Marine bioinvasion: Concern for ecology and shipping

Marine bioinvasion – introduction of marine organisms alien to local ecosystem through ship ulls and ballast water – has serious consequences to native biota, fishery and general coastal ecosystem. Over 80 % of the world cargo is mobilized transoceanically and over 12 billio t n s of ballast water is filled at one part of the ocean and disch rged at the other. These ballast waters offer conducive situation for bacteria, viruses, algae, dinoflagellates and a variety of macro-faunal larval/cyst stages to translocate to alien regions, usually along the coasts of the continents. As an example, there are over 18 species of animals and plants documented along the Indian coasts as those that might have got invaded and established. They can cause deleterious effects to local flora and fauna through their toxigenic, proliferative and over-competitive characteristics. This article points out the threats arising out of marine bioinvasion and various technological developments needed to deal with this unavoidable scourge in global shipping transport. BIOINVASION refers to introduction of an alien orga-nism(s) into an ecosystem. When in its native environ-ment, the invading organism lives in semblance and is controlled by ecosystem interactions. Once in an alie