SETIU: Invasive fish species will not only cause ecological harm but also contribute to negative economic impact, said a researcher from Universiti Selangor.
Dr Intan Faraha A. Ghani from the Faculty of Engineering and Life Sciences said there are several ways to manage invasive species.
She said the finest way to control it is to prevent them from occurring in the first place.
"Don't introduce and spread, don't release your pet to our local waterways which will later lead to an enormous threat to our local ecosystem.
"Once invasive species are discovered in our ecosystem, limit the spread of established populations and develop an early detection as well as rapid response program to address new invasion.
"Manage and control it to lessen the harmful impacts. Managing invasive species is a shared responsibility. Be responsible," said the lecturer of fish biology and aquaculture.
She said research conducted on invasive species are still scarce and there is also a lack of coordination between government, non-governmental organisations, private sectors and universities to mitigate the problems caused by invasive species.
"Current sighting methods require long-term survey and large fish catchment to discover the impacts of invasive fishes, and these are labour intensive, expensive and need specialist skills.
"The environmental DNA (eDNA) marker is a relatively new approach used to monitor the distribution of species," she said.
She added that the method uses DNA-based identification, which will provide a rapid and robust method for determining presence and densities of invasive fish species without damaging the ecosystems.
"This method only requires collecting water samples directly from selected body of water(etc lake), and trapping the eDNA that remains in suspension.
"The use of eDNA methods for aquatic species has three major merits: reduced cost and work time for sampling, reduced disturbance impacts on habitats, and reduced safety risk for investigators during field surveys.
"A combination of both methods should be conducted in order to control and manage populations of invasive fish species."
She said other ways to manage and control invasive fish species is to use biological control by stocking and introducing native species to the area.
"Biological control will increase predation and intraspesific manipulation.
"However, risk analysis on the effect of new stocking should be identified to avoid future problem to the ecosystem," she said.
