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OBIS partners with the University of the South Pacific for a Marine Invasive Species Project

The OBIS secretariat is proud to announce that they are working on a new project dealing with marine alien invasive species (AIS) called the Pacific Islands Marine Bioinvasions Alert Network, or PacMAN for short. OBIS is partnering with The University of the South Pacific’s (USP) Institute of Applied Sciences (IAS) as the key Pacific research partner in this new research initiative. This 3-year project is co-funded by the Flanders Government (Belgium) through the Flanders-UNESCO Science Trust Fund (USD865,000) and the Richard Lounsbery Foundation (USD80,000).

The project’s overall goal is to build ocean science capacity for the early detection and rapid response to marine bioinvasions in Pacific Small Island Development State (PSIDS) using a range of different and novel molecular technologies. The project’s overall goal is to build ocean science capacity for the early detection and rapid response to marine bioinvasions in Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) using a range of different and novel molecular technologies

PacMAN will put Fiji at the forefront of these developments and jump-start a new perspective on marine biodiversity. This pilot project in Fiji is expected to develop a desktop decision support tool for marine biodiversity monitoring and biosecurity risk management to expand the use of these tools to other PSIDS.

Senior Scientist at IAS and PacMAN’s local Project Manager , Mr Joape Ginigini said “Our unit at IAS, The Pacific Natural Products Research Centre is excited to work on this new project to further develop its technical capacity through the use of the project’s novel technologies as well as through the scientific and technical support from the international collaborators available to help us deliver necessary innovative and holistic approaches to meet the country and the region’s biodiversity conservation goals.”

Photo - PacMAN stakeholder consultation meeting for USP and Senior Officers from the Biosecurity Authority of Fiji.

Mr Ginigini thanked all the stakeholders and said he looked forward to the continued guidance of the PacMAN advisory board and their commitment to the conservation of Fiji’s unique biodiversity.

Deputy Director of IAS and PacMAN Local Marine Science Advisor, Dr Gilianne Brodie said, “invasive marine species are threats to food and economic security in the Pacific as they can take over areas used for supporting fisheries, in addition to open ocean aquaculture and biological diversity that delivers vital economic services to humans.”

She said that any decreased biodiversity caused by Introduced Alien Species, combined with the cost of managing them in both production and subsistence sectors, can negatively affect people and countries on a large scale via economic productivity loss.

Dr Saara Suominen, Scientific Officer for the PacMAN project at UNESCO said “We envision that building capacity in Fiji and the Pacific Islands in novel molecular methods for biodiversity surveillance will assist the monitoring and surveillance agencies to manage the essential services provided by the marine environment. We will perform baseline surveys of marine biodiversity, and additionally, these methods will facilitate the detection of otherwise invisible threats from the changing conditions on our planet.”

General PacMAN coordinator at UNESCO, Mr Ward Appeltans added that he is excited to develop this science capacity in Fiji, building on the local expertise already available and connect the science with society and local authorities.

“If we can make this work, Fiji will be one of the first countries in the world that has a marine invasive species detection system using the latest advances in molecular biology,” he said. PacMAN is about ensuring biodiversity preservation in Pacific Island marine ecosystems for their sustainable utilisation by humans of its many economic and ecosystems services.

Invasive marine species are also threats to native plants and animals in marine areas and are most likely to be introduced via shipping and hull fouling. Reduced native biodiversity and negative effects on natural ecosystems’ functioning can alter benefits from local services such as fresh food diversity, water quality, pathogen reduction for human health and centuries-old medicinal species that can affect production and cultural harvests in communities.

Photo - Ships docked in Suva Harbor. They are the primary vehicle for invasive species spread globally.

The project is built on strong local stakeholder engagement, while utilizing the expertise on data management of OBIS to provide a full monitoring workflow. In addition, molecular occurrence data from PacMAN will be some of the first DNA data to be added to OBIS, paving the way for integrating eDNA occurrences to OBIS on a large scale in the future.

Further information on the project is available at https://pacman.obis.org/