Temporal modelling of ballast water discharge and ship-mediated invasion risk to Australia

Biological invasions have the potential to cause extensive ecological and economic damage. Maritime trade facilitates biological invasions by transferring species in ballast water, and on ships' hulls. With volumes of maritime trade increasing globally, efforts to prevent these biological invasions are of significant importance. Both the International Maritime Organization and the Australian government have developed policy seeking to reduce the risk of these invasions. In this study, we constructed models for the transfer of ballast water into Australian waters, based on historic ballast survey data. We used these models to hindcast ballast water discharge over all vessels that arrived in Australian waters between 1999 and 2012. We used models for propagule survival to compare the risk of ballast-mediated propagule transport between ecoregions. We found that total annual ballast discharge volume into Australia more than doubled over the study period, with the vast majority of ballast w...生物入侵（biological invasions）具有引发大规模生态破坏与经济损失的潜在风险。海运贸易通过压载水（ballast water）与船体外板转运物种，促进了生物入侵的发生。随着全球海运贸易规模持续扩大，防范此类生物入侵的工作意义重大。国际海事组织（International Maritime Organization, IMO）与澳大利亚政府均已制定相关政策，旨在降低此类入侵事件的风险。本研究基于历史压载水调查数据，构建了针对澳大利亚海域的压载水转运模型。研究团队利用上述模型，对1999年至2012年间抵达澳大利亚海域的所有船舶的压载水排放情况进行了后推模拟。我们借助繁殖体（propagule）存活模型，对比了不同生态区（ecoregions）间由压载水介导的繁殖体传播风险。研究发现，在本研究覆盖的时段内，输入澳大利亚海域的年度压载水总排放量增长了一倍以上，且绝大多数压载水……