Your collection marking 150 years of Nature (go.nature.com/3481arj) makes no mention of a contribution to your first issue concerning the Suez Canal, which also celebrates its 150th anniversary this month. A letter to the editor suggested that the canal developers could have flooded Egypt’s Lake Timsah, through which the canal passes, with fresh water from the Nile to render the desert fertile (see T. Login Nature 1, 24; 1869).

The Suez Canal is one of the world’s greatest vectors for invasive marine species, conveying them from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea in a process known as Lessepsian migration (named after the canal’s chief developer, Ferdinand de Lesseps). This damage to the Mediterranean’s ecology has affected human health and economy (see B. S. Galil et al. Biol. Invasions 17, 973–976; 2015).

Login’s idea, which preceded the concept of biological invasion, has since been largely forgotten. In our view, it would be worth revisiting and adapting to prevent further introductions as the canal expands, for example by forming freshwater and/or hypersaline barriers. The latter could be recreated using brine from Egypt’s new desalination plants to increase the salinity of the Bitter Lakes that lie farther south along the canal.