Sinoflustra annae

Invasion History

First Non-native Panama (Pacific) Tidal Record: 1930
First Non-native Panama (Caribbean) Tidal Record: 2004

---

Panama Invasion History:

---

Invasion history elsewhere in the world:

By 1930, Sinoflustra annae was established at Balboa, near the Panama Canal (Hastings 1930, cited by Osburn 1953, Powell 1971, McCann et al. 2007). In 2004, it was abundant on the Caribbean coast of Panama (Ruiz et al., unpublished data), and was found on fouling plates in Paranagua Bay, Brazil (Cangussu 2008). This bryozoan is also established on the west coast of Africa, in Lagos, Nigeria on the Niger Delta, at Cotonu, Benin on the Gulf of Guinea, and at Moanda, Democratic Republic of Congo on the Congo River Delta (Cook 1968). 

---

Description

Sinoflustra annae forms encrusting colonies. The zooids are rectangular in outline, and about 0.40-0.60 mm in length by 0.20-0.45 mm in width. The frontal area (opesia) is membranous and round to oval. At the distal end of the zooid, the operculum is bordered on each side by a pair of small, subtriangular kenozooids, resembling avicularia, but lacking mandibles, instead being frontally walled by membrane. Laterally and proximally, the membranous opesia is surrounded by a beaded cryptocyst, from the raised inner rim of which small sharp-pointed denticles extend under the membranous surface. There are no ovicells. The zooids may have large vicarious avicularia with rounded mandibles (description from McCann et al. 2007).

---

Taxonomy

Ecology

General:

Life History- Sinoflustra annae is an encrusting, calcified bryozoan composed of many individual zooids. The zooids feed by extending the ciliated tentacles of the lophophore as a funnel, creating a current, and driving food particles into their mouths. The food is guided along the tentacles and through the pharynx by the cilia. Larger food particles can be moved or captured by flicking or contracting the tentacles (Barnes 1983). The mode of larval development of S. annae is unknown (McCann et al. 2007), but members of the family Flustridae have brooded, lecithotrophic larvae (Gordon et al. 2006). Larvae settle on a substrate, usually an alga, and metamorphose into the first zooid of a colony, an ancestrula (Dudley 1973; Barnes 1983).

Ecology- Sinoflustra annae is known primarily from pilings, buoys and fouling panels (Menon and Nair 1969; Powell 1971; Ruiz et al. unpublished data). It is often found in water of reduced salinities (Winston 1977; Swami and Karande 1994).

Food:

Phytoplankton

Trophic Status:

Primary Producer

PrimProd

---

Habitats

General Habitat	Coarse Woody Debris	None
General Habitat	Marinas & Docks	None
General Habitat	Rocky	None
Salinity Range	Mesohaline	5-18 PSU
Salinity Range	Polyhaline	18-30 PSU
Salinity Range	Euhaline	30-40 PSU
Tidal Range	Subtidal	None
Vertical Habitat	Epibenthic	None

---

---

Tolerances and Life History Parameters

Minimum Salinity (‰)	14	Field data- Bombay, India, in monsoon season, still abundant (Swami and Karande 1987, cited by Swami and Karande 1994)
Broad Temperature Range	None	Warm temperate-Tropical
Broad Salinity Range	None	Mesohaline-Euhaline

General Impacts

Sinoflustra annae is abundant in its native region and its invaded range, but specific ecological or economic impacts have not been reported.

---

References

Badve, R. M.; Sonar, M. A. (1995) Bryozoa Cheilostomata from Holocene, west coast of Maharashtra, India., Geobios New Reports 28(3): 317-335

Barnes, Robert D. (1983) Invertebrate Zoology, Saunders, Philadelphia. Pp. 883

Bock, Phillip 2003-2013 Recent and Fossil Bryozoa. <missing URL>



Calder, Dale R.; Faucci, Anuschka (2021) Shallow water hydroids (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from the 2002 NOWRAMP cruise to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Zootaxa 5085: 1-73

Cangussu, Leonardo Caparroz (2008) <missing title>, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitaba, Brazil. Pp. <missing location>

Cook, Patricia L. (1968) Bryozoa (Polyzoa) from the coasts of tropical West Africa, Atlantide - Report 10: 115-262

Crivellaro, Marcelo Schuler; Candido, Davi Volney; ilveira, Thiago Cesar Lima; Fonseca, Adriana Carvalhal; Segal, Barbara ´ (2022) A tool for a race against time: Dispersal simulations to support ongoing monitoring program of the invasive coral Tubastraea coccinea, Marine Pollution Bulletin 185(114354): Published online
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114354

Dudley, Judith E. (1973) Observations on the reproduction, early larval development, and colony astogeny of Conopeum tenuissimum (Canu), Chesapeake Science 14(4): 270-278

