Marine fish invasions at the Panama Canal

Non-native species have the potential to cause deleterious ecological and economic impacts on the areas where they are introduced. Shipping canals are crucial in shortening modern-world maritime transportation routes but are also major passageways for non-native species. The Panama Canal is the most important maritime gateway of the Western Hemisphere connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The recent widening of this canal could increase the translocation of marine non-native species, including fishes, between these two oceans with unknown ecological and socio-economic consequences. In this talk, I will present: (i) an overview on this history of marine fish invasions at the Panama Canal, (ii) results of on-going investigations documenting new marine fish invasions in the canal using different sampling methodologies, (iii) the main factors that may be responsible for these invasions and (iv) future research directions that could help to better understand the mechanisms and consequences of marine invasions at the Panama Canal.