| The present volume contains the presentations of a NATO advanced Research Workshop (ARW) entitled “The invasion of the Black, Mediterranean and Caspian Seas by the American Ctenophore, Mnemiopsis leidyi Agassiz: a multidisciplinary perspective and a comparison with other aquatic invasions”, held on 24 - 26 June 2002 in Baku (Azerbaijan). The meeting was financed by the NATO Division for Scientific and Environmental Affairs (Brussels); substantial logistic support was provided by the CEP (Caspian Environmental Program) of the GEF in Baku.
The Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas represent three fragments of the former Tethys Sea, and are thus of great interest to understanding the evolution of the entire region where Eurasia, Africa and the Arabian Peninsula meet. While the Mediterranean is a typical marine environment, with salinity even a little above the world ocean’s, the Black Sea is a brackish meromictic lake, and the Caspian is a lake with a saline gradient extending from a freshwater basin in the North to a brackish water basin in the South.
Intense fishing activity takes place in all three seas, while maritime traffic through the Dardanelles and Bosporus, and via the Lenin Canal (between the Don and Volga rivers) to the Caspian Sea has become greatly intensified in the course of the last few decades. Other events of interest are the 20th century achievement of linking of all major European rivers by canals, making it possible for ships to navigate from the mouth of the Volga to the Baltic, from the Danube to the Rhine, and from there to all other major European Rivers. Such an anastomosed system does not only allow ships to pass between basins, however. Biota follow in their wake, either by active migration, or by attaching to the hulls of ships, and thus the Black Sea and Caspian faunas and floras, long sequestered in their closed basins, all of a sudden were given an opportunity to “escape”. |