Every day more than 10,000 marine species are swept up in the ballast water of ships and make their way across the globe. 1 When discharged into non-native waters, these species are able to damage infrastructure, disrupt commerce, out compete native species, reduce biodiversity, and threaten human health.2 The ecological losses are difficult to quantify; however, the direct and indirect economic costs have been measured at billions of dollars per year in the United States alone.3 Recognizing the severity of the problem, Congress directed the Coast Guard in 1996 to administer a ballast water program and issue guidelines.4 According to various interest groups, the aquatic invasive species problem persists today despite Coast Guard involvement because of inherent and technological limitations surrounding ballast water management (BWM).5 However, other groups believe that the crux of the problem is that the Coast Guard has simply not acted aggressively enough to address the problem. In March 2005, an environmental advocacy group, joined by six states, convinced a federal district court for the Northern District of California that the EPA had exceeded its statutory authority by exempting the discharge of ballast water from the control of the Clean Water Act (CWA)6 in the case of Northwest Environmental Advocates v. EPA.
Metabarcoding quantifies differences in accumulation of ballast water borne biodiversity among three port systems in the United States
