“If You Know the Enemy and Know Yourself”: Addressing the Problem of Biological Invasions in Ports Through a New NIS Invasion Threat Score, Routine Monitoring, and Preventive Action Plans

Abstract

Invasive alien species (IAS) are currently considered one of the greatest threats to global marine ecosystems. Thus, ships and maritime activity have been identified as the main factors responsible for the vast majority of accidental species translocations around the world, implying that prevention should be the core of environmental port policies. Preventive port strategies should include analyzing risks based on traffic origins and volumes, revising port policies for inspections, estimating probabilities of non-indigenous species (NIS) appearance, monitoring routine species within ports, and finally implementing management plans and focused actions. Here, we conducted a comprehensive NIS prediction analysis for the port of Gijon (northern Spain), one of the largest ports in the south Bay of Biscay, as a case study that can be extrapolated to other international seaports. An extensive bibliographic search (1953–2020) was conducted and we identified 380 species that have been transported through hull fouling and ballast water around the world. We evaluated their likelihood of arriving (from 14 years of traffic data) and becoming established (from habitat suitability and demonstrated impacts and invasion ability) within the Gijon port, creating a new NIS Invasion Threat Score (NIS-ITS). This new index could help to identify target species that are likely invaders for early detection and prevention policies within the port. The results showed that 15 NIS had >90% likelihood of becoming a biological invasion problem in Gijon Port. At the same time, we reported morphological and genetic analysis of biota found in two successive annual monitoring surveys of Gijon port and ships (n = 612 individuals) revealing 18 NIS, including 6 of the NIS predicted from high NIS-ITS. Actually, 80% (12 NIS) of those potentially most dangerous species (NIS-ITS > 90%) have already been detected in the Bay of Biscay area. We propose the use of this new tool for a risk-reduction strategy in ports, based on accurate predictions that help in promoting specific early detection tests and specific monitoring for NIS that have a high chance of establishment. All international seaports can adopt this strategy to address the problem of biological invasions and become “blueports” in line with EU policy.

Monitoring Non-indigenous Species in Port Habitats: First Application of a Standardized North American Protocol in the Mediterranean Sea

“…Lastly, the broadest investigation of non-indigenous invertebrates in Mediterranean marinas was conducted by Ulman et al (2017) with both modified RAS and scrapes by hand-held rigid net. During the last few years, the metabarcoding approach has also started to be employed in NIS surveys with satisfying results (see also Borrell et al, 2017;Miralles et al, 2021;Pearman et al, 2021). Metabarcoding can be considered as an efficient tool to detect cryptic species or early life stages, but one of the main disadvantages is the incompleteness of genetic sequence reference libraries (Zaiko et al, 2018;Duarte et al, 2021).…”

Invasion trends: An interpretable measure of change is needed to support policy targets

“…Standard approaches and tools for measuring and recording survey effort are currently not developed, and harmonized guidelines will be needed. Examples of relevant data on the survey effort include measures, such as hectares surveyed for IAS per assessment period (Cheney et al., 2018), numbers of inspections of high‐risk establishment sites (Lovell et al., 2021), volume of cargo inspected (Miralles et al., 2021), time spent searching for a specific species (Mehta et al., 2007), number of high conservation value areas surveyed for IAS (Keet et al., 2022), and proportion of cells with expected presences that have relevant observations, the metric underpinning the Species Information Index (Oliver et al., 2021). New monitoring technologies are increasingly available, such as remotely sensed products (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), satellite, and camera traps) or eDNA approaches, which through fixed elements of deployment protocols (e.g., area surveyed and number of traps or samples) provide quantifiable, efficient, and effective ways to survey a subset of IAS for rapid and systematic observations (van Rees et al., 2022).…”

Standardization of ALEX index for the ecological quality assessment under European Framework Directives in Mediterranean sensitive habitats affected by biological invasions

“…Moreover, most monitoring programmes are focused on hot‐spot sites such as ports and their surrounding areas, docks, marinas and aquaculture installations (Miralles et al, 2021; Tamburini et al, 2021); however, most of the NIS invasions by macroalgae in Mediterranean habitats occurred independently from the distance to propagule sources and to anthropogenic pressure (Ballesteros et al, 2007; Pacciardi et al, 2011). Thus, an effective standardized monitoring protocol for Mediterranean habitats is needed, in order to compare data on the scale of the Basin and to plan efficient management and intervention programmes.…”