Tel Aviv University researchers say they have found the three Red Sea fish species that are the likeliest candidates to move into the swiftly warming Mediterranean through the Suez Canal in the near future, spotting the potential invaders before they join dozens of other swimmers that have wreaked ecological havoc off Israel’s coast in past years.

In a peer-reviewed study, the researchers developed pioneering statistical and ecological modeling, combined with extensive underwater observations, to predict that the stellate puffer, the cinnabar goatfish, and the yellowspotted trevally were the most likely to migrate from their native Red Sea habitat to the Mediterranean.

While they cannot yet predict when a potential invasion might take place, the researchers believe their breakthrough model can be an important tool to help authorities and marine scientists detect potential newcomers early enough to plan proactive conservation management.

“If we understand the process, and can predict which fish are going to be invasive, then we’ll be better prepared,” Prof. Jonathan Belmaker of Tel Aviv University’s School of Zoology, who supervised the study, told The Times of Israel.

None of the three have been spotted in Mediterranean or Suez waters yet, but two of the potential culprits could throw undersea ecosystems off balance while the third is toxic to humans if eaten.

The study was led by Shahar Chaikin as part of his doctoral research at Tel Aviv University and appeared in The Journal of Animal Ecology. Additional contributors included Tal Gavriel, doctoral student Avery Deveto, and Shahar Malamud.

Dropping old habitats

The Suez Canal was built to help trade and ships, but it has also enabled hundreds of marine creatures, including fish, jellyfish and marine plants, to wander from the Indian and Red Seas to the Mediterranean, in a phenomenon known as Lessepsian migration, named for the canal’s French developer, Ferdinand de Lesseps.

Aside from those that swim through on their own, some fish reach the Mediterranean by traveling inside cargo ship ballast water tanks. When empty ships take on seawater in the Red Sea for stability, fish larvae and eggs are sucked into the ballast tanks, hitching a ride to the Mediterranean, where they can seed successful colonies.

With the Eastern Mediterranean Sea heating up twice as fast as the global average, the pace of sea creatures migrating through the canal has sped up as well. More fish species reached the Mediterranean in the first 20 years of the 21st century than during the entire 20th century due to traffic in the canal and climate warming.

The Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute’s latest report shows that temperatures in........

© The Times of Israel