Ship-borne Nonindigenous Species Diminish Great Lakes Ecosystem Services

Abstract

We used structured expert judgment and economic analysis to quantify annual impacts on ecosystem services in the Great Lakes, North America of nonindigenous aquatic species introduced by ocean-going ships. For the US waters, median damages aggregated across multiple ecosystem services were $138 million per year, and there is a 5% chance that for sportfishing alone losses exceeded $800 million annually. Plausible scenarios of future damages in the US waters alone were similar in magnitude to the binational benefits of ocean-going shipping in the Great Lakes, suggesting more serious consideration is warranted for policy options to reduce the risk of future invasions via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Invasive species triggers a massive loss of ecosystem services through a trophic cascade

“…Although allowing transatlantic ships to enter the Great Lakes provides US $55 million of annual savings relative to alternative transport options (39), these ships are also responsible for the majority of the nonnative species that have established in the Great Lakes in recent decades. Damage estimates for these invasions have been confined to the Great Lakes only and have not considered costs of secondary invasions, such as that of Bythotrephes in Lake Mendota (40). Benefit-cost assessments of transatlantic shipping in the Great Lakes may indicate significantly larger costs if secondary invasions are included in these assessments.…”

Ballast water management in Canada: A historical perspective and implications for the future

“…Based on the invasion history of the GLR (see [53]), it is logical that national policies regarding NIS and BWM were initially targeted at the GLR, as 55-70% of invasions in the GLR since 1959 were attributed to the release of ballast water [63,21]. In addition to considerable ecological impacts, NIS in the GLR have caused upwards of $138 million USD per year in damage to human infrastructure alone [66]. However, in the 25 years that have passed since Canadian BWM began [53,62], BWM protocols still emphasize the GLR with limited emphasis on coastal marine systems (discussed below).…”

Suburban watershed nitrogen retention: Estimating the effectiveness of stormwater management structures

“…Here we use SEJ to estimate the uncertainty in stormwater BMP performance under a range of environmental conditions. To date, SEJ has not been applied widely in ecological studies (but see Bamber and Aspinall, 2013;Rothlisberger et al, 2010Rothlisberger et al, , 2012Teck et al, 2010;Wittmann et al, 2014Wittmann et al, , 2015. Nonetheless, over the last 20 years, the approach has been used to successfully estimate uncertainty in many disciplines including nuclear safety, volcanic forecasting, and human health (Cooke and Goossens, 2008); and it is well established within the discipline of risk assessment.…”

“…SEJ has been used widely in the field of decision science to inform management decisions where empirical data are lacking or are impossible to collect (e.g., Bamber and Aspinall, 2013;Cooke and Goossens, 2004;Rothlisberger et al, 2012;Wittmann et al, 2014Wittmann et al, , 2015.…”