Role of commercial harbours and recreational marinas in the spread of non-indigenous fouling species

The role of commercial harbours as sink and source habitats for non-indigenous species (NIS) and the role of recreational boating for their secondary spread were investigated by analysing the fouling community of five Italian harbours and five marinas in the western Mediterranean Sea. It was first h...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biofouling (Chur, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2017-09, Vol.33 (8), p.651-660
Main Authors: Ferrario, Jasmine, Caronni, Sarah, Occhipinti-Ambrogi, Anna, Marchini, Agnese
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biofouling - prevention & control
Boating
Coastal environments
Commercial species
Commercial vessels
Ecosystem
Fouling
Harbours
Introduced species
Introduced Species - trends
Invasive species
Italy
macrozoobenthos
Marinas
Mediterranean Sea
Native organisms
Pools
ports
Recreation
recreational boating
Ships
Sustainable development
Tourism
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The role of commercial harbours as sink and source habitats for non-indigenous species (NIS) and the role of recreational boating for their secondary spread were investigated by analysing the fouling community of five Italian harbours and five marinas in the western Mediterranean Sea. It was first hypothesised that NIS assemblages in the recreational marinas were subsets of those occurring in commercial harbours. However, the data did not consistently support this hypothesis: the NIS pools of some marinas significantly diverged from harbours even belonging to the same coastal stretches, including NIS occurring only in marinas. This study confirms harbours as hotspots for marine NIS, but also reveals that numbers of NIS in some marinas is higher than expected, suggesting that recreational vessels effectively facilitate NIS spread. It is recommended that this vector of NIS introduction is taken into account in the future planning of sustainable development of maritime tourism in Europe.
ISSN:0892-7014
1029-2454
DOI:10.1080/08927014.2017.1351958