Nuisance Algae in Ballast Water Facing International Conventions. Insights from DNA Metabarcoding in Ships Arriving in Bay of Biscay

Abstract

Ballast water is one of the main vectors of transport of nuisance species among marine ports. Neither treatment nor interchange completely reduces the risk of ballast water containing DNA from harmful species, being a signal of potential threat. However, although there are some efficient treatments, they are not available on all ships and there might be some technological/economical constrains for their active and routine usage. Understanding what routes lead to a higher risk of contamination is important for designing targeted surveillance. We analysed ballast water from seven ships arriving in Gijon port (south Bay of Biscay, Spain). DNA metabarcoding was employed for identification of exotic species and harmful algae. One ship carried DNA of 20 risk species in the ballast water. Three ships contained DNA of only one risk species, and three ships had none. Seventy two algae species were found, 22.2% are exotic to the Bay of Biscay and 11.1% are catalogued as harmful. The results demonstrated the importance of continuous surveillance of ballast water.

eDNA metabarcoding of small plankton samples to detect fish larvae and their preys from Atlantic and Pacific waters

“…Although typically considered a good barcode for animals 28 , 29 , 68 , COI has sufficient phylogenetic definition at species level in red algae and phytoplankton. This has been also found in other studies on locations near the coast, including the Baltic Sea 15 , Bay of Biscay ports 16 , species attached to beached litter 69 , and in ballast water 35 , 70 .…”

“…Even relatively scarce species can be successfully detected from small water volumes—as small as 3 L, see for example inventories of port species in Borrell et al 34 . Metabarcoding on small water samples could therefore serve for early alert of adverse phenomena like non-indigenous biological invasions 34 , or potentially toxic red tides 35 , because causative species can be detected from such minimal volumes of water. These examples correspond to coastal waters, where zooplankton density can be as high as more than 50,000 individuals/m 3 (for example in Manila Bay; Jose et al 36 ); moreover, similar densities can be found even for single species in some African estuaries 37 .…”

The Introduction of the Asian Red Algae Melanothamnus japonicus (Harvey) Díaz-Tapia & Maggs in Peru as a Means to Adopt Management Strategies to Reduce Invasive Non-Indigenous Species

“…Several studies have shown that global shipping is the primary source of non-indigenous species [20,65]. For instance, using DNA metabarcoding on samples of ballast water taken from ships arriving at the Bay of Biscay, Ardura et al [66] showed that about 22% of the total algae found in ballast waters were non-indigenous to that location. Importantly, it has also been shown that among the algal species found in ballast water, the species from the genus Polysiphonia, a phylogenetically close genus to Melanothamnus, are able to survive prolonged periods in the ships' tanks and even increase in density [67].…”

Dams in South Europe: socio-environmental approach and eDNA-metabarcoding to study dam acceptance and ecosystem health

“…High-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies applied on environmental samples (eDNA metabarcoding) may be used as a shortcut to estimate biological indices of water quality (Rivera et al 2018;Fernández et al 2018Fernández et al , 2019b. Metabarcoding using a fragment from the chloroplastic gene Ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase large chain (RbcL) for diatom identification has been already employed for evaluation of lake water quality (Rivera et al 2018), and the same methodology has been also recently applied to detect nuisance algae from ballast water (Ardura et al 2020).…”

“…Taking into account that complexity, here we have employed a multidisciplinary set of tools in Guadalhorce River within SW Mediterranean basin (Andalusia, south Spain) and in Nalón River within south Bay of Biscay (Asturias, north Spain) to investigate how dams and reservoirs affect ecosystem health. Molecular tools based on environmental DNA to inventory phytoplankton species (Rivera et al 2018;Ardura et al 2020) were applied to assess water quality in dammed areas. Participatory approach to determine services and disservices provided by dams and reservoirs involving relevant stakeholders, and a social survey on social acceptance of dams including willingness to pay, were conducted following a face-to-face application model (Vandenplas and Loosveldt 2017).…”