Could ocean currents be responsible for the west to east spread of aquatic invasive species in Maritime Canadian waters?

• Published in: Marine pollution bulletin 2014-08, Vol.85 (1), p.235-243
• Main Author: Brickman, D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AIS spread; Algorithms; Animal and plant ecology; Animal Distribution; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Animals; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Brachyura - physiology; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Ecotoxicology, biological effects of pollution; Egg larval drift; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Geography; Introduced Species; Larva - physiology; Maine; Marine; Marine and brackish environment; Models, Theoretical; Nova Scotia; Ocean currents; Oceans and Seas; Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking; Rafting; Regression Analysis; Sea water ecosystems; Synecology; Water Movements
• ISSN: 0025-326X; 1879-3363
• DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.05.034

•Flow on Maritime Canadian shelf seas predominantly in east-to-west direction.•AIS invasions in Maritime Canadian waters observed to proceed against mean flow.•Particle tracking experiments performed using circulation model output.•Upstream drift PDFs derived from particle tracking experiments.•PDFs reveal that drift in ocean currents could be responsible for upstream spread. The circulation in the shelf seas of Maritime Canada is predominantly in the northeast–southwest direction. Despite the mean northeast–southwest flow, a number of AIS invasions have been observed to proceed in the opposite direction – from the Gulf of Maine, around Nova Scotia, and into the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Flow fields from a numerical circulation model are used to investigate whether these invasions could be due to drift in ocean currents. Particle tracking experiments are performed and probability density functions (PDFs) derived that describe the probability of drifting a given upstream distance in a given drift time. Analysis of these PDFs revealed that for invasions that took 20–40y to occur, propagule drift in ocean currents could be responsible for the upstream spread, while this was not the case for short timescale invasions (