Non-indigenous or alien species are species living outside their native distributional ranges, which arrived there by human-driven activities, either deliberately or accidentally. The number of non-indigenous species in the Mediterranean Sea is growing rapidly in the recent decades. There are at least 821 multicellular alien species in the Mediterranean Sea of which more than 600 are currently established (Zenetos et al. 2017).

In the framework of a project funded by the Department of Fisheries and Marine Research, we’ve produced a pocket guide which serves as an illustrated identification guide of the non-indigenous/alien species recorded in the Natura 2000 sites Cavo Greco (CY3000005) and Nisia (CY3000006).

All of the species were recoded during underwater visual census surveys of a a two-year project (2016–2018) named ‘Baseline survey and monitoring of non-indigenous species in Cavo Greco and Nisia Marine Protected Areas in Cyprus’.

The guide can be found here:

Pocket Guide Non-Indigenous Species