Construction and application of a quantitative risk assessment system for potential pathogen of introduced marine animals

Biological invasion is considered to be an important factor in destroying the biodiversity of global aquatic ecosystems. Invasive alien species (IAS) not only directly affect the development of agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries worldwide, but also the potential pathogens carried by IAS may cause even greater damage to aquaculture development, human health, and the ecological environment. Therefore, risk assessment of potential pathogens that may be carried by IAS is particularly important. In this study, we focused on marine ecosystems and based our analysis on the characteristics of marine ecosystems. We analyzed the characteristics of commonly introduced marine animals and their pathogens worldwide and constructed a potential pathogen risk assessment system for introduced marine animals with five primary assessment indicators, 14 secondary assessment indicators and 55 tertiary assessment indicators based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Concurrently, this assessment system would be used to conduct quantitative risk assessments on six representative pathogens introduced by alien marine animals (widely distributed and including bacteria, fungi, viruses, parasitic protozoa, etc.) in the People's Republic of China. The quantitative potential pathogen risk assessment of the introduced marine animals via the risk assessment model system can efficiently and accurately grasp the risks of unknown pathogens that may be introduced, providing a solid theoretical basis for a scientific introduction of this topic and providing a practical and feasible decision-making basis for preventing the transmission of pathogens from introduced marine animals and for the protection of marine ecological environments.