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The life cycle of the alien boatman Trichocorixa verticalis (Hemiptera, Corixidae) in saline and hypersaline wetlands of south-west Spain

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Abstract

Trichocorixa verticalis (Corixidae) is native to North America but is well established as an alien in the Western Mediterranean region, where it is invasive in permanent coastal wetlands with high salinities. We investigated the annual cycle and generation time of T. verticalis in the introduced range in south-west Spain, through a combination of field surveys and laboratory experiments. Field surveys were conducted on a monthly basis over 1 year in three saline fish ponds in Doñana and four hypersaline salt ponds in the Odiel marshes. Adults were present all year round, whereas nymphs were only absent in August, when temperatures and salinities were high. Adult sex ratios were idiosyncratic and often male or female biased for a given location and month. Adults were smaller during summer months. Laboratory experiments revealed an oviposition rate of 11.5 eggs per day and a generation time of about 54 days from egg to adult, suggesting T. verticalis may complete around six generations per year in permanent wetlands. A combination of a high oviposition rate and continuous reproduction throughout the year gives T. verticalis an advantage over native corixid competitors (Sigara spp), and appears to explain the success of this alien aquatic insect.

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Credit: Vanessa Céspedes and Ruben Izquierdo

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Acknowledgements

E. Martinez (Director of Marismas del Odiel Natural Park) and Doñana Natural Space provided permission for fieldwork. J. Miguel Medialdea and Pesquerías Isla Mayor, S.A. provided facilities in VLP. Miguel Lozano Terol, Raquel López Luque, Natalia Ospina-Alvarez, and Simona Kacmarcikova helped with laboratory and fieldwork. Andres Millán and Josefa Velasco provided helpful advice. Ruben Izquierdo and the “MiBuho” company provided the graphic design for Fig. 7. The staff of the Aquatic Ecology (LEA-EBD) and GIS and Remote Sensing (LAST-EBD) laboratories of EBD-CSIC provided essential support. This research was funded by the Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa, Junta de Andalucía project (P10-RNM-6262) to AJG, a Severo Ochoa predoctoral contract (SVP-2013-067595) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) to VC, a JAE predoctoral grant from CSIC and a post doc project 3160330 financed by FONDECYT to CC, a predoctoral FPU grant to JAC and a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contract from MICINN to MIS. Two anonymous referees greatly improved an earlier version of the manuscript.

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  1. Wetland Ecology Department, Estación Biológica de Doñana, CSIC, Américo Vespucio 26, 41092, Seville, Spain

    Vanessa Céspedes, Cristina Coccia, Marta I. Sánchez & Andy J. Green

  2. Center of Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES-UC), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Cristina Coccia

  3. Laboratory of Evolutionary Stress Ecology and Ecotoxicology, University of Leuven, Charles Deberiotstraat 32 bus 2439, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    José Antonio Carbonell

  4. Department of Biology, Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain

    Marta I. Sánchez

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  1. Vanessa Céspedes
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  2. Cristina Coccia
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Correspondence to Vanessa Céspedes.

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Céspedes, V., Coccia, C., Carbonell, J.A. et al. The life cycle of the alien boatman Trichocorixa verticalis (Hemiptera, Corixidae) in saline and hypersaline wetlands of south-west Spain. Hydrobiologia 827, 309–324 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-018-3782-x

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