Page 2 - Klaoudatos_Kapiris_2016

Mediterranean in ballast tanks from the north-east coast of the USA and has been
widely recorded in different Mediterranean regions.
The negative effects of alien species in fishery, in tourism, in local economy,
in human health, in other socio-economic activities and, mainly, in the biodiversity
have triggered the social and scientific media to take some precautions against the
dispersal of aliens among regions or among localities within a particular region.
(4,000-35,000 Words)

Introduction
The Mediterranean Sea: Description of the environment
The Mediterranean Sea is unique, being a semi-enclosed marginal Sea, with a narrow
connection with the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar, the manmade
connection to the Red Sea via the Suez Canal and the narrow Bosphorus Strait
connecting it to the smaller enclosed Black Sea (Lascaratos et al., 1999; Turley,
1999). The Strait of Gibraltar restricts the exchange of Atlantic and Mediterranean
waters, which has an important role to play in the circulation and productivity of the
Mediterranean Sea. It contains some of the most extreme oligotrophic waters in the
world (Dugdale and Wilkerson, 1988).
The general thermohaline circulation of the Mediterranean is determined by
the flux of incoming Atlantic water by the Gibraltar Straits and by the sinking of
waters formed at the three coldest areas of the sea: the Gulf of Lions, the northern
Adriatic and the North Aegean Sea. Over the past three decades, this general pattern
has been disrupted in several ways (Lejeusne et al., 2010) (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the thermohaline circulation in the Mediterranean Sea.
(Lascaratos et al., 1999).

The negative freshwater and heat budgets of the Mediterranean basin drive its
lagoonal (anti-estuarine) thermohaline circulation and determine its hydrological