Shrimps of the genus Palaemon (Crustacea, Decapoda, Pleocyemata, Palaemonidae) of the European seas
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Abstract
Shrimp from the genus Palaemon (family Palaemonidae) are one of the most active representatives of invasive shrimp species. On the shelf of the seas washing Europe from the Gulf of Bothnia in the north and to the mouth of the Don river in the southeast, 6 species of shrimp from this genus live today. As a result of global warming and the increased development of shipping, which facilitated the movement of the larvae of these shrimp with ballast water, in a historically short period of time, five of these species significantly increased the size of their ranges, and one of them – P. macrodactylus – from a south boreal Western pacificist species became cosmopolitan. And only P. xiphius, a symbiont of the sea grass Posidonia oceanica, has preserved its classic Mediterranean-Lusitanian habitat. The article presents the morphology of each of the six species, the key to their identification, and also describes the history of the formation of new areals, size composition, features of reproductive biology and food composition of each species.