Fast-growing kelp invades San Francisco Bay
July 10, 2009 By JASON DEAREN , Associated Press Writer(AP) -- A fast-growing kelp from the Far East has spread along the California coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco Bay, worrying marine scientists and outpacing eradication efforts.
In May, scientists for the first time found the invasive seaweed called Undaria pinnatifida clinging to docks at a yacht harbor in San Francisco Bay, fouling boat hulls and pier pilings.
"I was walking in San Francisco Marina, and that's when I saw the kelp attached to a boat," said Chela Zabin, a biologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Tiburon, Calif.
"It was six-foot long, and there is nothing here in the bay that gets to that size," Zabin said. "I didn't want to believe what it was, it's depressing."
Before Zabin's discovery, ocean scientists believed the northward spread of the invasive kelp had been stopped at Monterey Bay. But funding for eradication dried up last year, forcing federal officials to rely on volunteers.
The seaweed - known as wakame by Japanese food lovers and used in miso soup - was first discovered in Los Angeles Harbor in 2000.
A year later the kelp, which can grow an inch a day as it creates dense underwater forests, showed up at Catalina Island, off the Los Angeles coastline, and Monterey Bay.
Studies have concluded the kelp was likely introduced to California by accidental transport on shipments of oysters, vessel hulls and people who cultivated it in the region for cooking.
On Thursday, four divers spent hours at Pier 40 on San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf peeling pieces of kelp off of the docks, yachts and pier pilings. But few believe the effort removed all traces of the seaweed. Scientists will be checking monthly for signs of further spread.
"If it's restricted to two docks in the marinas in San Francisco Bay, we'll have a chance," Zabin said. "If it's spread beyond those places, it may be a lost cause."
The seaweed concerns marine biologists because it can damage fragile ocean ecosystems by choking off the sunlight needed by native kelps. The native kelp forests provide key habitat for otters, fish and other marine life.
The seaweed spreads by releasing millions of spores that are dispersed by currents and can travel miles. While it is native to Japan, China and Korea, studies have found the kelp in the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Coast of Europe, New Zealand and Argentina.
Because of its wide range, it has been nominated as among 100 of the world's worst invaders, according to the Global Invasive Species Database.
Scientists say the waters from Baja California to British Columbia are the perfect temperature for Undaria to spread even further up the Pacific Coast of the United States.
For about six years, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has organized monthly volunteer diving efforts to yank the stubborn kelp out of Monterey harbor to help root out the kelp.
The program helped, but failed to stop the kelp from entering San Francisco Bay, scientists say.
"This is not well studied enough, and we're really quite nervous about it getting out in the ecosystem," Zabin said. "It will attach to about anything."
©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Jan 01, 2007 |
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So, how does that make the kelp invasive? I see so much of this kind of pseudoscientific drivel, hype posing as science. If people have, or are spreading, it, the kelp is not the invasive organism here. Humans are the invasive organism. Plants and animals just do what is in their genes: try to survive in whatever niche they happen to find themselves.
We have eaten sharks on to the threatened list.
Common reed Phragmites is the very best roofing material.
Wakame is tasty as salad or garnish. Garlic mustard makes fine pesto.
The best revenge on unrestrained nature is to consume it and convert it to fecal matter and sequestered carbon.
This is ridiculous! Yes, humans could fairly be considered a virus or the most invasive species the planet has ever seen. That doesn't give you an argument against THIS being an invasive species. Most invasive species [b]are[/b] inadvertently transported by humans. What makes them invasive is the fact that when they get their, they destroy or significantly disrupt the native ecosystem. See: Rats on Easter Island.
Lari, you are the reason why environmental movements are not mainstream or even effective.
Human activity brought the species here. The fact it didn't die and is now displacing other flora and fauna is why it is an invasive species.
There isn't a truly invasive species, just a species the out performs other species in an environment.
Invasive species is the term that humans, like you, use to define the characteristics upon arrival to a new location.
Lari, do you have any children?
