From the Smithsonian , something that makes me wonder. When the ice ages lowered sea levels and opened land bridges, and mammals of all sorts made passages, or when a study shows Arctic sea ice extent ~6000 years ago was much less than today, were those migrations then worthy of the label “invasive species”. It seems lame to me, Nature is just doing what Nature does, filling a void with life. It also seems to me that this story is nothing more than a headline generator, for buried within it is the admission that it is mostly a non-problem so far.
Melting Arctic opens new passages for invasive species
Scientists say early action could protect coasts
For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened passages leave both coasts and Arctic waters vulnerable to a large wave of invasive species, biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center assert in a commentary published May 28 in Nature Climate Change.
Two new shipping routes have opened in the Arctic: the Northwest Passage through Canada, and the Northern Sea Route, a 3000-mile stretch along the coasts of Russia and Norway connecting the Barents and Bering seas. While new opportunities for tapping Arctic natural resources and interoceanic trade are high, commercial ships often inadvertently carry invasive species. Organisms from previous ports can cling to the undersides of their hulls or be pumped in the enormous tanks of ballast water inside their hulls. Now that climate change has given ships a new, shorter way to cross between oceans, the risks of new invasions are escalating.
“Trans-Arctic shipping is a game changer that will play out on a global scale,” said lead author Whitman Miller. “The economic draw of the Arctic is enormous. Whether it’s greater access to the region’s rich natural resource reserves or cheaper and faster inter-ocean commercial trade, Arctic shipping will reshape world markets. If unchecked, these activities will vastly alter the exchange of invasive species, especially across the Arctic, north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans.”
The first commercial voyage through the Northwest Passage—a carrier from British Columbia loaded with coal bound for Finland—occurred in September 2013. Meanwhile, traffic through the Northern Sea Route has been rising rapidly since 2009. The scientists project that at the current rate, it could continue to rise 20 percent every year for the next quarter century, and this does not take into account ships sailing to the Arctic itself.
For the past 100-plus years, shipping between oceans passed through the Panama or Suez Canals. Both contain warm, tropical water, likely to kill or severely weaken potential invaders from colder regions. In the Panama Canal, species on the hulls of ships also had to cope with a sharp change in salinity, from marine to completely fresh water. The Arctic passages contain only cold, marine water. As long as species are able to endure cold temperatures, their odds of surviving an Arctic voyage are good. That, combined with the shorter length of the voyages, means many more species are likely to remain alive throughout the journey.
Though the routes pose major risks to the north Atlantic and north Pacific coasts, the Arctic is also becoming an attractive destination. Tourism is growing, and it contains vast stores of natural resources. The Arctic holds an estimated 13 percent of the world’s untapped oil and 30 percent of its natural gas. Greenland’s supply of rare earth metals is estimated to be able to fill 20 to 25 percent of global demand for the near future. Until now the Arctic has been largely isolated from intensive shipping, shoreline development and human-induced invasions, but the scientists said that is likely to change drastically in the decades to come.
“The good news is that the Arctic ecosystem is still relatively intact and has had low exposure to invasions until now,” said coauthor Greg Ruiz. “This novel corridor is only just opening. Now is the time to advance effective management options that prevent a boom in invasions and minimize their ecological, economic and health impacts.”
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Sea life clamping onto the underside of a metal or wooden ship is nature doing its thing. Ship owners do their best to discourage such things, but nature is a persistent bugger. Everything humans make is nature. Everything we do is natural.
Checkmate?
Mike Borgelt says:
May 28, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Our effect on sea level rise wouldn’t be noticeable if we all jumped in the ocean at the same time.
I’ve seen estimates to the contrary, but the Antarctic krill species Euphausia superba is calculated by some to be more massive than humanity, at perhaps 500 million tonnes.
However, we do dig up, cut down & otherwise consume a lot of resources & produce a lot of emissions & effluents of various kinds. And then there are our livestock & crops. But as a share of the energy flows of the planet, we’re probably not unprecedented. The organism with the biggest effect was probably the first cyanobacterium, whose descendents caused the Great Oxygen Catastrophe, nearly killing every other living thing but paving the way for animals, the creatures able to take advantage of all that formerly poisonous O2.
