Contemporary and historical bryozoan records were compiled to provide a comprehensive checklist of species in Scottish waters. The checklist comprises 218 species in 58 families, with representatives from each of the extant bryozoan orders. The fauna was relatively sparse compared to other regions for which bryozoan checklists were available e.g. New Zealand and Australia. Six non-indigenous bryozoan species from the Scottish seas region were included in the checklist. Baseline information on species distributions, such as that presented in this checklist, can be used to monitor and manage the impact of human activities on the marine environment, and ultimately preserve marine biodiversity.

Bryozoa , distribution, non-indigenous species, Scotland

The phylum Bryozoa comprises approximately 6000 known/described extant species of filter feeding invertebrates that predominantly occur in the marine environment (Gordon and Costello 2016). There are three classes and four orders of extant bryozoans (class Gymnolaemata, orders Cheilostomatida and Ctenostomatida; class Phylactolaemata (freshwater), order Phylactolaemataincertae sedis; class Stenolaemata, order Cyclostomatida). The order Cheilostomatida is the most diverse.

All bryozoans are clonal and the colonies can take many different forms including encrusting, erect and arborescent forms (McKinney and Jackson 1991). The majority of bryozoan species have a calcium carbonate skeleton, but there are also a number of chitinous and gelatinous species. Colony growth proceeds via the asexual budding of individual units, called zooids, with sexual reproduction producing free-swimming larvae (McKinney and Jackson 1991). Bryozoan species occur in all major marine habitats, from the Polar regions to the tropics, ranging from the intertidal zone to the deep sea. The vast majority of species live attached to a substrate, which may be rocks, biogenic structures (e.g. coral, shells), algae or man-made debris (Hayward and Ryland 1998).

Bryozoans contribute to ecosystem functioning and services through the provision of three-dimensional structure and habitat for other species, and by serving as a food source for other marine species (Bitschofsky et al. 2011; Lidgard 2008). Bryozoans are also recognized for their potential economic importance due to the pharmaceutical and active compounds that are associated with a number of species. (Narkowicz et al. 2002). Several bryozoan species are recognized as invasive and are potentially harmful to native marine species (O’Brien et al. 2013; Yorke and Metaxas 2011). Despite these ecological and economic roles, knowledge on local bryozoan species and faunistic inventories are often lacking or incomplete (Rouse et al. 2014). Such baseline information on species distributions is required to monitor and manage the impact of human activities on the marine environment, and ultimately preserve marine biodiversity (Powney and Isaac 2015).

Scotland lays claim to one of the largest marine resources in Europe with over 9910 km of mainland coastline, 8092 km of island coastline, and an estimated 88,600 km² of territorial seas (Baxter et al. 2011). The west coast of Scotland has numerous exposed islands, high sea cliffs, and fjordic inlets, while the east coast is less variable and dominated by low-lying sedimentary shores. Marine spatial planning has been identified as priority by the Scottish Government (Baxter et al. 2011), and there is a drive towards providing reliable information on species occurrences and distribution. Scotland has historically been the focus of much marine biological research and as such a vast back catalogue of bryozoan records exist (e.g. Norman 1869, Hiscock 1996). These records, however, are often disparate, unreliable and/or difficult to locate. Rouse et al. (2014) analysed records of marine bryozoan from Scotland between 1792 and 2010 to assess spatial and temporal trends in bryozoan diversity. Records were compiled from museum collections, professional/academic surveys, consultancy reports and a citizen science scheme consisting of trained amateurs. Records for which the location was uncertain or not provided, and/or the species seemed likely to be wrong based on its generally accepted distribution (e.g. tropical or Antarctic) were discarded. Other records that had only been documented in Scotland by one source, with an unknown or non-expert identified, were also excluded from the analysis. Approximately 8% of these records were museum collections with associated specimens, 60% from a ten-year expert survey of the British coastline and 16% from the citizen science scheme, with the latter two relying on identification via optical microscopes. The remaining records were compiled from published manuscripts that used a combination of optical and scanning electron microscopy for identification.

