Marine invaders such as Chinese mitten crabs, European green crabs and the elusive, little understood tunicates, may not have arrived in Alaska yet in significant numbers yet-but they’re on the move. That was the main message of a vast variety of experts on invasive species who gathered at the Alaska SeaLife Center last week to review the current status of marine invasive species, and to develop plans for preventing their spread to Alaska. If we don’t find ways to stop these non-native invasive species before they get here, or eradicate them as soon as they do—the job will be far more difficult, if not impossible, said speaker after speaker.

Participants included experts from the US Coast Guard, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, National Park Service, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Kachemak Bay Research Reserve, Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council, University of Alaska Fairbanks Marine Science Center, San Francisco State Marine Ecology Department, Smithsonian Environmental Science Research Center, and Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance, and a host more. (*see bottom of article)

Two science classes from Seward High School also attended a keynote address by Greg Ruiz, of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Wednesday morning. They heard an overview of the scope of the problem in Alaska, and in coastal areas where these invasive species proliferate. Local students may team up with the sea life center staff later this spring to participate in a citizen’s marine monitoring program, and to help the center design an invasive marine species exhibit, said Howard Ferren, the ASLC Director of Conservation.

“The world is connected, and it’s connected through ships,” Ruiz began, and shipping is these species’ biggest transport vector to Alaska. That’s why participants in such a gathering included experts from regions like Hawaii, British Columbia, Canada and even the San Francisco Bay/California Coast, where the problem of non indigenous marine invasive species begins, and often is the most insidious.

The vast majority of the marine invaders travel either through the ballast water (used for stability) and discharged by ships at various ports of call, or by hitchhiking on the hulls of vessels, Ruiz explained. Approximately 100,000 ships arrive in Alaska per year —half of which come from overseas, he said. Some 50 million metric tons of ballast water is discharged per year from foreign ships, and 130 million metric tons from ships traveling within U.S. coastal waters. While exchanging ballast water mid-ocean, rather than closer inland is deemed effective for 90-percent of the discharge of foreign vessels—the vessels that only travel through U.S. coastal waters are for the most part exempt from ballast exchange rules, Ruiz said. Fully half of the species listed on NEMESIS, the National Exotic Marine and Estuarine Species Information System database arrive on vessel hulls, a process known as “hull fouling,” he said.

Other speakers also raised concerns about the gaps that continue to allow invasive marine species to be transported via vessels. In U.S. waters, more than 60 percent of vessels cannot exchange their ballast water appropriately (200 nautical miles off the coast) because of their routes, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt., Robert Fields, an inspector with the 17th Coast Guard District.

The Native Invasive Species Act of 1996 recommended that vessels operating outside the EEZ should have a ballast water exchange, retain ballast water onboard, or a USCG- approved treatment method. Those precautions were recommended, but were not mandated until 2004. With recent enforcement of the regulations, the coast guard now conducts 7,000 ballast water exams annually, and has discovered 61 marine violations thus far. Problem areas are enforceable with $27,500 fines per day, and constitute a Class-C felony “so mariners are on board for this,” Fields said.

Even today however, exempted vessels include crude oil tankers and American coastwise voyagers, Department of Defense vessels, USCG and Armed Service vessels, and ships that operate in only one COTP Zone. Speakers emphasized that gaps that continue to allow invasive marine species to be moved on vessels, or by other means, must be addressed aggressively through new legislation.

The State of Alaska is updating its outdated Aquatic Nuisance Species Management plans, established October 10, 2002, to address new concerns, said Tammy Davis, of ADF&G. Green crab, now considered a greater threat to Alaska than mitten crab, and also quagga mussels are not addressed in the original plan, although zebra mussels are listed, Davis said. Also of concern are Atlantic Salmon that escape from British Columbia, and Northern Pike introduced into the Susitna River Drainage, Kenai Peninsula and Port of Anchorage, she said. It is important to identify specific species as threats as steps can then be taken quickly to eradicate them once they are discovered, Davis said.

A perennial smooth cordgrass indigenous to the East Coast called Spartina Alterniflora, has the potential to negatively impact mud flats in Katchemak Bay and Copper River among other places, said Gino Graziano, with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Agriculture. The Alaska Spartina Prevention, Detection and Response Plan describes the need to train field crews of volunteers, such as beach cleanup crews or citizen scientists willing to identify and report these in saltwater tidal marshes where the habitat is particularly suitable for their spread.

“We know it’s going to come here eventually—the question is when? And we need to be there to find it,” Graziano said. Spartina spreads by its roots or seeds, travels via migratory birds, or is transported with the tides. Its effects in Alaska could include an increase in mud flats elevation, elimination of their use by shore birds, food webs, loss of native eel grass, loss to waterfowl and invertebrates, loss to valued clamming habitats, and to popular rearing areas for dungeness crab, Graziano said. Spartina species of a type known to inhabit Walapa Bay has already been discovered in Southeast Alaska, and a Spartina species found in Humbolt Bay, California has already been identified on Kodiak Island. Early detection is crucial as it takes about 90 days to get a pesticide permit to treat new infestations, he said. (visit www.alaskainvasives.org or call 1-877-invasiv to report invasive weed infestations)

Also daunting are marine invertebrates called Tunicates, who have been discovered at collection sites in the Sitka and Ketchikan, said Sarah Cohen, of San Francisco State University, working with Linda McCann, of the Smithsonian. The use of genetics is leading to fascinating discoveries about tunicates: they have the potential to spread rapidly, adapt locally, regenerate their entire bodies from a single clump of cells or from practically nothing, grow rapidly, reproduce asexually, and fuse together different colonies to build genetic diversity, McCann said.

Both advocate a widespread tunicate monitoring network to gather baseline data, and to measure invasives’ arrival and spread in Alaska. Cohen displayed a You-Tube website showing photos of the mushy brown “Alien Ciona” clogging up the posters’ prized aquaculture racks. These invertebrates also typically foul boat hulls, pier and dock pilings, and cause incalculable damage to underwater infrastructure, they said.

Citizen monitors are collecting species from photo plates, hung off local docks into their local bays. These small plates collect all variety of tunicates, and can also be equipped to collect physical information such as water temperature, salinity and turbidity. About four times a year, participants identify what they have collected, or take micro-photographs of the clusters of species, and report them via the PLATEWATCH website, or call 1-877-INVASIV.

Ferren lauded the efforts of the Alaska Invasive Species Working Group for organizing the two-day event, and for bringing so many diverse experts together. The report created during the event will be a tool to guide lawmakers and resource managers in how to proceed in the future, Ferren said. “The proceeding is absolutely critical to help determine what those priorities are,” he said.