JUNIPER PUBLISHERS-Oceanography & Fisheries Open Access Journal
The Global Dispersal of the Non-Endemic Invasive Red Alga Gracilaria vermiculophylla in the Ecosystems of the Euro-Asia Coastal Waters Including the Wadden Sea Unesco World Heritage Coastal Area: Awful or Awesome?
Authored by Vincent van Ginneken *
Gracilaria
vermiculophylla (Ohmi) Papenfu ß 1967 (Rhodophyta, Gracilariaceae) is a
red alga and was originally described in Japan in 1956 as Gracilariopsis vermiculophylla. It is thought to be native and widespread throughout the
Northwest Pacific Ocean. G. vermiculophylla is primarily
used as a precursor for agar, which is widely used in the pharmaceutical and
food industries. It has been introduced to the East Pacific, the West Atlantic
and the East Atlantic, where it rapidly colonizes new environments. It is
highly tolerant of stresses (nutrient, salinity, temperature) and can grow in
an extremely wide variety of conditions; factors which contribute to its
invasiveness. It invades estuarine areas where it out-competes native algae
species and modifies environments. The following European coastal and brackish
water seas are already invaded: Atlantic, North Sea, Mediterranean and Baltic
Sea. The Euro-Asian brackish Black-Sea have not yet been invaded but are very
vulnerable to intense invasion with G. vermiculophylla because they
are isolated from direct marine influences and have a harsh environment with
large salinity, nutrient and temperature fluctuations. The risk of this
macro-algae becomes clear that scientists placed G. vermiculophylla among the most potent invaders out of 114 non-indigenous
macro-algae species in Europe. Also, some states in the US are invaded (Rhode
Island, California, N.& S. Carolina and Virginia), but also Canada, Mexico,
Morocco and the North Pacific Ocean. Molecular work indicated its native range
is Asia (China, Japan, Korea, South-eastern Russia and Vietnam). Worldwide
dispersal is mainly caused by transmission vectors like aquaculture (oysters
transport/import) and shipping ballast water. A further global dispersal on
this invasive macro-algae can be achieved by strict rules regarding legislation
and certification. A possible invasion of new water bodies can also have in
some cases positive effects via an extension of the ecological habitat. An
unexpected invasion of this invasive drift algae G. vermiculophylla (and other spp.) Furthermore we will calculate on a
global scale what contribution G. vermiculophylla might have in
the 70% more green biomass which has to be produced before the 2050 when we
will live with around 10 billion people at our planet. It is estimated that at
2050 around 350 billion kg of dry weight green biomass needs to be produced in
order to solve “The global Ten Billion People Issue” so in theory G. vermiculophylla could account on a global scale around 8, 23% of this
tremendous amount of urgently needed green biomass in the salt water marshes of
the south-eastern US, coasts of Asia, South America, and Australia without any
production costs. Finally, the Rhine feeding the Wadden Sea through the North
Sea has a large sewerage system and therefore the water in the Dutch part of
the Wadden Sea is phosphate-limited, which does not cover the German and Danish
part of the Wadden Sea fed by smaller phosphate loaded rivers. This is the main
reason that this Japanese drift algae G. vermiculophylla in the
neighboring countries has been doing so well in these parts of the Wadden Sea
and is overgrowing our Unesco World Heritage.
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