Tsunami-driven rafting: Transoceanic species dispersal and implications for marine biogeography

Abstract

Long-distance life rafting When coastal ecosystems are affected by storms or tsunamis, organisms can be rafted across oceans on floating debris. However, such events are rarely observed, still less quantified. Carlton et al. chart the rafting journeys of coastal marine organisms across the Pacific Ocean after the 2011 East Japan earthquake and tsunami (see the Perspective by Chown). Of the nearly 300 mainly invertebrate species that reached the shores of the U.S. Pacific Northwest, most arrived attached to the remains of manmade structures. Science , this issue p. 1402 ; see also p. 1356