Obama nungara

Obama nungara View in CoL

We received citizen science reports of O. nungara ( Figs 3–7 View Figures 3–4 View Figure 5 View Figure 6 View Figure 7 ) as early as April 2013 in France. It is one of the two species that Pierre Gros found in his garden at the very beginning of our study. At that time, it was impossible to correctly identify the species, since it was only described in 2016 ( Carbayo et al. 2016), after several years of taxonomic confusion ( Lago-Barcia et al. 2015). In our 2020 article, we described how O. nungara is now the most abundant land flatworm species in mainland France (including Corsica) ( Fig. 5 View Figure 5 ), both in terms of presence (72 departments out of the 95 departments), and abundance (hundreds to thousands of individuals in a single garden) ( Justine et al. 2020c).

We showed through genetic analysis of the cox1 gene that the specimens found in France were close to a population found in Argentina, but not to the population found in Brazil ( Justine et al. 2020c) ( Fig. 6 View Figure 6 ).

The situation in 2023 is similar, and we continue to record information on the presence of the species. However, some citizen science reports mention the disappearance of the species from certain gardens where it was abundant, an interesting fact that will deserve more attention in coming years.

Outside of France, O. nungara is now reported in many other European countries ( Čapka and Čejka 2021, Justine et al. 2020c, Mori et al. 2023). While we wrote in 2020 that the species had not been recorded in Germany based on a recent review ( Sluys 2019), nor any country east of Germany, we now have unpublished records from this country. The species therefore seems to be progressing easterly.

Outside of Europe, we have also reported the presence of the species on Reunion Island, an island close to Africa in the Indian Ocean. This was the first record of the species for Africa, although no records are currently available for continental Africa (Justine et al. 2022b). A modelling study at the local scale of Reunion Island showed that the species is limited to an area halfway up the slopes of this island with pronounced relief ( Fig. 7 View Figure 7 ). Due to the numerous commercial exchanges between mainland France and Reunion Island, we put forward the hypothesis, supported by a genetic analysis, that the population of Réunion actually came from mainland France, and most likely not from the species’ region of origin in South America ( Fig. 6 View Figure 6 ).

Modelling studies have shown that the global distribution area of O. nungara could become much wider in the years to come ( Fourcade 2021).

Importantly, we have collaborated on metabarcoding work on the intestinal contents of O. nungara in France which showed that the species consumes a significant number of earthworm species (Roy et al. 2022). A surprising result is that the species consumes deep-dwelling earthworms (endogeic), whereas O. nungara is, in principle, a ground surface species. However, we know that the species also consumes molluscs ( Boll and Leal-Zanchet 2016) and we have local observation that it prey on slugs and snails, but the metabarcoding analysis concerning molluscs has yet to be completed.