Foreign Species Appearing in Mediterranean Sea
8/9/99
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Title: Foreign Species Appearing in Mediterranean Sea
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 9, 1999
The Mediterranean is on its way to becoming a tropical aquarium, with
110 newcomer species from the tropics threatening to crowd out native
species less suited to the ever-warmer and more polluted water,
experts warned today.
Biologists spotted the Mediterranean's first species of tropical fish
in 1902, three decades after the opening of the Suez Canal. Since
then, 55 Red Sea species have made their way in via the canal, said
experts from Italy's Central Institute for Scientific Research and
Applied Technology for the Sea.
The institute experts sounded their warning at a Rome news
conference.
"The tropical fish, having evolved in conditions of rapid natural
change in highly competitive environments like the Red Sea, can
easily spread in the Mediterranean," said Franco Andaloro, author of
the study.
"In the future, the competition with Mediterranean species in terms
of habitat selection, the search for food, and reproductive success
could lead, in extreme conditions, to the extinction of the weaker
species," Andaloro said.
Scores of other tropical species have found other routes into the
Mediterranean, some through the Gilbraltar Straits and others in or
on ships.
While the 530 indigenous species have been weakened by increasing
pollution and overfishing, the brightly colored newcomers are
thriving. Global warming has raised the temperature of the sea by
about 1 degree in the last decade, a boon for the migrant species.
The influx is reordering the food chain, and thus the ecology, of the
sea, the study warned.
"The most disturbing aspect of this phenomenon consists of the impact
on the ecosystem in the western and central Mediterranean," the
research institute said.