[Quick$bux]

The world’s most famous research sub may have inadvertently been carrying invasive species between the deep-water sites it has spent decades studying.

Since its creation in 1964 the venerable Alvin submersible has performed thousands of dives and its successes include surveying the Titanic and probing the first discovered hydrothermal vents.

In 2004 a team of scientists using Alvin found 38 tiny limpets of a type normally seen on hydrothermal vents in samples they had grabbed from an area with no vents. In fact, they were hundreds of kilometres north of the known range of the species they found. Their conclusion: the animals had hitched a ride on Alvin after a previous dive. More at the Nature blog.

Janet Voight et al. have just published a paper in Conservation Biology about this. The paper's behind a paywall, so here's the abstract.

Scientific Gear as a Vector for Non-Native Species at eep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

Abstract
The fauna of deep-sea hydrothermal vents are among the most isolated and inaccessible biological communities on Earth. Most vent sites can only be visited by subsea vehicles, which can and do move freely among these communities. Researchers assume individuals of the regionally homogeneous vent fauna are killed by the change in hydrostatic pressure the animals experience when the subsea vehicles, which collected them, rise to the surface. After an Alvin dive, we found 38 apparently healthy individuals of a vent limpet in a sample from a hydrothermally inactive area. Prompted by our identification of these specimens as Lepetodrilus gordensis, a species restricted to vents 635 km to the south of our dive site, we tested whether they were from a novel population or were contaminants from the dive made 36 h earlier. The 16S gene sequences, morphology, sex ratio, bacterial colonies, and stable isotopes uniformly indicated the specimens came from the previous dive. We cleaned the sampler, but assumed pressure changes would kill any organisms we did not remove and that the faunas of the 2 areas were nearly identical and disease-free. Our failure to completely clean the gear on the subsea vehicle meant we could have introduced the species and any diseases it carried to a novel location. Our findings suggest that the nearly inaccessible biological communities at deep-sea vents may be vulnerable to anthropogenic alteration, despite their extreme physical conditions.

[newshep]

I dont believe they could have been so stoopid!

[pupyississido]

So much inadvertent contamination.
Who would ever have guessed.
:/
I suppose (now that I think about it) that I ought to be seriously cleaning my snorkelling gear?

[newshep]

So much inadvertent contamination.
Who would ever have guessed.
:/
I suppose (now that I think about it) that I ought to be seriously cleaning my snorkelling gear?

YES!!!! we always clean our gear - same with when you go bushwalking - always clean your boots.

[pupyississido]

YES!!!! we always clean our gear - same with when you go bushwalking - always clean your boots.

Yes I always do my boots with nasty stuff; I know about that, but hadn't considered needing to sterilise the snorkeling stuff.

I have only used it once, so at leat can't have spread anything yet, but will need to let H and M know about it too.

[KLhdfskja]

I dont believe they could have been so stoopid!

To give them credit though, at least they've realised the error of their ways.

[Biradallo]

I dont believe they could have been so stoopid!

That's what my Dad used to call "academic idiots" - good at the details, forget the big picture.

To be fair though, it's actually quite difficult to anticipate each and every hitch hiker that can get picked up on gear. The change in pressure along with the time out of water would commonly destroy the majority of animals that may have colonised the sub. I bet their biosecurity procedures were more thorough than a number of programmes I've worked on.

I vividly remember having to spray shovels with ethanol to prevent the possible spread of fungus. When I asked why we didn't have to do our boots as well, I got blank stares

I've seen thousands of dollars of wasted work effort chasing false positives because people haven't cleaned their gear properly after a field trip and their next samples are contaminated.

Scientists are human beings. They make mistakes.