Ship-mediated species invasions in the Arctic

引进的非本地物种可能对环境、健康和经济产生强烈影响，因此，政府优先考虑确定将这些物种引入加拿大生态系统的相关风险。我们已经探索了将病媒从海外运到五大湖、哈利法克斯和温哥华，尽管还没有研究探索过将病媒运到北极。北极特别容易受到入侵，因为：1)浮冰的季节性消退将允许更多的物种从太平洋自然分散到大西洋，2)浮冰的消退将潜在地允许船舶利用西北航道，并引入船体污染或压载水物种；Iii)更温暖、更混合的沿海水域将增加藻类产量，这些藻类将被迁徙物种用作食物；(4)季节性变暖的加剧将增加沿海水域对南方入侵者的环境适宜性。在这里，我们将探讨与加拿大和外国商船前往北极有关的压载水矢量。我们还将探索通过这些船只的船体污垢可能引入的物种。我们试图验证这样一个假设，即船舶交通的增加增加了物种被引入这些北方生态系统的速度。我们还将使用环境生态位模型测试一些非本地物种的环境适应性，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舶媒介的研究。

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.