Mediterranean Seeing New Species By ANNIE RUDERMAN .c The Associated Press ROME (AP) - The Mediterranean is on its way to becoming a tropical aquarium, with 110 newcomer species from the tropics threatening to crowd out native species less suited to the ever-warmer and more polluted water, experts warned today. Biologists spotted the Mediterranean's first species of tropical fish in 1902, three decades after the opening of the Suez Canal. Since then, 55 Red Sea species have made their way in via the canal, said experts from Italy's Central Institute for Scientific Research and Applied Technology for the Sea. The institute experts sounded their warning at a Rome news conference. ``The tropical fish, having evolved in conditions of rapid natural change in highly competitive environments like the Red Sea, can easily spread in the Mediterranean,'' said Franco Andaloro, author of the study. ``In the future, the competition with Mediterranean species in terms of habitat selection, the search for food, and reproductive success could lead, in extreme conditions, to the extinction of the weaker species,'' Andaloro said. Scores of other tropical species have found other routes into the Mediterranean, some through the Gilbraltar Straits and others in or on ships. While the 530 indigenous species have been weakened by increasing pollution and overfishing, the brightly colored newcomers are thriving. Global warming has raised the temperature of the sea by about 1 degree in the last decade, a boon for the migrant species. The influx is reordering the food chain, and thus the ecology, of the sea, the study warned. ``The most disturbing aspect of this phenomenon consists of the impact on the ecosystem in the western and central Mediterranean,'' the research institute said.