“I’ve long had the same questions: What differientiates an “invasive” species from one that is simply migrating? And why is it always bad?”
It’s usually bad because the local biota have evolved in a certain way, and when new species arrive by the hand of man (or by accident, but still by man-made means) they can out-compete native species. This happened with the dingo, or so-called “native dog” which was brought in by indigenous people (in contact with Pacific wanderers the Lapita). This wiped out the marsupial thylacine and the Tasmania devil on the mainland. Placental mammals can do this. Similarly, plants brought into Australia as garden flowers have gone mad, as there are no local insects which eat them (and they can be and often are poisonous, like Patterson’s Curse). Then there is the Cane Toad, imported to control a beetle, now overtaking the country. As they are poisonous, anything that eats them dies, so in parts of the north goannas and marsupial cats (quolls) are totally gone. So to an Australian, “invasive species” are REALLY bad. If, as I’ve seen on offshore islands, native species arrive under their own steam, that’s not “invasive”. I’ve seen this happen with Australian kestrels- the locals wanted to wipe them out, but they flew there themselves, and in any case the locals tolerated starlings, which ARE an invasive species since they’re not native to either Oz or NZ, and the fact they got to the islands under their own steam is immaterial.
Mammals are the ultimate invasive species. They drove out the dinosaurs.
Mike T says:
May 28, 2014 at 5:52 pm
How did starlings get to Oz on their own steam? Unless you mean their Asian relatives, mynas.
My comments so often contain anti-starling tirades lately that it might seem I’ve declared a fatwa against them. I’d like to, but the laws of my small town don’t allow me to wage the kind of jihad against the invasive species that I’d like to unleash. But this is specifically against the European starlings introduced into NYC’s Central Park c. 1890 by a crazed Shakespeare fan whom I hope is roasting in the hottest circle of hell. My yard is now covered with the demonic black creatures, to the detriment if not exclusion of what North American call robins, which aren’t really.
Correct me if wrong, but IMO northern Australia actually enjoys at least one native species of myna. I knew a myna as a kid & have a high opinion of that species, however closely related to the offensive but remarkably highly reproductive European genus it might be. The myna was not only a remarkably good mimic of human speech but understood English pretty well, too. Maybe not in the African grey parrot realm, but impressive none the less.
Latitude says:
May 28, 2014 at 11:04 am
My favorite is invasive species in Florida…..while failing to realize what circum-tropical means
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I hate to interrupt the serious discussion here, but from what I have heard, the largest cold climate invasive species in Florida is from Canada and speaks fluent French …
Or Franglais.
They consider wildlife and plant life from Japan, deposited on the Oregon coast as invasive species even though clearly they were deposited there by nature. The climate crowd are anti evolution period. The Earth must conform to their snapshot or it will be corrected. If man is harming this planet it is because we refuse to let it evolve naturally. We fight the rivers in LA, we managed the forests to death. We kill one owl doing well because the owl we picked to survive just isnt. We introduced invasive species in HI to counter the other invasive species we brought over and it goes on and on. I bet nature wishes it could just tell humans to butt the hell out. 🙂
agfosterjr says:
May 28, 2014 at 12:32 pm
If you can’t tell the difference between a lake and it’s particular problems, and an ocean and its particular problems, I fear there’s little I can do to assist you …
w.
tjfolkerts says:
May 28, 2014 at 1:19 pm
Since the black plague can’t spread very far by itself, it has always relied on the double-hitchhike system, hitching a ride on fleas that in turn are hitching a ride on rats. Now, no flea ever decided to carry that plague for miles in one day … it just happened to land on a migrating rat.
Does that somehow make the rat “not natural” because no flea ever decided to carry a rat more than one flea-walk’s distance?
Sorry, it’s a false division, man vs. nature. Crows use tools. Indeed, they use tools to get other tools. Since no other animal but man uses tools to obtain other tools … does that mean that along with man, crows are not part of nature either?
w.
“The first commercial voyage through the Northwest Passage—a carrier from British Columbia loaded with coal bound for Finland—occurred in September 2013. Meanwhile, traffic through the Northern Sea Route has been rising rapidly since 2009.”
I don’t know who does their historical research, but the quality that they are getting is deplorable.
