Foreign stingers: South American freshwater river stingrays Potamotrygon spp. established in Indonesia.

The pet trade is known to be one of the most important pathways of aquatic non-native species introduction and Indonesia is a significant trade partner. Popular ornamental South American river stingrays (Potamotrygon spp.) were introduced to Indonesia in the 1980s and the culture was established. Here we present a detailed Indonesian market and aquaculture survey, the volume of trade between January 2020 and June 2022, and the list of customer countries with the total amount of imported stingrays. Climate similarities between the native range of P. motoro and P. jabuti and Indonesia were analysed. A significant number of areas of Indonesian islands were identified as suitable for the establishment of this species. This was confirmed by the first record of probably established populations in the Brantas River (Java). In total 13 individuals including newborns were captured. The culture of potamotrygonid stingrays is unregulated in Indonesia, and the risk of the establishment of this predator and its potential spread is alarming for wildlife. Moreover, the first case of envenomation caused by Potamotrygon spp. in the wild outside of South America was recorded. The current condition is predicted as the 'tip of the iceberg' and continuous monitoring and mitigation of risks are strongly recommended.

Social deprivation in maternal mouthbrooders Tropheus sp. "Caramba" (Teleostei: Cichlidae) decreases the success rate of reproduction and survival rate of fish fry.

Early offspring separation from mothers causes social deprivation. Mouthbrooding, when eggs and fry are incubated in the buccal cavity of the parent, is one of the reproductive strategies in fish. The mother is the incubating parent in African lake cichlids from the genus Tropheus. Many of these are produced in captivity and some producers use artificial incubators in which eggs are incubated separately from the mother. We hypothesized that this practice may dramatically modify the reproduction rate of fish individuals produced by the method of artificial incubation. The long-term experiment focused on Tropheus sp. "Caramba" had been carried out for 10 years when maternally incubated and separated individuals were compared. We found a negative effect of artificial egg and offspring incubation out of the mother's buccal cavity. The deprived females laid the same number of eggs as maternally incubated females, but most eggs were lost during the incubation. Moreover, the reproduction frequency was significantly lower in deprived females in comparison with those maternally incubated. This study should be perceived as preliminary. For this reason and with respect to welfare principles, we strongly recommend similarly designed experiments focused on other potentially sensitive fish mouthbrooders. Once the syndrome would be confirmed, we recommend avoiding artificial incubation of mouthbrooding fish in general.

Non-invasive diagnostic system and its opto-mechanical probe for combining confocal Raman spectroscopy and optical coherence tomography.

Non-invasive optical diagnostic methods allow important information about studied systems to be obtained in a non-destructive way. Complete diagnosis requires information about the chemical composition as well as the morphological structure of a sample. We report on the development of an opto-mechanical probe that combines Raman spectroscopy (RS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT), two methods that provide all the crucial information needed for a non-invasive diagnosis. The aim of this paper is to introduce the technical design, construction and optimization of a dual opto-mechanical probe combining two in-house developed devices for confocal RS and OCT. The unique benefit of the probe is a gradual acquisition of OCT and RS data, which allows to use the acquired OCT images to pinpoint locations of interest for RS measurements. The parameters and the correct functioning of the probe were verified by RS scanning of various samples (silicon wafer and ex vivo tissue) based on their OCT images - lateral as well as depth scanning was performed. Both the OCT and RS systems were developed, optimized and tested with the ultimate aim of verifying the functionality of the probe. Picture: Schematic illustration and visualization of the developed RS-OCT probe.

Molecular phylogeny and biogeography of the Neotropical cichlid fish tribe Cichlasomatini (Teleostei: Cichlidae: Cichlasomatinae).

We have conducted the first comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the tribe Cichlasomatini including all valid genera as well as important species of questionable generic status. To recover the relationships among cichlasomatine genera and to test their monophyly we analyzed sequences from two mitochondrial (16S rRNA, cytochrome b) and one nuclear marker (first intron of S7 ribosomal gene) totalling 2236 bp. Our data suggest that all genera except Aequidens are monophyletic, but we found important disagreements between the traditional morphological relationships and the phylogeny based on our molecular data. Our analyses support the following conclusions: (a) Aequidens sensu stricto is paraphyletic, including also Cichlasoma (CA clade); (b) Krobia is not closely related to Bujurquina and includes also the Guyanan Aequidens species A. potaroensis and probably A. paloemeuensis (KA clade). (c) Bujurquina and Tahuantinsuyoa are sister groups, closely related to an undescribed genus formed by the 'Aequidens'pulcher-'Aequidens'rivulatus groups (BTA clade). (d) Nannacara (plus Ivanacara) and Cleithracara are found as sister groups (NIC clade). Acaronia is most probably the sister group of the BTA clade, and Laetacara may be the sister group of this clade. Estimation of divergence times suggests that the divergence of Cichlasomatini started around 44Mya with the vicariance between coastal rivers of the Guyanas (KA and NIC clades) and remaining cis-andean South America, followed by evolution of the Acaronia-Laetacara-BTA clade in Western Amazon, and the CA clade in the Eastern Amazon. Vicariant divergence has played importantly in evolution of cichlasomatine genera, with dispersal limited to later range extension of species within genera.