1. Australian Antarctic Data Centre
2. Discover and Manage Data
3. Records
4. ASAC_2904_Food

Description

International Polar Year (IPY) Aliens in Antarctica project aims to identify human-mediated pathways for alien propagules into the Antarctic ecosystem (www.aliensinantarctica.aq). As part of this international project, AAD staff examined fresh food and cargo for evidence of propagules prior to shipping south by the Australian Antarctic Program. This report summarises the findings of our food inspections.

A total of 2094 items of fresh fruit and/or vegetables were inspected over the season. Of these 89% (1865 items) were deemed 'clean' (ie no evidence of propagules or infections), 191 (9%0 had evidence of fungal infections, and 54 items (2%) had invertebrates, soil or other propagules such as seeds. Apples, cantaloupes, carrots, grapefruit, limes, oranges, potatoes and tomatoes were recorded as consistently having clean rates of 90% or greater over the 07/08 shipping season.

With regard to the food items found with propagules, a number of significant observations were made. The most notable of these was that of the 56 pears examined at the beginning of the season (Voyage 2) only one was deemed 'clean': the remainder (99%) were rotting with blue moulds. Similarly only 11% of onions destined for Voyage 2 and 49% of bananas were 'clean'; the remainder were observed with fungal infections or other propagules. Other notable observations were that some cabbages and iceberg lettuces were contaminated with soil, and live thrips and white flies (Bemisia sp?) were found in two boxes.

Quality

Fresh food items were examined for evidence of fungal infections, live invertebrates, presence of soil, seeds and any other biological propagules. Items were examined at the Purden and Featherstone warehouse (AAD's providores) at Hobart Port, generally on the day that food arrived at the providores and immediately before food was packed into refrigerator containers ready for shipping. Our inspections took place subsequent to Quarantine inspections. Examination consisted of rapid visual inspections. Food destined for three voyages were inspected.

Access

A copy of this report, including data tables, is available for download from the provided URL to AAD staff only.

Temporal Coverages

• Start date: 2007-10-19 - Stop date: 2008-03-14

Spatial Coverages

Science Keywords

• EARTH SCIENCE > AGRICULTURE > FOOD SCIENCE > FOOD CONTAMINATION AND TOXICOLOGY
• EARTH SCIENCE > AGRICULTURE > FOOD SCIENCE > FOOD QUALITY
• EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > EXOTIC VEGETATION
• EARTH SCIENCE > HUMAN DIMENSIONS > ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS > CONTAMINANT LEVELS/SPILLS
• EARTH SCIENCE > HUMAN DIMENSIONS > ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS > CONSERVATION
• EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/INVERTEBRATES
• EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > FUNGI
• EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS > SPECIES/POPULATION INTERACTIONS > EXOTIC SPECIES

Use Constraints

This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=ASAC_2904_Food when using these data.