| Summary: | The rapid pace of climate change and increased human disturbance of ecosystems in the Arctic is bringing urgency to concern over non-native species introductions and their potential threats to the marine environment and its economic productivity, where before environmental conditions served as a barrier to their establishment. The same characteristics that have previously made the Arctic less open to the establishment and spread of invasive species are ones that make the potential problem so expansive. At stake are unique species and co-evolved systems that have taken millennia to develop. Small perturbations in the fragile Arctic ecosystems are likely to have outsized impacts both ecologically and economically. This paper discusses the optimal management of invasive species threats as a process that begins before the arrival of any species, with prevention, and continues in an integrated fashion through phases of biological invasion to minimize overall damages and costs.
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