Invasion History
First Non-native North American Tidal Record: 1935First Non-native West Coast Tidal Record: 1935
First Non-native East/Gulf Coast Tidal Record: 1973
General Invasion History:
The spionid polychaete Boccardiella ligerica was described from the Loire Estuary, France and is believed to be native to brackish waters of Europe. Its range extends from the North Sea coast of Germany, to the Netherlands, France, and Portugal (Blake and Woodwick 1971; Wolff 1973; Cunha and Moreira 1995). It is believed to be introduced to the inner Baltic (Finland; Eliason and Haahtela 1969). In the Western Atlantic, this polychaete has been reported from New York to Texas, Puerto Rico, and Argentina (Blake 1983; Wern 1985; Kravitz et al. 1987; Angradi et al. 1987; Chesapeake Bay Program 1998; Orensanz et al. 2002; New York State Department of Transportation 2012). In the Northeast Pacific, it was first reported from Newport Bay, California in 1935, and was found in San Francisco Bay in 1953, where it is now very abundant (Cohen and Carlton 1995). Genetic comparisons of European, Western Atlantic, and Eastern Pacific species have not been made. This polychaete is frequently associated with the widespread invader Ficopomatus enigmaticus (Light 1977; Blake 1983). It is likely that this species has been widely distributed by ship's ballast water. Boccardiella ligerica is also abundant on the hulls of heavily fouled ships (Llansó et al. 2011).
North American Invasion History:
Invasion History on the West Coast:
A single specimen of Boccardiella ligerica was collected by Olga Hartman in Newport Bay, California (CA) in 1935 (Kudenov 1983). However, there are no further records of this polychaete from marine-estuarine waters of southern California (Light 1977). In San Francisco Bay, B. ligerica was collected in the San Pablo Channel in 1954, and later found in Suisun Bay, Honker Bay, and the Delta-Mendota (1971-193, Light 1977; Carlton 1979). By the 1970s-1980s, this polychaete was found to be a dominant form in low-salinity regions of the San Francisco estuary, including the lower Sacramento River during dry years (Siegfreid 1980; Peterson and Vayssieres 2010). Boccardiella ligerica was collected in the Bolinas Lagoon, outside San Francisco Bay in 1968 (CAS-IZ 126919, California Academy of Science 2014), but we have no information on its establishment. Established populations of B. ligerica were found in the interior of California, in the Alamo River, which flows into the Salton Sea, an athalassic salt lake (1979, Kudenov 1983). This desert river is nominally fresh, but probably has a high salt content.
Invasion History on the East Coast:
Most records of Boccardiella ligerica on the East Coast come from species lists in 'gray literature' reports, with little information on species location or habitats. It is possible that this worm has been overlooked due to its small size, and confusion with B. hamata and other spionids. Boccardiella ligerica has been reported from the St. Johns estuary, Florida (Mattson 2011); the Neuse estuary, North Carolina (Vittor Associates 1999); the Chesapeake Bay (Chesapeake Bay Program 1998); Delaware Bay (Anderson et al. 2003); and the Mullica River and Hackensack estuaries, New Jersey (Angradi et al. 2001; Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute 2004) and in the Hudson estuary at the Tappan Zee Bridge (2006 - 2009, New York State Department of Transportation 2012). In Chesapeake Bay, B. ligerica was reported in 1990 benthic sampling data (Chesapeake Bay Program 1998; Gillett and Schaffner 2009), but was not seen during earlier collections. This worm has been found in several oligo-mesohaline sites in Virginia and Maryland: James River (Swann's Point); Pamunkey River; Rappahannock River; Patuxent River; Nanticoke River; and the Potomac River (Route 301 Bridge) (Chesapeake Bay Program 2001).
Invasion History on the Gulf Coast:
The earliest reported collection of Boccardiella ligerica from the Gulf of Mexico was in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, on San Antonio Bay, Texas in 1973. Only a single specimen was collected there, but an established population was found in a brackish (10-14 PSU) marsh at Sea Rim State Park, near Sabine Lake (Wern 1985). In 1984, another population was found to be established in the Crystal River estuary, on the Gulf Coast of Florida (Kravitz 1987).
Invasion History Elsewhere in the World:
In the Western Atlantic, Boccardiella ligerica was collected from the Rio Espiritu Santo estuary in Puerto Rico in 1978 (Blake 1983; US National Museum of Natural History 2014). Further south, this polychaete was collected in Uruguay, in the La Plata estuary in 1938 (Blake 1983; Orensanz et al. 2002). It is now abundant in lagoons on the Atlantic coast south of the La Plata estuary (Gappa et al. 2001; Orensanz et al. 2002). An identification of B. ligerica from South Africa (Day 1955, cited by Blake and Woodwick 1971) is considered questionable.
