Foraminiferal aliens · FORALIEN: towards the development of a foraminiferal Non-Indigenous Species index

FORALIEN (FORaminifera ALIEN) is a project aiming to fill the lack of knowledge of non-indigenous (i.e. alien) benthic foraminifera (marine protists) observed recently in Europe to make them a reliable indicator of human impacts for a better integration into biomonitoring surveys in the context of the European regulation of the Marine Framework Strategy Directive. To do so, I plan to sample surface sediment and sediment cores of several sites on the West Swedish coast which are composed of understudied harbours, in terms of foraminifera but known places of pollution and introduction, and fjords where some have been recently observed, such asTrochammina hadai and Nonionella sp. T1. Among those NIS, Ammonia confertitesta could also occur there. This species has been recently identified as a pseudo-cryptic species included in the Ammonia tepida morphotype with two other very morphologically similar species, A. aberdoveyensis and A. veneta, that are native species in Europe. In a first place, I will morphologically identify these NIS by defining easy criteria of identification and apply a recently developped method allowing an easy identification of the three species of the A. tepida morphotype. To complement the morphological method I will apply novel methods, genetic (digital Polymerase Chain Reaction) and deep learning models, to identify NIS foraminifera quickly and reliably assess their efficiency in biomonitoring surveys. Secondly, I will use methods precedingly described and sediment samples to analyse the spatio-temporal distribution and time of arrival of NIS in the region. This would result in the development of a NIS index to asses their impact on native species. Finally, environmental parameters will be measured to define the unknown ecological requirements of NIS to better integrate them in traditional foraminiferal biotic indices used to assess the health of ecosystems and to explain and forecast their possible succesful invasions in Sweden.