DETROIT, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Two California-based researchers say organisms that latch onto the hulls of ocean-going vessels represent a potential danger to the Great Lakes.

John Drake and David Lodge came to that conclusion after finding more life forms than expected in samples taken from a single ocean-going vessel that entered the Great Lakes, The Detroit News reported Monday.

Known as biofouling, organisms that latch onto hulls were considered a second-tier concern because it was believed they wouldn't survive in the freshwater of the Great Lakes.

Yet Drake and Lodge's research uncovered eight species that previously had not been seen in the Great Lakes.

"Overall invasion risk from biofouling may be comparable or exceed that for ballast water discharge," the two employees of Environmental National Center for EcologicalAnalysis and Synthesis conclude.

In recent decades the Great Lakes have been invaded by a number of foreign fish, mollusks and viruses.

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