Westward Extension of the Lionfish Pterois volitans Linnaeus , 1758 along the Mediterranean Coast of Turkey

One red lionfish (Pterois volitans) was caught in the Gulf of Antalya on October 15th 2016. The present study, seconf record of P. volitans was reported in the coast of the Antalya Bay, Turkey. Our study shows that P. volitans westward extension along to Turkey Mediterranean coasts.


Introduction
The Eastern Mediterranean has distinct water characteristics within the Mediterranean ecosystem due to its increased temperature and salinity.This difference has altered biodiversity after the opening of the Suez Chanel, through which many marine organisms have been introduced to the Mediterranean ever since.One of these organisms is Lionfish.Lionfishes are generally found in rocky areas in the marine ecosystems (Green and Cote 2009).Lionfishes, Pterois miles (Bennett, 1828) and Pterois volitans (Linnaeus, 1758), are natives to the Pacific and Indian Oceans (Gardner et al. 2015).
So far, two lion fish species have been recorded in the Mediterranean Sea.One of these species is P.miles has been the firstly recorded from the Mediterranean coast, Haifa Bay in 1991 (Golani and Sonin 1992), and later two lionfish specimens were reported from Lebanon coast in the Mediterranean Sea (Bariche et al. 2013).Two unidentified lionfish specimens were also observed in Cyprus coast by Evripidou (2013).Apart from a single specimen of P. miles was captured in Iskenderun Bay (Kaleköy), Northeastern Mediterranean part of Turkey by Turan et al. (2014).
Other records for this species were reported in coast of Northern Cyprus by Oray et al. (2015), in the Aegean Sea by Crocetta et al. (2015), in the Gulf of Mersin by Yağlıoğlu and Ayaş (2016), in the Gulf of Antalya by Gökoğlu (2016).Also this species was reported in the Aegean Sea by Turan and Öztürk (2015); Mytilineou et al. (2016).While these studies were conducted, these species expanded their distribution to the west of Mediterranean Sea.
Pterois volitans (Linnaeus, 1758) is known as Red Lionfish.Red Lionfish is typically found from shore (0 m) to approximately 50 m depths (Schultz 1986).The red lionfish P. volitans is distributed in the Pacific, Atlantic Ocean and also found in the Indo-West Pacific Ocean (Schultz 1986;Gürlek et al. 2016).This species has been firstly recorded by Gürlek et al. (2016) from the Mediterranean in shores of the Gulf of Iskenderun, Turkey.Therefore, at the present paper gives the second report of P. volitans in the Mediterranean Sea.

Materials and Method
Red lionfish (Pterois volitans) was firstly caught (30 m deep) during the regular commercial trawl operation in the Gulf of Antalya 36°46'54.83"N-31°12'0.48"EOctober 15th 2016, the second Red lionfish was caught off the Ovacık coast in the Gulf of Mersin 36°23'35.65"N-34° 6'58.63"EDecember 27th 2016.The locations of the captured specimen are given in Figure 1.The specimens were preserved in the 5% formaldehyde solution and deposited in the Museum of the Faculty of Fisheries, Akdeniz University.All morphometric measurements were made to the nearest 0.01 mm using dial calipers.The weight was measured with a precision scale of 0.01g.Morphological and taxonomic descriptions and color of the captured specimen were followed according to Schultz (1986), Paulin (2012) and Gürlek et al. (2016).

Result
The picture of the captured specimen is given in Figure 2. The main meristic counts and measurements are given in centimetres of the first Pterois volitans.Dorsal spin rays: XIII; dorsal fin rays: 11; Pectoral fin rays 14, anal spin rays: III; anal fin rays: 7; pelvic spin rays: I; pelvic spin rays: 5; caudal fin rays: 14; weight: 799 g; total length: 37 cm; standard length: 28.5 cm; head length 8 cm; body depth 12 cm.Second one; Dorsal spin rays: XIII; dorsal fin rays: 11; Pectoral fin rays 14, anal spin rays: III; anal fin rays: 7; pelvic spin rays: I; pelvic spin rays: 5; caudal fin rays: 14; weight: 381 g; total length: 32.5 cm; standard length: 24 cm; head length 7,5 cm; body depth 9 cm.Comparison of the main meristic counts and measurements of the present study with Gürlek et al. (2016) is given in the Table 1.Table1.Comparison of the main meristic counts and measurements of present study with Gürlek et al. (2016) The main meristic counts and measurements Present study (Gürlek et  The specimens were identified as P. volitans based on the dorsal and anal fin ray meristics (D XIII + 11; A III + 7) as opposed to P. miles (D XIII + 10; A III + 6) according to Schultz (1986), Bariche et al. (2013) and Gürlek et al. (2016).

Discussion
These areas were the locations reported the second and third records of the Red Lionfish in the Mediterranean Sea.The first record of P. volitans was reported by Gürlek et al. (2015) in the shore of the İskenderun Bay, Turkey.
P. volitans and P. miles are very similar species and also their living areas are similar.They are both natives to the Indo-Pacific realm, with P. miles present from the Red Sea to Sumatra, and P. volitans mainly in the western Pacific (Froese and Pauly, 2013; Bariche et al. 2013).Red Lionfish can be distinguished from other Pterois species with few morphologic features and meristic counts according to Schultz (1986); Bariche et al. (2013) and Gürlek et al. (2016).P. miles have historically been treated as synonyms of P. volitans (eg, De Beaufort and Briggs 1962;Dor 1984), But, Schultz (1986) described meristic and morphometric differences between the two species.His study shows that specimens of P. volitans usually have 11 dorsal and 7 anal fin rays while P. miles specimens usually have 10 dorsal and 6 anal fin rays, and that P. volitans has significantly larger pectoral fins and larger spots on the soft vertical fins (Schultz 1986, Freshwater et al. 2009, Gürlek et al. 2016).
P. miles is native to the Indian Ocean, including the Red Sea to Sumatra, but its distribution range has recently expanded to the Atlantic Ocean as well as to the Mediterranean basin (Dailianis et al.2016).The introduction of invasive alien species to the Mediterranean Sea is a major threat to biodiversity, structure and function of ecosystem.Not only marine invasions may have economic and human health implications (Gürlek et al. 2016) but also tourism has negative affected (Frangou et al.2006).Lionfishes are not active swimmers as other active swimmer fishes.They can be found in shallow water as beach.So, if the skin diver, swimmer or fishermen come closer to them, they can be exposure to sting of their spines.
In this study, P. volitans was caught in 30 m depths by the commercial trawl operations.Allen and Steene, (1988) reported this species commonly occurred between 2 m and 55 m depths in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
While one specimen of P. volitans do not necessarily indicate the existence of its established population in the Mediterranean Sea, the past and present records of lessepsian species suggest that P. volitans migrate westward in the Mediterranean Sea (Turan et al. 2016;Gürlek et al. 2016).Our study shows that P. volitans westward extension along to Turkey Mediterranean coasts.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Picture of Pterois volitans from the Gulf of Antalya