First record of the Red Sea seagrass Halophila stipulacea in Corsica

The seagrass Halophila stipulacea (Forsskål) Ascherson, native to
the Red Sea, was among the first Red Sea species to enter the
Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal (Por, 1978). For a long time, the
species remained confined to the eastern Mediterranean basin, where
it mainly inhabits muddy bottoms from sea level down to 30-45 m, within
or in the immediate vicinity of harbours (Pérès and Picard, 1964; Lipkin,
1975a, 1975b). However, with climate warming, H. stipulacea began to
invade the western basin: Vulcano Island (Messina, Italy) (Acunto et al.,
1995), Palinuro harbour (Salerno, mainland Italy) (Gambi et al., 2009,
2018), northern Sardinia (Pica et al., 2021) and more recently Cannes
(mainland France) (Thibaut et al., 2022).