Aquatic invasions in the Black, Caspian, and Mediterranean seas : the ctenophores Mnemiopsis leidyi and Beroe in the Ponto-Caspian and other aquatic invasions

the Mediterranean, Black, And Caspian Seas Represent Three Fragments Of The Former Tethys Sea, And Are Thus Of Great Interest To Understanding The Evolution Of The Entire Region Where Eurasia, Africa And The Arabian Peninsula Meet. Fishing Activity And Maritime Traffic Through The Dardanelles And Bosporus, And Via The Lenin Canal To The Caspian Sea, Have Greatly Intensified. Moreover, All Major European Rivers Are Now Linked By Canals, Meaning That Ships Can Navigate From The Mouth Of The Volga To The Baltic, From The Danube To The Rhine, And From There To All Other Major European Rivers. Such An Anastomosed System Not Only Allows Ships To Pass Between Basins: Biota Follow In Their Wake, And Thus The Black Sea And Caspian Fauna And Flora, Long Sequestered In Their Closed Basins, Are Suddenly Given An Opportunity To Escape. On The Other Hand, Alien Invaders Increasingly Find Their Way To The Three Seas,as Stowaways In Ballast Water Tanks Or Attached To The Hulls. Some Of The Newcomers Expanded To Enormous Numbers In The Receiving Ecosystem, Where They May Cause Great Economic Damage. the Book Provides An Up-to-date Overview Of The Situation In The Ponto-caspian With Regard To The Jelly Invasions That Have Been Perturbing The Local Pelagic Ecosystems Since The Early 1980s, Contrasting That With Biological Invasions Elsewhere, To Try And Identify General Underlying Principles. The present volume contains the presentations of a NATO advanced Research Workshop (ARW) entitled “The invasion of the Black, Mediterranean and Caspian Seas by the American Ctenophore, Mnemiopsis leidyi Agassiz: a multidisciplinary perspective and a comparison with other aquatic invasions”, held on 24 - 26 June 2002 in Baku (Azerbaijan). The meeting was ?nanced by the NATO Division for Scienti?c and Environmental Affairs (Brussels); substantial logistic support was provided by the CEP (Caspian Environmental Program) of the GEF in Baku. The Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas represent three fragments of the former Tethys Sea, and are thus of great interest to understanding the evolution of the entire region where Eurasia, Africa and the Arabian Peninsula meet. While the Mediterranean is a typical marine environment, with salinity even a little above the world ocean’s, the Black Sea is a brackish meromictic lake, and the Caspian is a lake with a saline gradient extending from a freshwater basin in the North to a brackish water basin in the South. Intense ?shing activity takes place in all three seas, while maritime traf?c through the Dardanelles and Bosporus, and via the Lenin Canal (between the Don and Volga rivers) to the Caspian Sea has become greatly intensi?ed in the course of the last few decades.