Description
Boccardiella ligerica is a small infaunal polychaete, characteristic of brackish water. The animal lives in a tube constructed of mucus and sediments. The prostomium is slightly incised at the anterior margin, and bears four eyes arranged in a trapezoid. The anterior end is narrowed, and widens posteriorly, as a somewhat bulbous caruncle, extending to the 2nd or 3rd chaetiger. There is no occipital tentacle. A pair of long palps, which can extend back to the 10th or 20th chaetiger, extends from the peristomium. Chaetiger 1 is reduced, and has small notopodial lobes lacking chaetae, and only a small cluster of chaetae on the neuropodium. Chaetigers 2, 3, 4, 6, and succeeding chaetigers, have spreading bundles of chaetae in the notopodia and neuropodia. Posterior chaetigers have stouter chaetae, and a specialized recurved hook in the notopodia, while in the neuropodia, beginning in chaetiger 7, the chaetae are largely replaced by hooded hooks. Chaetiger 5 is greatly modified, twice as large as anterior or posterior chaetigers, with a pair of rows of thick, short spines, and a pair of small bundles of chaetae. Branchiae (gills) occur on segments 2, 3, 7 and the succeeding chaetigers, but they are lacking on chaetigers 4, 5, and 6 for about one-third of the length of the worm. The parapodia in posterior segments are laterally elevated, making a dorsal channel down the middle of the body. The recurved hooks on the notopodia project into this channel. The pygidium is a flattened plate with two prominent dorsal cirri. Boccardiella ligerica reaches 18 mm (Rullier 1960; Blake and Woodwick 1971; Light 1977; Light 1978; Blake 1983; Wern 1985; Blake and Ruff 2007).
Taxonomy
Taxonomic Tree
| Kingdom: | Animalia | |
| Phylum: | Annelida | |
| Class: | Polychaeta | |
| Subclass: | Palpata | |
| Order: | Canalipalpata | |
| Suborder: | Spionida | |
| Family: | Spionidae | |
| Genus: | Boccardiella | |
| Species: | ligerica |
Synonyms
Boccardia ligerica? (Day, 1955)
Boccardia redeki (Horst, 1920)
Boccardia uncata (Monro, 1938)
Polydora redeki (Horst, 1920)
Potentially Misidentified Species
Boccardiella hamata is a shell-boring spionid polychaete, described from Virginia (Webster 1879), and later reported from Rhode Island to Texas on the East and Gulf Coasts, British Columbia to Mexico on the West Coast (Dean and Blake 1966), and Pacific coasts of Hokkaido, Japan, and Russia (Radashevsky 1993).
Ecology
General:
Boccardiella ligerica is a deposit-feeding, infaunal polychaete, characteristic of brackish water. The sexes are separate. In June, in Canal de Caen, France, males were swollen with sperm, while the body cavities of the females were filled with eggs. Eggs are laid in the female's tube and hatch as ciliated, swimming morula larvae. By the 3-chaetiger stage, larvae have long chaetae, and enter the plankton. Larvae as long as 19 chaetigers were found in the plankton, but although the larvae are clearly planktotrophic, the duration of development is not known (Rullier 1960).
Boccardiella ligerica is characteristic of brackish habitats. In Texas, the worms occurred on soft mud and hard clay (Wern 1985), while Kravitz (1987) found them on fine and coarse sand bottoms in Florida. Rullier (1960) found them in empty shells of Zebra Mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) and the empty tubes of Ficopomatus enigmaticus in a canal at Caen, France. Boccardiella ligerica has also been found in more structured habitats including sunken timbers (Eliasen and Haatella 1969) and heavily fouled ships in Suisun Bay, California (Llanso et al. 2011). This worm has been reported from freshwater (possibly slightly saline) in a desert river in Imperial County, California (Kudenov 1983) and salinities as low at 0.5-0.6 PSU (Wolff 1973; Kravitz 1987). It has also been collected at 30 PSU, but appears to be rare above 18 PSU (Wolff 1973; Wern 1985; Kravitz 1987; Peterson and Vayssieres 2010).