Using these records, Rouse et al. (2014) found bryozoan diversity to be higher on the west coast of Scotland than other regions, but this was largely attributed to a sampling bias towards the west coast. The study also highlighted the lack of a bryozoan species list for Scottish waters. The aim of the present study, therefore, is to combine the data collated by Rouse et al. (2014) with recent bryozoan studies in Scotland to provide to a comprehensive species checklist of marine bryozoan species in the region.

Table 1 shows the checklist of marine Bryozoa from the Scottish sea regions. A total of 218 species are included in the list, belonging to 128 different genera from 58 families. The Scottish records represent approximately 3.7% of the total number of bryozoan species known worldwide (n = 5869) (Bock and Gordon 2013). There are representatives from each of the extant marine bryozoan orders (Cyclostomatida, Ctenostomatida, and Cheilostomatida). The most speciose bryozoan families in Scotland were the Calloporidae (13 species) and the Romancheinidae (13 species), which both contain mainly encrusting species.

Six NIS were identified as part of the Scottish fauna. These were Bugulina fulva (Ryland, 1960), Bugulina simplex (Hincks, 1886), Bugula neritina (Linnaeus, 1758), Tricellaria inopinata d’Hondt & Occhipinti Ambrogi, 1985, Fenestrulina delicia Winston, Hayward & Craig, 2000, Schizoporella japonica Ortmann, 1890. The Clyde sub-region contained the greatest number of NIS (all except B. fulva).

The Scottish sea regions contain 218 bryozoan species with representatives from each of the extant bryozoan orders. Based on the checklist, it can be concluded that Scotland has fewer bryozoan species than New Zealand (n = 953), Australia (n = 886), and the Mediterranean (n = 556) (Gordon 1999; Gordon et al. 2010; Rosso and Di Martino 2016). Given Scotland’s location within a single biogeographical region, this relative lack of species is as expected (Baxter et al. 2011). When coastline length is accounted for, Scotland has approximately half the number of species per km (0.01) as Australia (0.02 species/km) and approximately six times fewer than New Zealand (0.06 species/km). The proportion of ctenostomes in Scotland (12% of total species) is greater than the global average (~5%) (Bock and Gordon 2013), and greater than the proportion of ctenostomes reported from New Zealand (5%), Australia (4%), Argentina (4%) and the Mediterranean (10%) (Gappa 2000; Gordon 1999; Rosso and Di Martino 2016). Only the bryozoan fauna of Brazil has a greater percentage (26.2%) of ctenostomes. Previously, higher incidences of ctenostomes (and/or cyclostomes) have been attributed to the results of focused taxonomic efforts in certain regions (Gappa 2000; Rosso 2003). Rosso and Di Martino (2016), however, suggested that the abundance of ctenostomes in the Mediterranean could also reflect the availability of high-energy algal and seagrass dominated habitats, for which the flexible uncalcified ctenostome colony forms are well adapted to exploit. Scotland, and the Scottish west coast in particular, has a high abundance and diversity of algae and algal dominated habitats (Smale et al. 2013), which may explain the high number of ctenostomes found in the study region.

As with other benthic marine invertebrates in Scotland, the bryozoan fauna includes NIS (Nall et al. 2015). The presence of all but one NIS within the Clyde Sea region most likely represents the fact that the area is both a well-studied region and the location of a significant number of ports. As global shipping and aquaculture increase, along with climate change, it is expected that the number of invasive or non-indigenous bryozoans in the Scottish sea regions will increase in the future (Stretaris et al. 2005).

The estimate of bryozoan species number in Scotland, presented here, is likely to be conservative, since much of the offshore shelf areas and seamounts have not been fully explored. Estimates of the global number of bryozoan species yet to be discovered range from 2800–5200 (Appeltans et al. 2012). Given that the Scottish bryozoan fauna currently constitutes 3.7% of global bryozoan species richness, and assuming that this proportion will remain constant, it could be expected that there are approximately 104–192 bryozoan species in Scotland yet to be discovered.

This study received funding from the UK research council knowledge exchange fellowship [NE/P006566/2], a NERC MSc bursary and EOL Rubenstein Fellowship. The authors would like to thank the numerous people who collected the bryozoan records used in this study.