Portfolio VI: Exotic Species

Achievements

In order to mount this ambitious research and education effort, Maryland Sea Grant teamed up with several key players, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Chesapeake Bay Commission. Close connections with these expert groups helped not only on the research side, but also in the shaping of the entire effort. For example, SERC scientists provided extremely valuable guidance in the production of videos, and helped to co-produce a series of fact sheets on exotic species in the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake Bay Commission provided key leadership in the region for considering potential threats and possible solutions to the non-indigenous species problem, and Ms. Ann Pesiri Swanson, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, provides important commentary (e.g., in our video productions), helping to articulate the challenges that face those who manage the estuary as we begin to learn more about the threat of exotic species.

As mentioned earlier, a key management strategy has been to combine the strengths of the Sea Grant team to address the exotics issue. Sea Grant Extension specialists and Sea Grant communicators served as co-PIs on outreach proposals and worked closely to mount outreach efforts. Together, they also worked closely with researchers to determine the best information to include in those education efforts. Because the Sea Grant Extension Program is jointly administered through Maryland Cooperative Extension (MCE), this outreach effort benefited from the considerable resources brought by MCE, including the economical and high-quality printing of fact sheets on exotics by the Agricultural Duplicating Service.

Combining the research, communications, education and Extension strengths of the program in this way has resulted in a number of notable achievements. On the research side, for example, the SERC Invasive Species Laboratory has concluded that some 200 species are either definite or probable transplants to the Bay ecosystem. Research by David Wright at UMCES has shown that zebra mussels can survive at salinities compatible with the upper reaches of numerous tidal rivers in the Bay.

Numerous research papers and presentations have resulted from this work, including a regional workshop report, Zebra Mussels in the Mid-Atlantic, published by Maryland Sea Grant. In a related publishing effort, Maryland Sea Grant also produced a large volume entitled, The Dispersal of Living Organisms into Aquatic Ecosystems. This book helped to place the issue of exotic introductions in the context of introductions in general, thus helping to raise the science-management dialogue to a new level of sophistication. In addition, Sea Grant cooperated with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to produce an outdoor poster advising boaters and other to be on the lookout for zebra mussels, and produced a brochure entitled, "Zebra Mussels: A Threat to Maryland Waters," to help teach boaters how to check their craft for unwanted hitchhikers.

While research into the treatment of ballast water with novel, environmentally friendly compounds has just recently gotten underway, it promises to provide extremely valuable information about effective and responsible means for treating and managing ballast water.

This integrated effort has resulted in a number of public information projects, including the award-winning video documentary, Alien Ocean. This half-hour introduction to non-indigenous species, their effects, and research now underway to improve our ability to manage them, has been used in classrooms and meetings throughout the region, and has been broadcast both in Maryland and Virginia. Building on this effort and leveraging funds from the U.S. EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program, Maryland Sea Grant also produced two video shorts, for use in classroom and meeting settings: Alien Estuary (focused directly on the Chesapeake Bay) and Alien River (focused directly on boaters and the threat of zebra mussels). In addition, this cooperative effort with the Bay Program also allowed the large-scale printing of three fact sheets on exotics in the Chesapeake Bay: "Exotic Species: An Introduction", "Exotic Plants" and "Exotic Animals." All of these efforts are accessible through our non-native species page. This site provides key links to other sources of information on the Internet, such as the Sea Grant Nonindigenous Species Site and the Sea Grant National Aquatic Nuisance Species Clearing House.