The human-mediated introduction of marine non-indigenous species is a centuries- if not millennia-old phenomenon, but was only recently acknowledged as a potent driver of change in the sea. We ...provide a synopsis of key historical milestones for marine bioinvasions, including timelines of (a) discovery and understanding of the invasion process, focusing on transfer mechanisms and outcomes, (b) methodologies used for detection and monitoring, (c) approaches to ecological impacts research, and (d) management and policy responses. Early (until the mid-1900s) marine bioinvasions were given little attention, and in a number of cases actively and routinely facilitated. Beginning in the second half of the 20th century, several conspicuous non-indigenous species outbreaks with strong environmental, economic, and public health impacts raised widespread concerns and initiated shifts in public and scientific perceptions. These high-profile invasions led to policy documents and strategies to reduce the introduction and spread of non-indigenous species, although with significant time lags and limited success and focused on only a subset of transfer mechanisms. Integrated, multi-vector management within an ecosystem-based marine management context is urgently needed to address the complex interactions of natural and human pressures that drive invasions in marine ecosystems.
Scientists' warning on invasive alien species Pyšek, Petr; Hulme, Philip E.; Simberloff, Dan ...
Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society,
December 2020, Letnik:
95, Številka:
6
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ABSTRACT
Biological invasions are a global consequence of an increasingly connected world and the rise in human population size. The numbers of invasive alien species – the subset of alien species ...that spread widely in areas where they are not native, affecting the environment or human livelihoods – are increasing. Synergies with other global changes are exacerbating current invasions and facilitating new ones, thereby escalating the extent and impacts of invaders. Invasions have complex and often immense long‐term direct and indirect impacts. In many cases, such impacts become apparent or problematic only when invaders are well established and have large ranges. Invasive alien species break down biogeographic realms, affect native species richness and abundance, increase the risk of native species extinction, affect the genetic composition of native populations, change native animal behaviour, alter phylogenetic diversity across communities, and modify trophic networks. Many invasive alien species also change ecosystem functioning and the delivery of ecosystem services by altering nutrient and contaminant cycling, hydrology, habitat structure, and disturbance regimes. These biodiversity and ecosystem impacts are accelerating and will increase further in the future. Scientific evidence has identified policy strategies to reduce future invasions, but these strategies are often insufficiently implemented. For some nations, notably Australia and New Zealand, biosecurity has become a national priority. There have been long‐term successes, such as eradication of rats and cats on increasingly large islands and biological control of weeds across continental areas. However, in many countries, invasions receive little attention. Improved international cooperation is crucial to reduce the impacts of invasive alien species on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human livelihoods. Countries can strengthen their biosecurity regulations to implement and enforce more effective management strategies that should also address other global changes that interact with invasions.
Tsunami-driven rafting Carlton, James T.; Chapman, John W.; Geller, Jonathan B. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
09/2017, Letnik:
357, Številka:
6358
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The 2011 East Japan earthquake generated a massive tsunami that launched an extraordinary transoceanic biological rafting event with no known historical precedent. We document 289 living Japanese ...coastal marine species from 16 phyla transported over 6 years on objects that traveled thousands of kilometers across the Pacific Ocean to the shores of North America and Hawai‘i. Most of this dispersal occurred on nonbiodegradable objects, resulting in the longest documented transoceanic survival and dispersal of coastal species by rafting. Expanding shoreline infrastructure has increased global sources of plastic materials available for biotic colonization and also interacts with climate change–induced storms of increasing severity to eject debris into the oceans. In turn, increased ocean rafting may intensify species invasions.
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.
The register of global extinctions of marine invertebrates in historical time is updated. Three gastropod and one insect species are removed from the list of extinct marine species, while two ...gastropods, one echinoderm, and three parasites (a nematode, an amphipod, and a louse) are added. The nine extinct marine invertebrates now recognized likely represent a minute fraction of the actual number of invertebrates that have gone extinct. Urgently needed for evaluation are inventories of globally missing marine invertebrates across a wide range of phyla. Many such species are likely known to systematists, but are either rarely flagged, or if mentioned, are not presented as potentially extinct taxa.
A significant challenge in comparing and contrasting regional reviews of non-native marine species diversity is that evaluation methods vary widely, resulting in highly inconsistent taxonomic, ...habitat and historical coverage even in ostensibly well-studied regions. It is thus difficult to interpret whether strikingly different numbers of non-native species in different regions reflect differential invasion patterns or different assessment criteria and capabilities. We provide a comprehensive guide to the methods and techniques to assess the diversity and timing history of non-native and cryptogenic marine species. We emphasize the need to broaden taxonomic and habitat breadth when documenting invasions, to use a broader and deeper search term menu (including using older terms), to thoroughly access global systematic and invasion literature for local, regional records, and to delve deeper into invasion timing to avoid the use of dates-of-publication to assess invasion tempo and rates. Fundamental in all invasions work is the reassessment of the status of ostensibly native species which in fact may have been introduced decades or centuries earlier. We expand to 14 categories the criteria for the recognition of non-native species. Without thorough and vetted modern and historical assessments of the scale of invasions across temperate, subtropical, and tropical marine ecosystems, our ability to look deep into marine community ecology, evolution, and biogeography is strikingly compromised, as is our ability to frame robust invasion policy and management plans.