The first commercial voyage through the Northwest Passage occurred in 1969 when the SS Manhattan, an oil tanker with an ice strengthened hull, made the passage with the assistance of the USCG cutters Staten Island and Northwind, and the CCG Ship Louis St. Laurent, transporting oil from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to a refinery on the US East Coast. This was done to test the feasibility of using the NW Passage for commercial sea traffic and it was determined that it was far cheaper to build the Alaska pipeline to Valdez.
The Northeast Passage, known as the Northern Sea Route, has been in continual use since 1935, when the Soviet Union constructed several ports along the route in order to facilitate the transfer of naval vessels from Arkhangelsk to Vladivostok without using foreign ports. It has also been in full commercial use by the Soviets and Russians since then to transport the resources from Siberia and Western Russia to the East and to transport supplies and products from the East to Vladivostok. Regardless of whether or not climate change has had any effect on this route, the Russians have several classes of icebreakers which were designed specifically to take advantage of this route which shortens the shipping distance from eastern to western Russia by several thousand kilometers.
“Sorry, it’s a false division, man vs. nature. Crows use tools. Indeed, they use tools to get other tools. Since no other animal but man uses tools to obtain other tools … does that mean that along with man, crows are not part of nature either?” Not false at all, and I fail to see the connection between crows using tools, and people loading cane toads onto a ship in Hawaii and releasing them in Queensland. Obviously, the toads could never get to Queensland under their own steam. Using your logic, why do countries need biosecurity? This country keeps certain plants and animals out of various countries because we don’t have diseases endemic to those places- rabies, Newcastle disease, foot & mouth disease, sikatoka disease of bananas, fire blight etc. so if it was ‘natural” to have an import free for all, Australia would have no food industry.
“Meanwhile, traffic through the Northern Sea Route has been rising rapidly since 2009. The scientists project that at the current rate, it could continue to rise 20 percent every year for the next quarter century”
Well then by 2025 or so it might even reach the 1987 level of 6.6 million tons of shipping. It was only 1 million tons in 2012 (hint, nothing catastrophic happened in the ´80’s even with soviet environmental standards).
After the Soviet Union collapsed traffic on the northern sea-route did too, it doesn’t pay except in exceptional cases. You need nuclear icebreakers (yes, you do) as well as ice-reinforced ships and it is only open during the summer and autumn (though I think the western part as far as Noril’sk is kept open for ore-carriers all year – but only by using nuclear icebreakers).
Duster says:
May 28, 2014 at 2:25 pm
Similarly, even after Humans are modern, the extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene are far more likely to have been the result of diseases carried by new arrivals, and new competition (as well as climate changes that erased habitats out from under entire ecosystems) than to be the result of ravening human hordes eating their way across continents. There simply isn’t any evidence for that – just models.
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You sure got that backwards. Early man probably brought no disease to the New World. Their arrival there involved a series of isolated bottlenecks that amounted to millennia of quarantine. And hunters and gatherers live in a perpetual state of near quarantine, granting innocuous parasites like head lice. Human pathogenic (and nutritional) disease is largely a result of civilization, and each civilization nurtures its own diseases. Columbus was the first “civilized” Euroasian to arrive in the New World. Animals had crossed back and forth for tens of millions of years, and had plenty of opportunity to transport diseases in both directions. Human hunters on the other hand, wreak ecological havoc everywhere they go, as is repeatedly documented on islands and continents around the globe: humans arrive; megafauna disappear. Some of the earliest big game extinctions coincided with the arrival of humans in Australia, and a more recent example is the Maoris wiping out elephant birds in New Zealand. Disease is hardly more plausible than asteroids as an extinction agent for the big American beasts, else explain why it is the biggest animals that disappear. –AGF
I guess that’s moas in New Zealand, and elephant birds in Madagascar.
Willis Eschenbach says:
May 28, 2014 at 9:43 pm
The trick for a prima donna is to not act like one.
Willis says:
“Seriously, Alex, if rogue jellyfish terrorizing the Atlantic is your best shot at alarmism, take up another line of work. Until you come up with warnings about rogue jelly sharks, I’m not impressed.”
I’m going to wait for rogue jelly sharks with fricking laser beams on their heads.