By TODD McLEISH/ecoRI News
contributor
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| Aaron Fabrice found this Rhode Island-based buoy in early October along the coast of Belgium. (Diederik D’Hert) |
The discovery of the
buoy and attached marine life illustrates one of many ways that non-native
marine life finds its way to distant shores. And one Massachusetts scientist
believes it’s a vector for invasive species that will become more and more
common as climate change produces increasingly severe storms that will toss
sturdy plastic debris into the ocean.
Aaron Fabrice, 20, who
describes himself as a beachcomber, citizen scientist, conservationist and
nature guide, found the buoy Oct. 8 on a beach in the town of De Panne, on the
northwest coast of Belgium.
He said the discovery was “like a dream” as he and a friend counted 39 Columbus crabs, native to the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda, nestled between hundreds of goose barnacles. He claims it is “the largest observed stranding [of Columbus crabs] on the Belgian coast ever.”
He said the discovery was “like a dream” as he and a friend counted 39 Columbus crabs, native to the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda, nestled between hundreds of goose barnacles. He claims it is “the largest observed stranding [of Columbus crabs] on the Belgian coast ever.”
Fabrice also found numerous skeleton shrimp on polyps on the barnacles, a species he said is commonly found attached to floating debris.
After collecting samples
of the crabs for the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural
Science, Fabrice posted photos of the buoy to beachcombing and
lobstering message boards showing the unique combination of letters and numbers
printed on it.
Two months later, he learned that it belonged to Rhode Island lobsterman Roy Campanale Jr. of Narragansett, who acknowledged to Fabrice that he lost the buoy off his boat Mister Marco sometime in 2016.
Two months later, he learned that it belonged to Rhode Island lobsterman Roy Campanale Jr. of Narragansett, who acknowledged to Fabrice that he lost the buoy off his boat Mister Marco sometime in 2016.
“We did not expect that
North American floating objects would wash up on our coast,” wrote Fabrice in
an e-mail message. “Normally floating objects from North America wash up in
Cornwall, U.K., or Brittany, France. There must have been an Atlantic seawater
bubble coming through the channel in the North Sea.”
According to Jim
Carlton, an ecologist at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., who studies
marine invasive species, debris from North America shows up on the coast of
Europe fairly regularly, and it’s often colonized by a wide variety of marine
life.
He said that goose barnacles and Columbus crabs are oceanic species that can’t live in the coastal zone, so they are unlikely to become established in Belgium and affect native species.
He said that goose barnacles and Columbus crabs are oceanic species that can’t live in the coastal zone, so they are unlikely to become established in Belgium and affect native species.
But, he added, it could
be that there were species from North America that were buried within the
barnacle-crab community.
Carlton has studied the
transoceanic dispersal of marine life in great detail. Last fall he published a
paper in the journal Science about the nearly 300 species of Asian marine life
he and his colleagues found on debris along the West Coast that they traced to
the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
He said natural
disasters provide a greater opportunity for the dispersal of species across the
Pacific than ever before, because of all the plastic objects that make up
modern daily life. Before plastic became ubiquitous, most storm-tossed marine
debris consisted of wood, vegetation and other biodegradable materials that
would disintegrate before they made it across the oceans.
“That got us thinking
that the story of ocean rafting has shifted rather remarkably in the last half
century,” Carlton said. “The plastic rafts at sea now are very enduring.
They’re not degrading and dissolving. Animals can go on a much longer voyage
now than they could have historically when they were drifting on a piece of
vegetation.”
The implication is quite
dramatic. Carlton believes that the tsunami-caused invasion of species from
across the Pacific is only a hint of what is to come.
As increasingly severe storms — the result of a changing climate — hammer coastlines around the world, more and more marine species will find their way across the oceans on plastic debris, ultimately causing a homogenization of the world’s coastlines.
As increasingly severe storms — the result of a changing climate — hammer coastlines around the world, more and more marine species will find their way across the oceans on plastic debris, ultimately causing a homogenization of the world’s coastlines.
“Imagine the amount of
debris that came off the Caribbean islands during the hurricanes last fall —
many hundreds if not thousands of buildings and all of their contents were
swept into the ocean,” he said.
“The climate models and evidence strongly suggest that we’re going to be entering a world of more of these cyclonic systems, making ocean rafting potentially one of the major new vectors for invasive species.”
“The climate models and evidence strongly suggest that we’re going to be entering a world of more of these cyclonic systems, making ocean rafting potentially one of the major new vectors for invasive species.”
Rhode Island resident
and author Todd McLeish runs a wildlife blog.