"This purpose of this study is to provide a baseline assessment of realized, potential, and unknown impacts for established nonindigenous species in the Great Lakes. An organism impact assessment (OIA) tool was developed in order to analyze the extent of each species' impact in a standardized manner. Following a thorough literature review, the OIA was used to rank the environmental impact, socio-economic impact, and beneficial effect of each species as high, moderate, low, or unknown. Importantly, this ranking system provides a method of identifying and comparing impacts across taxa and type of impact"--Introduction

Public Domain