Pinctada radiata, Leach, 1814, is considered the first Indo‐Pacific bivalve introduced in the Mediterranean Sea after the Suez Canal opening and it is now reckoned among the 100 most invasive species within the basin. It is important to assess and describe its established populations in Mediterranean coastal ecosystems to understand the dynamics of this successful invasion and its adaptability. Present research aims to describ...

This Collective Article compiles information on nineteen (19) species recorded in seven (7) Mediterranean countries (Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Syria, and Türkiye) and across four major sub-basins (Adriatic, Western, Central, and Eastern Mediterranean). The documented taxa represent eight (8) phyla: Annelida (four species), Arthropoda (three), Bryozoa (one), Chordata (two), Cnidaria (two), Mollusca (five), Chloro...

Understanding the interaction between marine biota and marine litter is essential to comprehend how organisms face the continuous alteration of their habitats due to anthropogenic pressure. The evidence here reported, based on both direct in situ observations and citizen science obtained information, refer to the interactions between two Mediterranean Cephalopoda species and marine litter in natural environments, and, more spe...

Unlike adult mammalian cardiomyocytes, cardiomyocytes in teleosts display high proliferative capacity throughout adulthood. This study aimed to identify the immunohistochemical profiles of cardiomyocytes and immune cells in the hearts of Molly fish by assessing the immunolabelling expression of key proteins involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, and tissue protection. The cardiac anatomy of Molly fish includes the at...

Improve the knowledge base on the ecomorphological adaptation of teleost species to different environments, trying to reconstruct how habitat can shape sagittae , is essential for conservational purposes, evolutionary evaluations, and population dynamics studies. Here is provided a comparative study between sagittae features, growth rates and age composition of two Scorpaena porcus populations inhabiting the Mediterranean wate...

The recognition and elimination of invading pathogens are vital for host survival. Macrophages play a central role in host protection and cells functionally reminiscent of vertebrate macrophages are present in all multicellular organisms. A pattern responsible for bacterial recognition found on the surface of macrophages is CD14. These cells possess a repertoire of antimicrobial molecules stored in their granules and lysosomes...

This Collective Article presents information on 20 taxa belonging to five (5) Phyla: Cnidaria (2), Mollusca (8), Arthropoda (4), Echinodermata (1) and Chordata (5) recorded from the Alboran Sea to the Levantine Sea. These new records were found in seven (7) different ecoregions as follows: Alboran Sea: new record of the rare football octopus Ocythoe tuberculata in the harbour of Algeciras (Spain); Western Mediterranean Sea: fi...

Monitoring the occurrence and distribution of rare fish species is essential, especially in a semi-closed basin such as the Mediterranean Sea. Biologically interesting species often represent fishing waste (being part of the by-catch) and therefore are not retained, leading to a huge gap in data collection. Here we report about the occurrence in the Ionian Sea of a Zu cristatus (Bonelli, 1819) specimen, a mesopelagic fish from...

Merluccius merluccius is one of the most important Mediterranean benthopelagic predators. It represents a key species for the ecosystem’s functioning due to its fundamental role in the energy transferal between different domains and depth strata. The aim of this study was to explore the feeding habits of European hakes in the southern and central Mediterranean Sea, and also to analyze timescale variations and ontogenetic shift...

The present paper represents the first description of abnormal hermaphroditism in Galeus melastomus (Rafinesque, 1810). The black mouth cat shark specimen, collected in summer from southern Tyrrhenian Sea at the entrance of Salerno gulf, showed a basic intersexuality characterized by the presence of male secondary and female primary sexual characters. The reproductive system has been described with an accurate morphological an...

Data on the biology and ecology of Galeus melastomus are old/absent for the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, despite there being numerous studies in the wider area. A total of 127 specimens of G. melastomus from the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, collected in 2018–2019 using trawling nets, were analyzed to investigate size at sexual maturity, sex ratio, length–weight relationships, and feeding habits. To our best knowledge, this is the firs...