On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake off the east coast of Japan rocked the country’s Tohoku region and generated tsunami waves with heights reaching 40 meters. In the ensuing days, buoys, fishing vessels, four large fisheries docks, and more were launched into the Pacific Ocean. The provenance of that detritus can be determined from explicit markings and other, more subtle forensic clues. And now a team led by James Carlton of Williams College has documented that the debris has carried at least 289 living species—including mollusks, crustaceans, and fish—from Japan to the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific coast of North America; the photo shows one arrival, a barred knifejaw fish stowed in the stern well of a fishing vessel from the Iwate prefecture. Indeed, new species have continued to arrive at least up until February of this year, the most recent date considered by Carlton and company.
Organisms...
