Scientific sleuths tail bay invaders

EDGEWATER - Greg Ruiz uses a pair of tweezers, tugging flesh out of the leg of a curiously hairy crab and thrusting it into a plastic vial.

Ruiz, director of the Marine Invasions Research Lab, packs the vial into a blue plastic box, which he will ship off for DNA analysis to determine where the crab came from. Then he aims his pincers at his next subject - one of six Chinese mitten crabs spread out on his lab table.

Ruiz is like a detective. He's trying to solve the mystery of how this spider-like Asian creature started breeding in the Chesapeake Bay and whether it's likely to threaten blue crabs or other native species.
He and other researchers in the lab, part of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, have found an increasing number of foreign organisms establishing themselves in the Chesapeake Bay in recent years. An estimated 175 alien species are now thriving in the bay's tidal waters, about 20 of which have been detected in the last decade.

Many have been carried in ballast water or on the hulls of ships as globalization has increased trade. The Internet has also spurred cross-border sales of exotic pets and other animals for ethnic food, some of which are dumped in the bay.
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