An invasive is a species that had a given barrier (biological, geological, etc.) that indefinitely prevented it's "natural" progression (as is possible defined by it's current developmental capabilities) into a given ecosystem. When it arrives in that ecosystem via the "unnatural" mechanism of human-facilitated (protected, long distance) transport, a trip that was otherwise not within it's biological capability, whether intended or not, that makes it invasive.
There are parameters that are used to define invasives. They are based on the relationship between all species' developmental biology in a given ecosystem (itself defined by physical and biological parameters) as they relate to each other at a given temporal evolutionary modernality, when a new species is introduced.
An invasive species does not always out perform native species... but that does not make it any less an invasive, that species is still an invasive to that ecosystem. Sometimes they die, sometimes they exploit an empty niche, sometimes they disrupt the "native" ecosystem negatively.
It could certainly be argued that once an invasive is in a new ecosystem it is de facto now "native", but this does not occur without altering that ecosystem by definition as well.
Basically it's a descriptive tool which is part of the whole of this thing we use called language to relate things to one another to others, arguing the absolute semantic accuracy of it is pointless and sophomoric.
There are several species that adapt specifically for human transport. Would that make those species invasive or would that mean they had evolved to take advatage of prior unaccessible locations? It may be a subtle semantics argument but it's far from sophmoric, it's central to the statement.
Especially when someone states that human beings are an invasive species yet they continue to satisfy their biological drive to reproduce.
If that human transport is not an absolutely necessary part of these several species' life-history and successful reproduction, then it falls under the category of unnatural transport.
If such transport is an absolutely necessary and integral part of these several species' life-history, then it'd just be referred to as an exotic academically, as that just means it didn't originate from where it is now.
But while we're at it, I'd love to hear what these several species are. I'm sure you already know parasites, bacteria and viruses and the like don't count, as the host is then the ecosystem, right?
The sophomoric part was saying that there isn't truly such a thing as an invasive species.
man's best friend. The common dog would be a species that has evolved to cohabitate and be transported by human beings.
Secondly, the definition of invasive species is
All non-native species fit that definition to an extent, including species that find their suitable habitat range change due to environmental changes that may or may not be beyond human control. There are also many plant seeds that have evolved particular hooks so that they would become ingrained in animal fur/human hair and transported with a "host".
Just a hypothetical, let's say the traditional Maine lobster evolves a bit and follows the gulf stream to England. Is it an invasive species or not? I'd say it isn't, it's an adapted species, however, if it causes harm, even though through natural processes it entered a new ecosystem, it is classed as invasive.
Effectively, the term "invasive species" is junk. If a species enteres an ecosystem and has no natural predators, that's evolutionary advantage. Who are we to attempt to "steady state" the environment. That would be true arrogance.
Now, conversely, a species that is being displaced intentionally, through bilge tank dumping, exotic pet release, government re-location programs, etc. are invasive species, as it requires the human element to migrate.
The problem is, what if that species is already perfectly suited to migrate, as is the case with the article named kelp.
The kelp grows at an astounding rate, and it can adhere to any surface. One could say there's a very good chance it would have made its way here without human beings having ever existed. So at that point, is it an invasive species, or is it the natural progress of evolution?
So how exactly is it sophomoric? An invasive species is only an invasive species if we don't like it or like what it does, like a weed in our garden. So what if we actually didn't own the garden?
After all, the planet Earth isn't ours to control, or at least the environmental movement states so.
That really got under your skin didn't it... Vel, you are arguing the validity of an adjective being used as a descriptor meant to give context to another word in a given set of assumptions.
All you are going on about is the absolution of these context and the assumptions, when no one ever claimed they were absolute. That's sophomoric. I already acknowledged everything you're saying before you said it.
I let the anthropocentric context of invasive go in my OP because I don't find it particularly useful, so that was a misrepresentation, but that wasn't the point of my OP. I just wanted to outline the very concrete parameters to LariAnn and whoever else cared, to show it isn't a wholly arbitrary delineation from invasive or exotic to a native.
It's a term that is useful and only used in a given context with given assumptions, you arguing that it is junk because of the context is just sophomoric.
This latest post fixes that and I agree with your viewpoint.