Gordon, Dennis P. (2016) Bryozoa of the South China Sea: an overview, Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 34: 604-618

Gordon, Dennis P.; Ramalho, Laís V.; Taylor, Paul D. (2006) An unreported invasive bryozoan that can affect livelihoods - Membraniporopsis tubigera in New Zealand and Brazil., Bulletin of Marine Science 78(2): 331-341

Gordon, Dennis P.; Hosie, Andrew M.; Carter, Michelle C. (2008) Post-2000 detection of warm-water alien bryozoan species in New Zealand- The significance of recreational vessels, Virginia Museum of Natural History Special Publication 15: 37-48

Hastings, Anna B. (1930) Cheilostomatous Polyzoa from the vicinity of the Panama Canal, collected by Dr, C. Crossland on the cruise of S. Y. St. george, Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 47: 697–750

Huang, Zongguo (Ed.), Junda Lin (Translator) (2001) Marine Species and Their Distributions in China's Seas, Krieger, Malabar, FL. Pp. <missing location>

Karande, A. A.; Udhayakumar, M. (1992) Consequences of crowding on life-histories of cheilostome bryozoans in Bombay., Indian Journal of Marine Science 21: 133-136

Madhaven Pillai, S. R. (1981) Further report on the taxonomy of fouling bryozoans of Bombay Harbour and vicinity., Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 78: 317-329

Marcus, Ernst (1937) Bryozoarios Marinhos Brasileiros, Boletim de faculdade de filosofia, Ciencias e Letras, Universidade de sao Paulo, Zoologia 1: 1-224

McCann, Linda D.; Hitchcock, Natasha Gray; Winston, Judith E.; Ruiz, Gregory M. (2007) Non-native bryozoans in coastal embayments of the southern United States: new records for the western Atlantic., Bulletin of Marine Science 80(2): 319-342

Menon, Ravindranatha; Nair, Balakrishnan (1969) The ectoproctous bryozoans of Indian waters., Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India 9(2): 430-432

O’Dea, Aaron (2003) Seasonality and zooid size variation in Panamanian encrusting bryozoans, Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 83: 1107-1108

Oh, Dong-Ha and 6 auhtora (2021) Novel genome characteristics contribute to the invasiveness of Phragmites australis (common reed), Molecular Ecology Resources 31: 1142–1159.
DOI: 10.1111/mec.16293

Osburn, Raymond C. (1950) Bryozoa of the Pacific Coast of America: part 1, Cheilostomata-Anasca., Allan Hancock Pacific Expeditions 14(1): 1-269

Osburn, Raymond, C (1953) Bryozoa of the Pacific Coast of America: Part 3, Cyclostomata, Ctenostomata, Entoprocta, and Addenda., Allan Hancock Pacific Expeditions 14(3): 615-684

Powell, N. A. (1971) The marine Bryozoa near the Panama Canal., Bulletin of Marine Science 21(3): 766-778

Rao, K. Satyanarayana; Baljaji, M. (1988) Marine biodeterioration- advanced techniques applicable to the Indian Ocean, Oxford & IBH Pub. Co., New Delhi. Pp. 551-574

Soors, Jan; de Beukelaer, Joram; Bezdenjesnji, Olja; Buerms, Dimitri; Lefranc, Charles; Speybroeck, Jeroen; Van de Meutter,Frank (2022) Two new alien crustacean invaders Grandidierella japonica (Stephensen, 1938) and Neomysis americana (S.I. Smith, 1873) in Belgium, BioInvasions Records 11: In press

Swami, B. S.; Karande, A. A. (1994) Encrusting bryozoans in Karwar waters, central west coast of India, Indian Journal of Marine Sciences 23: 170-172

Tarakanadha, B.; Morrell, Jeffrey J.; Rao, K. Satyanarayana (2004) Environmental impacts of preservative-treated wood., Florida Center for Environmental Solutions, Orlando. Pp. 320-335

Udhayakumar, M.; Karande, A. A. (1989) Growth and breeding in cheilostome biofouling, Electra bengalensis in Bombay waters, west coast of India, Indian Journal of Marine Sciences 18: 95-99

Vieira, Leandro M.; Migotto, Alvaro E.; Winston, Judith E. (2008) Synopsis and annotated checklist of Recent marine Bryozoa from Brazil, Zootaxa 1810: 1-39

Winston, Judith E. (1977) Distribution and ecology of estuarine ectoprocts: a critical review., Chesapeake Science 18(1): 34-57

Xavier, Everthon A; Aalmeida, na C.S.; Vieira, Leandro M. (2021) The role of artificial habitats on fouling bryozoan fauna in the southwestern Atlantic, Marine Pollution Bulletin 167: Published online
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112310

---