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Invasive micro-organisms and Harmful Algal Bloom of Caspian Sea in Iranian waters
and their effect on the environment (a mini review)
Savari, S.
Researcher, Development Center, Science and Technology Park, Khorramshahr Marine Science and
Technology University, Khorramshahr, Khuzestan, Iran
Abstract
Invasive species are factors thought to be contributing to ecosystem stress, loss
of biodiversity and
depleted fisheries. Invasive species have direct and indirect impacts on many ecosystem components,
including productive fisheries and the economy. In the last two decades various invasive micro-
organisms have affected the Caspian Sea and have impacted certain amount of loss on the environment
and other species such as fish, zooplankton and phytoplankton. Some of the invasive species introduced
to the Caspian
Sea include the cyanobacteria Nodularia spumigena and
the Ctenophores
Mnemiopsis
leidyi and
Beroe ovata. The occurrence of this phenomenon in the Caspian Sea is important and
indicates an alarming signal on the well-being of the Caspian environment and leads to mass mortality of
Caspian seals and fish species, as well as the sharp decline in sturgeon stocks.
Key words: Invasive species, harmful algal bloom,
Caspian Sea,
Nodularia spumigena, Mnemiopsis leidyi
Introduction
The Caspian Sea, the largest landlocked body of water in the world with an area of 386,400 square
kilometers and 7,250 kilometers of coastline is under severe environmental threats. The southern
Caspian water basin with an area of 17,700 square kilometers (7% of the total Caspian water basin)
provides about 5% of incoming waters to the Caspian Sea. The rapid growth of population in the
Caspian
water basin is one of the factors threatening its aquatic biota. Algal blooms in the south Caspian Sea
were previously reported. In 2005
a bloom of the cyanobacteria Nodularia spumigena extended over an
area of 2 km
2
. Bloom of
Nodularia spumigena appeared as masses of cotton like opaque filamentous
algae easily visible to the naked eye with 90% of the algae being
N. spumigena. The occurrence of Bloom
of
Nodularia spumigena in the Caspian Sea is important and could indicate an alarming signal on the
well-being of the Caspian environment. It is possible that the formation of algal blooms in the Caspian
Sea is related to other phenomena like mass mortality of Caspian seals and fish species, as well as the
sharp decline in sturgeon stocks (CEP, 2006).
In addition to
Nodularia spumigena, other species such as the Ctenophores Mnemiopsis leidyi and
Beroe ovata also had an invasive bloom history during late 1990’s (1999) and early years of 2000 (2001-
2004) (Roohi and Sajadi, 2011). In the early 1980s, the comb jelly
Mnemiopsis leidyi, a ctenophore that
normally resides off the eastern United States, was accidentally introduced into the Black Sea via ballast
waters from cargo ships. This voracious zooplanktonic predator (with extremely high rates of
reproduction and growth) reached enormous biomass levels (a few hundred million tons for the
entire
basin!) devastating the pelagic (i.e. in water column) food chain in the entire Black Sea basin by the end
of 1980s (Vinogradov et al., 1989). One of the dramatic consequences of the
M. leidyi invasion was the
sharp drop (from about 630,000 tons in 1988 to steadily 150,000 tons in 1991) in commercial catches of
planktivorous fish (mainly the anchovy Engraulis encrasicolus L.) in the Black Sea (Kideys 1994; Prodanov
et al., 1997). The yearly economical damage to the fisheries sector alone were estimated to be about
46