The capacity for ascidians to inhabit coastal sea floor worldwide relies on their peculiar tolerance to environmental variables and pollution, which is considered, together with high levels of genetic diversity, among the main drivers of their invasive potential. In spite of the continued interest in the genetics of invasive species, little attention has been paid toward the microevolutionary processes that drive structure and...

C iona intestinalis sp. A ( T unicata, A scidiacea) is a marine invertebrate with a widespread distribution and high invasive potential, yet little is known about its ecology. Here, the macrodynamics of demographic and reproductive trends were first determined using archive data covering 2002–2012. Species abundance in the central T yrrhenian S ea ( C ampania, I taly ‐ NW M editerranean) displayed P oisson distribution across...

Strong environmental selection may give rise to complex species and/or camouflage the presence of sibling species in brackish waters. The prosobranch gastropod Nassarius corniculus (Olivi, 1792) is a common scavenger widely distributed in Mediterranean brackish and marine areas. We examined the morphological and molecular features of N. corniculus populations and related these features to the environmental complexity of bracki...