Ship-mediated species invasions in the Arctic

引进的非土著物种可能会对环境、健康和经济产生强烈的影响，因此各国政府将重点放在确定与引入加拿大生态系统相关的风险上。我们已经探索了从海外到五大湖以及哈利法克斯和温哥华的航运载体，尽管还没有研究探索到北极的航运载体。北极特别容易受到入侵，因为：i)浮冰的季节性消退将使更多的物种能够自然地从太平洋扩散到大西洋，ii)浮冰的消退将可能使船只能够利用西北航道，并引入船体污染或压载水物种；iii)更温暖、更好混合的沿海水域将经历更多的藻类生产，这将被迁徙物种用作食物；iv)由于季节性变暖加剧，沿海水域对南方入侵者的环境适宜性将增加。在这里，我们将探索与开往北极的加拿大和外国商船相关的压载水载体。我们还将探索通过对这些船只进行船体污损来引入物种的可能性。我们试图验证这样一种假设，即增加船舶交通会增加物种引入这些北部生态系统的速度。我们还将使用环境生态位模型测试一些非本土物种的环境适宜性，以确定它们在北极港口成功殖民和传播的潜力。这些研究将为生物入侵期间物种如何传播的概念模型提供信息，并完成我们对抵达加拿大港口的船只媒介的研究。

Introduced nonindigenous species may have strong environmental, health and economic impacts, thus governments have placed a priority on identifying risks associated with their introduction to Canadian ecosystems. We have explored shipping vectors into the Great Lakes and to Halifax and Vancouver from overseas, although no studies have explored shipping vectors to the Arctic. The Arctic is particularly vulnerable to invasions because: i) enhanced seasonal retreat of pack ice will allow more species to disperse naturally across the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, ii) pack ice retreat will potentially allow ships to utilize the Northwest Passage, and introduce hull-fouling or ballast water species; iii) warmer, better mixed coastal waters will experience enhanced algal production, which will be used by migrating species as food; iv) environmental suitability of coastal waters to southern invaders will be increased by enhanced seasonal warming. Here we will explore ballast water vectors associated with Canadian and foreign commercial vessels bound for the Arctic. We will also explore possible species introductions via hull fouling on these vessels. We seek to test the hypothesis that enhanced ship traffic increases the rate at which species are introduced to these northern ecosystems. We will also test the environmental suitability for a number of the nonindigenous species to determine their potential for successful colonization and spread in the Arctic ports using Environmental Niche Modeling. These studies will inform conceptual models of how species spread during biological invasions, and complete our studies on ship vectors arriving in Canadian ports.