The Study of Biological Invasions in Marine Ecosystems during the Period of Shifts in Research Paradigms

The tradition to categorize species by their origin into “local, native” and “introduced, alien” is rooted in the pre-Darwin era based on the concept of biotic “nativeness”. Some species (“native”) inhabit the given territory “by right” and can be referred to as “good”, while others (“strangers”) do not have such rights and, consequently, are “bad”. This division is based on the principle “guilty until proven innocent”, which is currently applied to environmental management of non-native species. This and other “dogmas” of modern invasion ecology are briefly summarized in the paper. It has been shown that opposing views on the solution of problems associated with biological invasions have been increasingly expressed in recent years, and the scientific community is being urged to judge species not by their origin, but by their functions. It is obvious that the avalanche-like accumulation of new facts about the transfer of organisms from one to others, changes that they cause, social reactions to them, political context of the “struggle” with alien invasive species, etc. leads to the need to revise the research paradigm of invasion ecology. One of the most urgent tasks is to learn to objectively evaluate the impact, both adverse and positive, of invasive species on human health, economy, ecosystem functions and environment in order to develop clear criteria for decision making on management of biological invasions.