Marine Bioinvasions Facilitated by Artificial Structures: Implications for Biodiversity and Sustainable Infrastructure Design

The development of artificial structures, offshore platforms, ports, and artificial reefs has significantly altered marine ecosystems, inadvertently facilitating marine bioinvasions. These structures provide settlement substrates and refugia for invasive species (NIS), accelerating their dissemination through ballast water, hull fouling, and biofouling communities. Bioinvasions disrupt indigenous biodiversity, alter trophic interactions, and threaten ecosystem stability. They also generate socio-economic expenses for fisheries, aquaculture, tourism, and infrastructure maintenance. Notable gaps in knowledge, particularly about long-term ecosystem alteration and local management practices, are highlighted by the findings. Mitigation needs multi-disciplinary answers in terms of ecological engineering, biosecurity policies, and policy measures. Antifouling surfaces and bioinvasion-proof adaptations represent design solutions that offer hope toward sustainable infrastructure. Marine infrastructure construction has to be harmonized with the conservation of biodiversity. Management must be based on international cooperation, new monitoring approaches, and adaptive policies to reduce NIS establishment. Integrated ecological modeling, stakeholder engagement, and technology-based monitoring need to be prioritized in future research to ensure maximum prevention and mitigation of bioinvasion.