Aim: We examine fish invasions in the south-eastern Mediterranean as a model system for the invasibility of open coasts and provide perspectives through a review of global marine fish invasions. ...Location: South-eastern Mediterranean (Levant Sea). Methods: We compare historical (1990—1994) and modern (2008—2011) trawl surveys from the Mediterranean continental shelf and upper slope of Israel to evaluate the relative abundance and biomass of Indo-Pacific fishes and their impact on diversity and trophic level (TrL). We examine resultant changes in community composition by both univariate and multivariate analyses, and compliment this study with a critical global review of open coast marine fish invasions. Results: A staggering 55 Indo-Pacific fish species have established permanent populations in the Mediterranean in the last 142 years, more than any other marine ecosystem. This process is accelerating with 13 of 27 new arrivals having established in the 21st century alone. Invasive fish biomass and abundance proportions in the shallow open coast have doubled in just two decades and today the Levantine ecosystem is dominated by non-native species. This proliferation has resulted in significant declines of some indigenous species, some to near extirpation levels. Main conclusions: Here, we show that non-estuarine ecosystems are much more susceptible to large-scale invasion pressures than previously thought. Our results place invasion in the same category with overexploitation, habitat destruction and pollution, processes normally considered as much more critical perturbations to coastal fish communities. We propose that despite these irreversible alterations, invasions have masked overall TrL changes and diversity declines by replacing native fish with invasives of similar ecological position. As species extirpations increase, we anticipate further declines in indigenous biomass, abundance and diversity in the Mediterranean Sea.
Shifts in species ranges are a predicted and realized effect of global climate change; however, few studies have addressed the rates and consequence of such shifts, particularly in marine systems. ...Given ecological similarities between shifting and introduced species, we examined how our understanding of range shifts may be informed by the more established study of non-native species introductions. Marine systems world-wide. Database and citation searches were used to identify 129 marine species experiencing range shifts and to determine spread rates and impacts on recipient communities. Analyses of spread rates were based on studies for which post-establishment spread was reported in linear distance. The sizes of the effects of community impacts of shifting species were compared with those of functionally similar introduced species having ecologically similar impacts. Our review and meta-analyses revealed that: (1) 75% of the range shifts found through the database search were in the poleward direction, consistent with climate change scenarios, (2) spread rates of range shifts were lower than those of introductions, (3) shifting species spread over an order of magnitude faster in marine than in terrestrial systems, and (4) directions of community effects were largely negative and magnitudes were often similar for shifters and introduced species; however, this comparison was limited by few data for range-shifting species. Although marine range shifts are likely to proceed more slowly than marine introductions, the community-level effects could be as great, and in the same direction, as those of introduced species. Because it is well-established that introduced species are a primary threat to global biodiversity, it follows that, just like introductions, range shifts have the potential to seriously affect biological systems. In addition, given that ranges shift faster in marine than terrestrial environments, marine communities might be affected faster than terrestrial ones as species shift with climate change. Regardless of habitat, consideration of range shifts in the context of invasion biology can improve our understanding of what to expect from climate change-driven shifts as well as provide tools for formal assessment of risks to community structure and function.
Aim
The introduction of aquatic non‐indigenous species (ANS) has become a major driver for global changes in species biogeography. We examined spatial patterns and temporal trends of ANS detections ...since 1965 to inform conservation policy and management.
Location
Global.
Methods
We assembled an extensive dataset of first records of detection of ANS (1965–2015) across 49 aquatic ecosystems, including the (a) year of first collection, (b) population status and (c) potential pathway(s) of introduction. Data were analysed at global and regional levels to assess patterns of detection rate, richness and transport pathways.
Results
An annual mean of 43 (±16 SD) primary detections of ANS occurred—one new detection every 8.4 days for 50 years. The global rate of detections was relatively stable during 1965–1995, but increased rapidly after this time, peaking at roughly 66 primary detections per year during 2005–2010 and then declining marginally. Detection rates were variable within and across regions through time. Arthropods, molluscs and fishes were the most frequently reported ANS. Most ANS were likely introduced as stowaways in ships’ ballast water or biofouling, although direct evidence is typically absent.
Main conclusions
This synthesis highlights the magnitude of recent ANS detections, yet almost certainly represents an underestimate as many ANS go unreported due to limited search effort and diminishing taxonomic expertise. Temporal rates of detection are also confounded by reporting lags, likely contributing to the lower detection rate observed in recent years. There is a critical need to implement standardized, repeated methods across regions and taxa to improve the quality of global‐scale comparisons and sustain core measures over longer time‐scales. It will be fundamental to fill in knowledge gaps given that invasion data representing broad regions of the world's oceans are not yet readily available and to maintain knowledge pipelines for adaptive management.
Assessment of the ecological and economic/societal impacts of the introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS) is one of the primary focus areas of bioinvasion science in terrestrial and aquatic ...environments, and is considered essential to management. A classification system of NIS, based on the magnitude of their environmental impacts, was recently proposed to assist management. Here, we consider the potential application of this classification scheme to the marine environment, and offer a complementary framework focussing on value sets in order to explicitly address marine management concerns. Since existing data on marine NIS impacts are scarce and successful marine removals are rare, we propose that management of marine NIS adopt a precautionary approach, which not only would emphasise preventing new incursions through pre-border and at-border controls but also should influence the categorisation of impacts. The study of marine invasion impacts requires urgent attention and significant investment, since we lack the luxury of waiting for the knowledge base to be acquired before the window of opportunity closes for feasible management.
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