Search

Nearly 300 coastal marine species collected from > 630 debris items from the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami have landed alive along the North American Pacific coast and the Hawaiian Archipelago. We synthesized life history, environmental, and distributional traits for 103 of these species and compared species with ( n = 30) and without ( n = 62) known invasion histories. The species represent 12 phyla, and Mollusca, Crustacea, and Bryozoa accounted for 71 of the 103 species. The majority are native to the Northwest Pacific and the Central Indo-Pacific. Species with known invasion history were more common on artificial and hardpan substrates, in temperate reef, fouling, and flotsam habitats, at subtropical and tropical temperatures, and exhibited greater salinity tolerance than species with no prior invasion history. Thirty-five Japanese tsunami marine species without prior invasion history overlapped in ordination trait space with known invaders, indicating a subset of species in this novel assemblage that possess traits similar to species with known invasion history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biofouled debris from the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami has landed in the Northeast Pacific and along the Hawaiian Islands since 2012. As of 2017, > 630 biofouled debris items with > 320 living species of algae, invertebrates, and fish have been examined. The invasive mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis was present on > 50% of those items. Size, reproduction, and growth of this filter-feeding species were examined to better understand long-distance rafting of a coastal species. The majority of mussels (79%) had developing or mature gametes, and growth rates averaged 0.075 ± 0.018 SE mm/day. Structural and elemental (barium/calcium) analysis of mussel shells generated estimates of growth in coastal waters (mean = 1.3 to 25 mm total length), which provides an indication of residence times in waters along North America and the Hawaiian Islands prior to landing. Detailed studies of individual species contribute to our understanding of debris as a transport vector and aid efforts to evaluate potential risks associated with marine debris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine debris from the Great Tsunami of 2011 represents a unique transport vector for Japanese species to reach Pacific North America and Hawaii. Here we characterize the invasion risk of invertebrate species associated with tsunami debris using a screening-level risk assessment tool – the Canadian Marine Invasive Screening Tool (CMIST). Higher-risk invertebrate invaders were identified for each of five different ecoregions. Some of these are well-known global invaders, such as the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis and the ascidian Didemnum vexillum which already have invasion histories in some of the assessed ecoregions, while others like the sea star Asterias amurensis and the shore crab Hemigrapsus sanguineus have yet to invade large portions of the assessed ecoregions but also are recognized global invaders. In general, the probability of invasion was lower for the Gulf of Alaska and Hawaii, in part due to lower climate matches and the availability of other invasion vectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide the first report of the role of marine debris in transporting native and introduced species in the temperate Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Plastic was the most frequent biofouled material. Thirty-three attached species (five non-native) were found on rafted debris, 16 of which have not been previously reported as rafters. Forty-six percent of the attached invertebrate rafters (including three of the introduced species, the bryozoans Fenestrulina delicia and Tricellaria inopinata and the spirorbid Janua heterostropha) detected in this study reproduce by either direct development or produce larvae of short-term planktonic existence, suggesting that rafting on long-term, non-biodegradable debris may enhance their dispersal potential. We suggest that a prominent non-native species, the green alga Codium fragile fragile , may play a previously undetected role in the transport of marine debris and associated biofouling. Marine debris may further be a potentially significant source of biodiversity records; we detected two bryozoan species in our study region that were either previously unknown or had not been found for >75 years. • First report of marine debris transporting species in temperate Northwest Atlantic • 33 attached species were found on rafted debris. • 16 species are newly reported as rafting taxa. • 5 introduced attached species were found, including 2 newly reported as rafting taxa. • Rafted debris may provide increased dispersal for 46 % of the species reported here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As plastic pollution in the environment has increased rapidly in the last half century, so too has the study of the effects of plastic on marine, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. From this research, a series of new terms has emerged to describe the phenomena unique to the presence of plastic-based materials in nature. In this short note, we bring together disparate neologisms into a single lexicon with the aim to encourage use of a unified vocabulary to describe the new reality of ecological, chemical, and geological systems in the age of plastics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identified emerging scientific, technological, and sociopolitical issues likely to affect how biological invasions are studied and managed over the next two decades. Issues were ranked according to their probability of emergence, pervasiveness, potential impact, and novelty. Top-ranked issues include the application of genomic modification tools to control invasions, effects of Arctic globalization on invasion risk in the Northern Hemisphere, commercial use of microbes to facilitate crop production, the emergence of invasive microbial pathogens, and the fate of intercontinental trade agreements. These diverse issues suggest an expanding interdisciplinary role for invasion science in biosecurity and ecosystem management, burgeoning applications of biotechnology in alien species detection and control, and new frontiers in the microbial ecology of invasions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increases in temperature associated with global climate change are predicted to elicit drastic changes, especially to marine and freshwater ecosystems. Even small changes in water temperature (1–2°C) may alter rates of biological activity, with concomitant effects to communities and ecosystems. The biological erosion of marine habitats and structures is a rarely considered yet important activity that is likely to be influenced by changing ocean temperatures. We conducted an experiment to test how seawater temperature affects erosion by a non-native crustacean (Sphaeroma quoianum). Aquaria were maintained at one of thirteen temperatures (7.5°C–25.2°C). In each aquarium, twenty isopods were encaged with an expanded polystyrene foam block (800ml) and left to burrow. Polystyrene floats under docks are often damaged by isopods in the field. After two months, isopods created the longest burrows in the moderate seawater temperatures (13.8°C–18.3°C); these temperatures were 1.1–5.6°C higher than the mean ambient temperatures whence they came. Shorter burrows were observed for the coldest (7.5°C) and warmest seawater treatments (25.2°C). These results indicate that increasing seawater temperatures can exacerbate the bioerosive effects of non-native S. quoianum until a threshold, after which the impacts diminish. Because ocean temperatures are predicted to increase 1.5–2.6°C in the next 90years, our data suggest erosion by this non-native crustacean will increase 14.7–37.6% in Coos Bay/South Slough, Oregon (where isopods were collected). However, other invaded bays on the Pacific coast of North America may also experience mean increases of biological erosion of 6.6–29.8%. Since biological activity is tightly coupled with temperature in many species, we hypothesize that the biological erosion rates of other erosive species will also increase with rising water temperatures affecting marine habitats, communities, and structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Panama Canal is one of the major corridors for shipping and potential dispersal of marine invaders in the tropics, little is known about the effect that the Canal has had on the distribution of marine biota. In this study, we (a) document the existence of established populations of the Western Atlantic caprellid amphipod Paracaprella pusilla , Mayer, 1890 for the first time at the Pacific entrance to the Canal, (b) review its distribution in the Pacific Ocean, and (c) evaluate possible mechanisms of introduction. The confirmed distribution of P. pusilla in the Pacific Ocean is limited to Australia, Hawaii, and Panama, despite earlier published reports from Chile and China. Laboratory experiments demonstrated intolerance of P. pusilla to freshwater, causing 100% mortality, and suggest invasion of the Pacific coast of Panama occurred through the Canal via ships' ballast water or by secondary spread via ships (ballast water or hull fouling) from another Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a dramatic growth in research on biological invasions over the past 20 years, but a mature understanding of the field has been hampered because invasion biologists concerned with different taxa and different environments have largely adopted different model frameworks for the invasion process, resulting in a confusing range of concepts, terms and definitions. In this review, we propose a unified framework for biological invasions that reconciles and integrates the key features of the most commonly used invasion frameworks into a single conceptual model that can be applied to all human-mediated invasions. The unified framework combines previous stage-based and barrier models, and provides a terminology and categorisation for populations at different points in the invasion process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]