Invasive Species Ride Tsunami Debris To US Shore 173
An anonymous reader writes "When a floating dock the size of a boxcar washed up on a sandy beach in Oregon, beachcombers got excited because it was the largest piece of debris from last year's tsunami in Japan to show up on the West Coast.
But scientists worried it represented a whole new way for invasive species of seaweed, crabs and other marine organisms to break the earth's natural barriers and further muck up the West Coast's marine environments. And more invasive species could be hitching rides on tsunami debris expected to arrive in the weeks and months to come."
Re:"break the earth's natural barriers" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Attention, "Fittest": (Score:5, Interesting)
Answers (Score:5, Interesting)
1) where does "driftwood" come from then? I'm nearly certain that land-species (to say nothing of aquatic ones) have been migrating all over the world through all sorts of avenues probably about as likely or frequent as the washing up of what happens-this-time-to-be-a-manmade-object.
I grew up around 10,000 lakes and was taught that burning driftwood is a very bad idea as it contains chlorine which is, in part, why they look bone white. If a tree falls into water and becomes driftwood, it usually loses its outer layer of bark and all of its leaves. On top of that, any animal that doesn't like chlorine probably wouldn't survive on it. Go pick up a piece of driftwood and look for barnacles ... usually all you'll find are ants and insects that have inhabited it after it washes back up. And, like you would assume, long ago anything that could live in driftwood has probably long ago made the journey by chance. So the key difference with docks is that they are often loaded with barnacles. Many of them that are in bays or calm enough water are floating boxes of wood that are chained together and simply anchored in the beach. They are flat, they often contain tons of organisms seeking shelter on the beach and when they are in water, they often have one side exposed to air (or they wouldn't be used as docks). Sure, some of these have come loose over time but what you had was thousands of them during the tsunami. So that's why the scientists are concerned and, given the large number of objects you can imagine, they may have good reason to be concerned. I don't think anyone's suggesting you quit your job and walk up and down the shore line throwing GPS devices down for the US to nuke from space but locals should take note of strange new insects or anything if they notice them.
2) Not sure if you were joking, if so my apologies in advance for taking you literally. Of course, anyone who is interested in facts is aware that the 'great pacific garbage patch' (a colossal and deliberately sensational overstatement) is an area of sea where the density of microscopic plastic particulates is 'as high as' a single-digit number per cubic meter of water. I know a lot of people were fooled by environmentalists' clever 'accidental (?) misappropriation' of a picture of some plastic trash floating in the water into thinking that's what the patch is. It's effectively some water where there's a little more plastic DUST.
I was not joking and I would like to simply point out that what you call "plastic dust" is actually matter and some of it is solid and was not there a hundred years ago. I cheated and I didn't say when this transformation was complete so I could be talking about fifty years or five hundred years from now -- on the other hand I also didn't say which animals and some of them don't need a solid land bridge and are perfectly capable of swimming and have adventured far and wide up the and down the Asian coast. Others are insects that just might need something solid in water to lay eggs on and then a food source. Also, let's not make this sound like some nice homogenous even flowing plastic -- it's full of garbage and shit bigger than your "dust" [nationalgeographic.com] (and that's a Natgeo album, not some treehugger crap). The fact is that unless we stop dumping, at some point it's going to get full and solid enough to start ejecting crap into the currents that line the shores of continent(s) and that's when you will need to take notice of transcontinental species migration.
Knowledge is power. France is bacon.
Re:Attention, "Fittest": (Score:4, Interesting)
Sink, yes... not so sure about rot.
I often visit lake Lewisville, and the top end of the lake (the old Lake Dallas) was impounded about 100 years ago now. The trees are STILL THERE. They rot down to the water level, then stay there as nearly invisible hazards to boaters...