We report two new records of the Atlantic bigeye, Priacanthus arenatus Cuvier, 1829, from Italian waters (Ionian Sea and Strait of Sicily), confirmed through morphological and molecular analyses. The species has previously been reported in the Mediterranean only twice, in the Gulf of Cagliari and the Strait of Messina. Morphometric and meristic data were compared with literature values, and phylogenetic analyses based on COI s...

New records of introduced species in the Mediterranean Sea (December 2025)

The Mediterranean Sea is a biodiversity hotspot, being home to a vast array of marine species. Furthermore, seawater warming is facilitating the arrival and spread of new thermophilic species, posing a severe threat to biodiversity. Among the species currently extending their range and increasing in abundance in Mediterranean waters, sea chubs (genus Kyphosus ) are one of the most enigmatic. One challenge arises from the high...

The presence of alien species represents a major cause of habitat degradation and biodiversity loss worldwide, constituting a critical environmental challenge of our time. Despite sometimes experiencing reduced propagule pressure, leading to a reduced genetic diversity and an increased chance of inbreeding depression, alien invaders are often able to thrive in the habitats of introduction, giving rise to the so‐called “genetic...

Inbreeding is a common phenomenon in small, fragmented or isolated populations, typical conditions of many threatened species. In the present paper, we used a new non-invasive approach based on the buccal micronucleus assay to evaluate the possible relationships between inbreeding and genomic damage using the dog as model species. In particular, we assessed the frequencies of micronuclei and other nuclear aberrations in a grou...