Asterocarpa humilis (Heller, 1878)

Kakkonen, Jenni E., Worsfold, Tim M., Ashelby, Christopher W., Taylor, Andrea & Beaton, Katy, 2019, The value of regular monitoring and diverse sampling techniques to assess aquatic non-native species: a case study from Orkney, Management of Biological Invasions 10 (1), pp. 46-79 : 63

(14) Asterocarpa humilis (Heller, 1878)

Status in U.K. – non-native.

The “compass sea squirt” Asterocarpa humilis has been recorded at several monitoring programme sites, each year since 2014, from rapid assessment and scrape samples. It has been found on the Gutter Sound navigation buoy and mooring buoys in Ore Bay, it has also been found in both Stromness and Kirkwall marinas.

Asterocarpa humilis was first recorded in England in 2009, in Wales in 2011 ( Bishop et al. 2013) and in Scotland (Kerrera Marina, Oban) in 2013 ( Nall et al. 2015). The records presented here from 2014 are the first from Orkney.