Eve Caroline Southward (1930–2023) was a multi-talented scientist, motivated by her curiosity and love of nature. Since she was never paid as a scientist, Eve was an amateur, in the best sense of the word. She was highly proficient at transmission electron microscopy and made lasting contributions to polychaete taxonomy, morphology and ecology. Eve was internationally respected, especially for her studies on the Siboglinidae, mouthless and gutless tubeworms (formerly called Pogonophora) that are found worldwide in the deep-sea. She described how the siboglinids obtained nutrition from symbiotic, sulphur-oxidising bacteria and described similar symbiotic relationships in several bivalve species. Eve wrote over 140 scientific publications and described 56 new benthic species, 47 being mouthless and gutless ‘pogonophores’. Eve assisted her husband Alan Southward in starting broad-scale intertidal surveys around the British Isles and Northwest Europe. These surveys formed the foundation for the time-series, later continued by others, that allowed assessments of the influence of climatic fluctuations, using intertidal rocky shore biota as indicators. Eve contributed, with Alan, to what became a 50-year study describing the long-term effects on intertidal communities of the oil pollution and excessive dispersant use resulting from the Torrey Canyon oil spill in 1967. Eve also co-wrote the Linnaean Society Synopsis on Echinoderms of the British Isles and helped complete unpublished work by Alan Southward and others on barnacle taxonomy.

During a 2005 scientific cruise in Storfjord in Møre, Norway, a previously undescribed co-occurrence between the wood boring bivalve Xylophaga dorsalis and the pogonophoran annelid (Sibglinidae) Sclerolinum brattstromi was discovered. The pogonophoran was lining burrows made by the bivalve, and surrounded it in a glomerulus-like structure. Based on observations, we hypothesize that the deep burrows of X. doralis produce an environment favourable to S. brattstromi. Interestingly, both bivalve and annelid are dependent upon symbiotic microorganisms, and thus raising the possibility that the relationship between these species is driven by their bacterial symbionts, or their utilization of the common redox boundary.

Specimens of the vestimentiferan tubeworm Lamellibrachia sp. were collected from the wreck of the SS ‘Persia’ at 2800 m depth south-east of Crete, in association with decomposing paper in the ship's mailroom. Anaerobic breakdown of cellulose by bacterial consortia including sulphate-reducers is proposed as the source of sulphide required by Lamellibrachia's chemoautotrophic symbionts. Timing of wreck colonization is unknown but observed tube dimensions suggest growth rates at least equal to those measured for Lamellibrachia luymesi at Gulf of Mexico hydrocarbon seeps. The organic substrate supporting vestimentiferan growth in the ‘Persia’ is remarkable in consisting of highly refractory, human-modified terrestrial plant material. This record therefore expands the range of energy sources known to support chemosynthetic communities at the deep-sea floor.