Boccardiella ligerica has been reported to feed on phytoplankton and microzooplankton (Hempel 1957, cited by Wolff 1973). It also probably feeds on particles on the sediment surface, as do some related species of Polydora. Particles are trapped on the mucous covered, ciliated palps, and transported to the mouth (Fauchauld and Jumars 1979). Given its abundance in some estuarine habitats (Wolf 1973; Cohen and Carlton 1995; Peterson and Vayssieres 2010), this species may play an important role in estuarine food webs, as a consumer of phytoplankton and detritus, and as food for small fishes and predatory invertebrates in low salinity regions.
Food:
Detritus, phytoplankton, benthic microalgae
Consumers:
Competitors:
Trophic Status:
Deposit Feeder
DepFedHabitats
| General Habitat | Unstructured Bottom | None |
| General Habitat | Salt-brackish marsh | None |
| General Habitat | Canals | None |
| General Habitat | Coarse Woody Debris | None |
| General Habitat | Vessel Hull | None |
| Salinity Range | Limnetic | 0-0.5 PSU |
| Salinity Range | Oligohaline | 0.5-5 PSU |
| Salinity Range | Mesohaline | 5-18 PSU |
| Salinity Range | Polyhaline | 18-30 PSU |
| Tidal Range | Subtidal | None |
| Tidal Range | Low Intertidal | None |
| Vertical Habitat | Endobenthic | None |
| Vertical Habitat | Epibenthic | None |
Tolerances and Life History Parameters
| Minimum Temperature (ºC) | 0 | Assumed winter temperature, Finland (Eliason and Haahtela 1969). |
| Maximum Temperature (ºC) | 31 | Wern 1985 |
| Minimum Salinity (‰) | 0.6 | Field, Kravitz 1987. |
| Maximum Salinity (‰) | 30 | Kravitz 1983 |
| Maximum Length (mm) | 18 | Blake and Woodwick 1971 |
| Broad Temperature Range | None | Cold temperate-Warm temperate |
| Broad Salinity Range | None | Limnetic-Euhaline |
General Impacts
No impacts have been reported for Boccardiella ligerica. It has developed very high population densities in low-salinity regions where native spionids are rare, such as low-salinity parts of the San Francisco estuary (Peterson and Vayssieres 2010).Regional Distribution Map
| Bioregion | Region Name | Year | Invasion Status | Population Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEA-IV | None | 0 | Native | Established |
| NEA-II | None | 0 | Native | Established |
| NEA-V | None | 0 | Native | Established |
| B-X | None | 1960 | Non-native | Established |
| NA-ET3 | Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras | 1990 | Non-native | Established |
| CAR-IV | None | 1978 | Non-native | Established |
| CAR-I | Northern Yucatan, Gulf of Mexico, Florida Straits, to Middle Eastern Florida | 1973 | Non-native | Established |
| SA-II | None | 1938 | Non-native | Established |
| NEP-VI | Pt. Conception to Southern Baja California | 1935 | Non-native | Unknown |
| NEP-V | Northern California to Mid Channel Islands | 1954 | Non-native | Established |
| B-IX | None | 1972 | Non-native | Established |
| M130 | Chesapeake Bay | 1990 | Non-native | Established |
| M080 | New Jersey Inland Bays | 1998 | Non-native | Established |
| P040 | Newport Bay | 1935 | Non-native | Failed |
| P090 | San Francisco Bay | 1954 | Non-native | Established |
| CAR-VII | Cape Hatteras to Mid-East Florida | 1999 | Non-native | Established |
| G290 | San Antonio Bay | 1973 | Non-native | Established |
| G260 | Galveston Bay | 1978 | Non-native | Established |
| G250 | Sabine Lake | 1985 | Non-native | Established |
| S050 | Cape Fear River | 1999 | Non-native | Established |
| G074 | _CDA_G074 (Crystal-Pithlachascotee) | 1984 | Non-native | Established |
| M060 | Hudson River/Raritan Bay | 2004 | Non-native | Established |
| P093 | _CDA_P093 (San Pablo Bay) | 1954 | Non-native | Established |
| P095 | _CDA_P095 (Tomales-Drakes Bay) | 1968 | Non-native | Unknown |
| S180 | St. Johns River | 1998 | Non-native | Established |
| M090 | Delaware Bay | 2003 | Non-native | Established |
| B-III | None | 0 | Crypogenic | Established |
| NEA-III | None | 1970 | Crypogenic | Established |
| SA-I | None | 1997 | Non-native | Established |
| CAR-III | None | 0 | Non-native | Established |
| WA-IV | None | 1955 | Crypogenic | Established |
Occurrence Map
| OCC_ID | Author | Year | Date | Locality | Status | Latitude | Longitude |
|---|
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