Alexandre Meinesz : Killer Algae

Two decades ago, a Stuttgart zoo imported a lush, bright green seaweed for its aquarium. Caulerpa taxifolia was captively bred by the zoo and exposed, for years, to chemicals and ultraviolet light. Eventually a sample of it found its way to the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, then headed by Jacques Cousteau. Fifteen years ago, while cleaning its tanks, that museum dumped the pretty green plant into the Mediterranean.

This supposedly benign little plant—that no one thought could survive the waters of the Mediterranean—has now become a pernicious force. Caulerpa taxifolia now covers 10,000 acres of the coasts of France, Spain, Italy, and Croatia, and has devastated the Mediterranean ecosystem. And it continues to grow, unstoppable and toxic. When Alexandre Meinesz, a professor of biology at the University of Nice, discovered a square-yard patch of it in 1984, he warned biologists and oceanographers of the potential species invasion. His calls went unheeded. At that point, one person could have pulled the small patch out and ended the problem. Now, however, the plant has defeated the French Navy, thwarted scientific efforts to halt its rampage, and continues its destructive journey into the Adriatic Sea.

Killer Algae is the biological and political horror story of this invasion. For despite Meinesz's pleas to scientists and the French government, no agency was willing to take responsibility for the seaweed, and while the buck was passed, the killer algae grew. And through it all, the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco sought to exculpate itself. In short, Killer Algae—part detective story and part bureaucratic object lesson—is a classic case of a devastating ecological invasion and how not to deal with it.

"[U]tterly fascinating, not only because of the ecological battles [Meinesz] describes but also because of the wondrous natural phenomena involved."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times

"Akin to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Killer Algae shows the courage of a voice in the wilderness."—Choice

"A textbook case of how not to manage an environmental disaster."—Kirkus Reviews

"Meinesz's story is a frightening one, reading more like a science fiction thriller than a scientific account."—Publishers Weekly

Amazon.com Review
It says something of modern times that a new branch of science should have had to come into being: "invasion biology." A flourishing division of conservation biology and ecology, invasion biology studies the ever-increasing introduction of alien species into new environments--the Chinese vine kudzu in the American South, for example, or the brown tree snake in Guam--where they rapidly displace native species and upset local balances of nature.

French scientist Alexandre Meinesz reports firsthand on his work in invasion biology in Killer Algae, a grim and frightening book. In it, Meinesz recounts a seemingly innocent transaction that has had appalling consequences. In 1980, a curator at the city zoo in Stuttgart, Germany, introduced a hybrid, cold-resistant variety of the alga Caulerpa taxifolia into the zoo's aquarium, where it proved to be a productive source of food. Encouraged, the curator sent a sample to the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, then headed by Jacques Cousteau. During a routine cleaning of aquarium tanks, a quantity of Caulerpa was dumped into the Mediterranean Sea. Meinesz, an expert on the alga, was called onto the scene when a museum worker noticed, some days later, that a mere bucketful had grown to cover a square yard. He suggested that the alga be removed, but his suggestion went unheeded. Now, nearly two decades later, the "beautiful stranger," as Meinesz calls it, has spread throughout the Mediterranean basin, covering some 10,000 acres and displacing native algae as it spreads. The result may be a wholesale remaking of the Mediterranean environment, already long victimized. Meinesz's sobering tale speaks much to the fragility of ecosystems--and to the short-sightedness of humans. --Gregory McNamee