Portfolio VI: Exotic Species

Our Response

To help improve our understanding of the potential threat of non-indigenous species, and to raise public awareness about what needs to be done, Maryland Sea Grant has during the past ten years mounted an active program of scientific research and outreach. Some research and education projects form part of a national non-indigenous species initiative funded by the National Office of Sea Grant, while others were supported as core Maryland Sea Grant efforts. As part of a strategic approach, the research and outreach efforts have been carefully integrated from early on.

Supporting Strategic Science

Projects funded directly from Maryland Sea Grant's core funding include three research efforts by Gregory Ruiz and his collaborators at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). These efforts are directed at understanding the susceptibility of an estuary like the Chesapeake Bay to invasion by non-indigenous species associated with the ballast water of big ships. Ruiz has targeted not only ships arriving from abroad, but those engaged in domestic (e.g., coastal) trade - an important dimension of the exotics issue, since large amounts of ship traffic move among domestic ports, ports that have in turn been visited by transoceanic ships. This work has also included a focus on microbial species associated with ballast water, species that could cause potential human health problems, or affect important species living in the Bay.

In addition to these core projects, Maryland researchers have played a key role in national competition for non-indigenous scientific and outreach programs. Central to these efforts have been the scientific contributions of Greg Ruiz's team at the Smithsonian. Special initiative funding has enabled the SERC Invasion Biology Laboratory to join with other research groups to focus on pathogenic organisms potentially carried by ballast water, and to sharpen the quantitative and spatial analysis of non-indigenous species invasions. This national effort has included close cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard and the shipping industry, in an attempt both to track ballast water movement and to control its negative impacts through cooperative outreach programs.

Also playing a key role in the analysis of non-indigenous species in the Chesapeake region have been David Wright and Victor Kennedy

Spreading the Word, Not the Organisms

From the very beginning, a central part of Maryland Sea Grant's response to the non-indigenous issue included an energetic outreach component. Joining with other Sea Grant programs in the Mid-Atlantic, Maryland Sea Grant helped to sponsor a regional workshop in Baltimore, Maryland focused on the potential spread of zebra mussels. Sea Grant Extension specialists teamed up with Sea Grant communicators to produce a range of outreach materials - from reports to brochures to fact sheets to videos - to help alert a wide public to the problem, and to help educate particular groups - such as boaters and anglers - about what they can do to help stop the spread of zebra mussels and other unwanted exotics.

Thanks to special initiative funding, matched by the commitment of the Maryland Sea Grant program, this outreach effort has reached literally hundreds of thousands of citizens in the region, including important resource users and decision makers. Sea Grant worked very actively to make the issue of non-indigenous species part of the ongoing dialogue centered on the management and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, and widened this focus to include the long freshwater tributaries that feed the estuary - important vectors for some species of invader, such as the zebra mussel and plants like hydrilla.

Wherever possible, non-indigenous species education efforts were integrated with other ongoing efforts, such as the aquatic weed management program offered by Maryland Sea Grant Extension, and marine biology and biofouling education units aimed at students and teachers.