Abstract
The European Union’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) aims to adopt integrated ecosystem management approaches to achieve or maintain “Good Environmental Status” for marine waters, habitats and resources, including mitigation of the negative effects of non-indigenous species (NIS). The Directive further seeks to promote broadly standardized monitoring efforts and assessment of temporal trends in marine ecosystem condition, incorporating metrics describing the distribution and impacts of NIS. Accomplishing these goals will require application of advanced tools for NIS surveillance and risk assessment, particularly given known challenges associated with surveying and monitoring with traditional methods. In the past decade, a host of methods based on nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) analysis have been developed or advanced that promise to dramatically enhance capacity in assessing and managing NIS. However, ensuring that these rapidly evolving approaches remain accessible and responsive to the needs of resource managers remains a challenge. This paper provides recommendations for future development of these genetic tools for assessment and management of NIS in marine systems, within the context of the explicit requirements of the MSFD. Issues considered include technological innovation, methodological standardization, data sharing and collaboration, and the critical importance of shared foundational resources, particularly integrated taxonomic expertise. Though the recommendations offered here are not exhaustive, they provide a basis for future intentional (and international) collaborative development of a genetic toolkit for NIS research, capable of fulfilling the immediate and long term goals of marine ecosystem and resource conservation.
Highlights
The introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS) represents a major driver of ecological and evolutionary change in the world’s oceans, often resulting in dramatic restructuring of biotic communities [1,2] and shifts in ecosystem function with impacts on the availability of marine resources and ecosystem services [3,4]. Like their counterparts in terrestrial and freshwater systems, marine biological invasions continue to be driven by pressures associated with human activity and global trade [5], and their spread at multiple spatial scales remains tied to the increasing activity of anthropogenic vectors of species introductions such as vessels, aquaculture, interoceanic canals and aquarium trade [6,7,8,9,10]
This ongoing shuffling of marine biodiversity occurs in the context of multiple other anthropogenic stressors, resulting in significant challenges to the sustainable management of marine resources, in coastal environments [11]. Recognition of these challenges has led to the creation of policies, conventions, and various other legislative frameworks aimed at preventing future introductions and mitigating or reversing the impacts of existing marine invasions
The late realization that European seas are facing unprecedented rates of NIS introductions is reflected in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and in EU Regulation 1143/2014 [124], setting rules to prevent and manage the introduction and spread of invasive NIS in the EU—arguably the most important policy measures taken by the EU concerning marine bioinvasions
Summary
The introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS) represents a major driver of ecological and evolutionary change in the world’s oceans, often resulting in dramatic restructuring of biotic communities [1,2] and shifts in ecosystem function with impacts on the availability of marine resources and ecosystem services [3,4]. For NIS, recommended criteria and methodological standards for GES assessment require Member States to establish a) regional and subregional inventories of NIS, b) the number of new introductions over a 6-year assessment basis, and the definition of a threshold value; c) abundance and spatial distribution of NIS and of invasive species, and their adverse effects on native species groups and habitat types These efforts will require improvements in genetic surveillance methods, and better integration of molecular approaches with traditional methods and more effective communication of the outcomes of molecular research and surveillance. Such steps would contribute to more accurate, transparent, and cost-effective assessments of the distribution and impacts of NIS in marine systems
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