The mitten crab may not strike terror into the hearts of the average American along the West Coast _ yet. But give the small crustacean a chance to mate in estuaries from San Diego to Seattle, and millions of mitten crabs later, the prospect of environmental damage, loss of native species and the potential multimillion-dollar cost to the Western regional economy may indeed be terrible, biologists warn.
On Tuesday, Portland State University and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center announced they are teaming up to prevent invasions by aquatic pests such as the mitten crab, a native of China.
"Don't bother with a scary Halloween movie," said state Sen. Joan Dukes, noting the crab has no natural predators on the West Coast and is already invading freshwater regions of California.
Dukes joined U.S. Rep. David Wu, a fellow Democrat, and Portland State President Daniel Bernstine at a ceremony to sign the agreement creating the new Aquatic Bioinvasion Research and Policy Institute.
"This really is a life-or-death issue for some communities economically," Dukes said.
The joint operation will combine the expertise of freshwater biologists at Portland State and the ocean research of Smithsonian scientists, said Mark Sytsma, director of the Portland State Center for Lakes and Reservoirs.
"I believe it will fundamentally change the approach to aquatic invasions," said Ross Simons, director of the Smithsonian environmental center.
Simons said the center will emphasize a broad approach to fighting aquatic pests by extending the battle beyond biologists who study the invaders to other scientists and organizations, including ecologists, engineers, natural resource managers and government policymakers.
The new institute will be jointly administered by Sytsma and Gregory Ruiz, director of the Smithsonian Marine Invasion Research Program.
Sytsma noted the threat from invasive species extends beyond contamination by international shipping traffic around the Pacific Rim to problems such as recreational boaters unwittingly carrying pests such as the zebra mussel to the West from Midwest lakes and rivers.
Wu said the new center may help the West avoid the problems suffered in the upper Midwest after the zebra mussel arrived in the Great Lakes in 1988 aboard ships from the Caspian Sea and began to multiply, clogging water systems and causing other problems that resulted in costly repairs.
The national economy, like the environment, can be damaged by regional problems, he said.
"What affects one area affects all of us," he said.
The list of issues for the new center includes:
_ Studying and mapping invasion patterns.
_ Ecological effects of biological invasions.
_ Policy, trade and economic impact.
_ Roles of shipping and other transfer mechanisms in species dispersal.
_ Transmission and effects of non-native parasites and pathogens, including those that infect humans, on fisheries and other aquatic organisms.
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On the Net:
_ Portland State University Center for Lakes and Reservoirs: http://www.clr.pdx.edu
_ Smithsonian Marine Invasion Research Laboratory: http://www.serc.si.edu