Non-indigenous Species in the Mediterranean Sea: Turning From Pest to Source by Developing the 8Rs Model, a New Paradigm in Pollution Mitigation

Abstract

For mitigation of the effects of pollution, the media, policy makers and, in turn, the scientific community and industry each provide contributions through development of a sense of urgency, and with guidelines and solutions. For non-indigenous species (NIS) that can frequently have negative impacts on the native biota, this is often conveyed in an emotive way to the general public, who are typically keen to help and to get personally involved. This might be through organization of cleaning campaigns, influence on the media, or collaboration with scientists, to inform them of the local presence and abundance of NIS. Alternatively, they might proactively develop technological solutions themselves. To assess the current state of affairs, we reviewed the presence and effects of NIS in the Mediterranean Sea. As so often, any well-planned and successful activity is directly linked to financing, or a lack thereof, and this leads to sometimes untargeted and sporadic measures that are developed within a project or over a limited timeframe, without any sustainability measures. Therefore, we also assessed the activities and strategies that have been financed in this area of NIS mitigation. Based on this review of the presence and impact of NIS, and previous and ongoing activities, we propose a new paradigm to mitigate such pollution: the 8Rs model (i.e., Recognize, Reduce, Replace, Reuse, Recycle, Recover/Restore, Remove, and Regulate). This model extends from the more traditional 3Rs model (i.e., Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) that is often used and promoted for innovative waste management strategies. Importantly, the 8Rs model can be applied sequentially, for either prevention of NIS introduction, or preparation of mitigation measures. The 8Rs model was constructed based on Mediterranean NIS, although we believe it can be applied to other sources of pollution and other geographic areas. Importantly, the 8Rs model represents a general framework to organize and categorize future pollution mitigation strategies. This approach is essential for development of any action plan to influence the administrative and financial decision makers who essentially enable these activities, and therefore who have important roles in the guarantee of sustainability of these actions, and the creation of innovative societies.

The Essentials of Marine Biotechnology

“…The competition for space between species is strong, and the removal of one species can impact the structure of the whole community. However, invasive species can be valorized for biotechnological applications and in some areas this has showed promising results and has been already used for skincare products (Rotter et al, 2020b). By harvesting invasive seaweeds, the adverse effects on local biodiversity can also be mitigated.…”

“…Transdisciplinary collaborations, such as marine biotechnology, seek to produce knowledge through integration and collaboration to address societal challenges (Misra and Lotrecchiano, 2018). These complex collaborations are high-risk, high-impact and are needed to establish modern, innovative societies (Rotter et al, 2020b). On one hand, this demands the creation of teams with varying expertise, including scientific organizations, industrial actors, policy makers and the civil society, i.e., the quadruple helix (Rotter et al, 2020b and Figure 4 therein).…”

Non-indigenous cephalopods in the Mediterranean Sea

“…As mentioned in the Introduction, allochthonous cephalopods have three ways to enter the Mediterranean basin: i) crossing the only natural passage, the Strait of Gibraltar, from the Atlantic Ocean; ii) passing through the Suez Canal from the Red Sea; iii) being transported by humans in various ways (ROTTER et al, 2020) from anywhere in the world oceans. As the opening of the Suez Canal is dated to comparatively recent times (1869), the first colonization of the Mediterranean by Atlantic cephalopods (as well as all other taxa) through the Gibraltar opening has been dated back to the aftermath of the Messinian salinity crisis, which was not survived by any Mediterranean cephalopods (MANGOLD & BOLETZKY, 1988).…”

“…DURRIEU DE MADRON et al, 2011) is threatening the equilibrium of Mediterranean ecosystems and its biodiversity. Recent reviews have recorded the presence of little less than a thousand NIS in the Mediterranean Sea (BONANNO & ORLANDO-BONACA, 2019;ROTTER et al, 2020). NIS have entered this basin either through one of its two openings, i.e.…”

“…the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, or by other pathways depending on anthropic transport (e.g. shipping, aquaculture, aquarium trade, live food/ bait trade, colonized floating man-made objects) or other human-mediated causes (ROTTER et al, 2020). A closer attention has been paid to the entrances from the Red Sea via the Suez Canal, which date since its man-made opening in 1869 (GALIL, 2007).…”