The spread and invasion of many nonindigenous species in the ship’s ballast water around the world has been a hazard and threat to ecology, economy, and human health. The rapid and accurate detection of marine invasive species in ship’s ballast water is essential. This article is aimed at analysing ballast water quality by means of a changeable microfluidic chip detector thus comply with the D-...

treatment Esteban M. Paolucci*, Marco R. Hernandez, Alexei Potapov, Mark A. Lewis and Hugh J. MacIsaac Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Av., Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada; and Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, 632 Central Academic Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2G1,Canada; and Department of Biological Science...

The most important oyster farming area in Europe is in a close proximity of two medium size merchant ports. Cargo ships deballast in this area before loading, releasing unwanted or noxious marine species. During a sampling campaign aboard these arriving ships, we found in some ballast water samples a huge number of potentially toxic dinoflagellates and some potentially pathogenic bacteria. A mo...

The Indo-Pacific Red Lionfish was first reported off the Florida coast in 1985, following which it has spread across much of the SE USA, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea. Lionfish negatively impact fish and invertebrate assemblages and abundances, thus further spread is cause for concern. To date, the fish has not been reported on the Pacific coast of North or Central America. Here we examine ...

Ballast water has been a major source of non-indigenous species introductions. The International Maritime Organization has proposed performance standard that will establish an upper limit for viable organisms in discharged ballast. Here we test different sampling efforts for zooplankton in ballast water on a commercial vessel. We fit different probability density functions to find the most repr...

The North American Great Lakes have been invaded and dramatically altered by more than 145 alien species. Many invasions have occurred during the past few decades because of the release of Eurasian ballast water from transoceanic ships. Current regulations require ships to exchange foreign ballast with highly saline water before entering the Great Lakes; this procedure should prevent colonizati...

To evaluate a rapid and cost-effective method for monitoring bacteria in ballast water, several marine bacterial isolates were characterized by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Since International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulations are concerned with the unintended transportation of pathogenic bacteria through ballast water, empha...

Invasive species introduced via the ballast water of commercial ships cause enormous environmental and economic damage worldwide. Accurate monitoring for these often microscopic and morphologically indistinguishable species is challenging but critical for mitigating damages. We apply eDNA sampling, which involves the filtering and subsequent DNA extraction of microscopic bits of tissue suspende...

A literature search was conducted to summarize studies that quantified the efficacy of ballast water exchange. Here, a number of parameters were collated from 68 studies to provide a meta-analysis of the efficacy of exchange. The percent removal of ballast water, organisms, and various physical parameters was investigated to quantify exchange efficacy in terms of volumetric, biological, and wat...