Abstract
Rocky shores typically exhibit a variety of sedentary and free-moving forms of epibionts associated with the shells of mussel basibionts. This paper provides a first report on epibiotic bryozoans found on shells of the invasive Mediterranean mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck. More than 2500 mussels were collected between December 2019 and October 2020 from rocky shores during low spring tides across the south–southeast coast of South Africa. Ten percent of these mussels hosted epibiotic bryozoans. We examined a subset of these epibiotised mussels to assess the diversity of bryozoans. Three encrusting cheilostome species were identified: Chaperia atypica n. sp., Celleporella hyalina (Linnaeus), and Hippomonavella sp. This new species is the first Chaperia with avicularia and the first South African species with ooecia. This study highlights the biological diversity of epibiotic bryozoans on mussel shells and, given their differences in microtopography, the possibility that invasive species can provide a new substratum for rare, overlooked or undescribed species of epibionts.
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