When biodiversity makes you sick

CATALOGING BIODIVERSITY: Workers examine soil in the Otonga rainforest for new taxa.

Courtesy: World Biodiversity Association, www.biodiversityassociation.org

For a group of Italian researchers who traveled to Ecuador in July, the damp earth of the Otonga rainforest held the promise of undiscovered species. But unbeknown to them, it was a species discovered long ago that would cause them trouble.

The expedition of zoologists and botanists from Italian museums and universities traveled within Ecuador from the middle of July to the middle of August. They collected soil and plant specimens from murky caves, hunting for species that had never been described by scientists. While in the Otonga rainforest, these scientists stayed at a base camp that frequently hosts teams of researchers. In the mornings, they awoke to find a small colony of bats flying nearby and guano sprinkled on the ground. The researchers spent their days searching in the treetops and under bushy plants for new species. Their journey also took them to La Isla De La Plata, an island 30 kilometers off the southwestern coast of Ecuador. There they scoured the rocky terrain and nesting sites of sea birds for new species of insects.

By the time they brought their samples back to Italy for closer inspection, 10 of the 27 researchers had developed fever, shortness of breath, fatigue, and sore throats with oral ulcerations. Four researchers also had multiple lung nodules. Andrea Angheben, the physician who treated many of the people on the expedition, diagnosed histoplasmosis, a respiratory infection caused by a fungus found in bat and bird excrement.

Thinking back to their trip, expedition chief Gianfranco Caoduro now realizes that the guano scattered all over the Otonga base camp may have been more than a morning greeting. "We didn't think it would be a problem, because we were here in 2004 with exactly the same conditions and we had no problem," he says. Caoduro also recalls that when some researchers were collecting samples on La Isla De La Plata, they commented that it had a lot of bird excrement. "I don't know if they contracted [histoplasmosis] there or in Otonga."

Based on the testimonies of the people who contracted the infection, says Angheben, the fungus was probably in the rainforest. Gianfranco Onore, director of the Otonga Foundation, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to preserving the Otonga rainforest, says he is trying to coordinate communication between members of the expedition and a clinic in Verona to test guano from the base camp for the fungus.

All the researchers with histoplasmosis have been treated for the infection with antifungal drugs. Though a few of them are still on medication, they are asymptomatic and ready to keep exploring.

Aside from the infections, the expedition was successful, says Caoduro, a teacher of natural science at il Liceo Montanari, a secondary school in Verona. He organized the expedition through the World Biodiversity Association. "We collected a lot of material, especially from the soil," he says, noting that the team discovered more than 50 new taxa.

During the next few months individual groups will publish their findings. Caoduro expects that these new organisms, along with those discovered on their previous expedition to Ecuador, will be compiled into a monograph called Biodiversity of South America I in September 2007. Smaller groups plan to return to the Otonga rainforest over the next few years, and a larger expedition of about twenty people will travel to South America in 2008, says Caoduro. They will go to remote areas of Brazil and Argentina to continue collecting new specimens.

Just a few months after being diagnosed with histoplasmosis, many of these same researchers wore masks while exploring some caves outside Verona. "They were full of bats," laughs Caoduro, "But we all went in."