:Since its introduction in the 1960’s for aquaculture, the Pacific oyster Magallana gigas (Thunberg, 1793) has successfully spread along almost all European coasts with far-reaching consequences for marine ecosystems. Up to now, it has not been recorded from the Baltic Sea proper. This was considered a consequence of the low salinity conditions, which are not suitable for larval development. Here we report our first records of Pacific oysters in the German Baltic Sea, specifically in the Kiel Bight. We confirmed their species identification by genetic barcoding. We suggest that Pacific oysters were able to settle in the Baltic Sea proper due to unusually high salinities that prevailed since the summer of 2018. Should these conditions occur more frequently in the future, or M. gigas be able to adapt to lower salinities, oysters may become established in the Baltic Sea proper.

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