Once depleted by fishing, Cabo Pulmo now boasts a healthy mix of wildlife. (Credit: Octavio Aburto-Oropeza/iLCP)
ScienceDaily (2011-08-13) — A thriving undersea wildlife park tucked away near the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja peninsula has proven to be the most robust marine reserve in the world, according to a new study. The most striking finding is that fish communities at a depleted site can recover up to a level comparable to remote, pristine sites that have never been fished by humans.
Beachcombing is one my all-time favorite activities. And why not? It happens outdoors, by the ocean and it’s best done barefoot! There’s a certain mystery about it: I can never anticipate what I’ll find and I’m sure never to find the same thing twice. (This is also why I love shopping at secondhand stores).
Beachcombing takes patience, curiosity, and a love of discovery. One time you may happen upon the perfect snail shell; a smooth piece of glass the next. Look carefully and you’ll find a dozen treasures to take home, things you want to remember and show to your friends.
Surfing the web is a lot like this (minus the sandy toes). A lot of stuff gets tossed onto the shores of the Internet – it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume. But if you look carefully, there will some clear gems, people and ideas you want to remember and share with your friends. Here are a few of the special bits and pieces I came across this week.
Oceans & the Environment – Much of my personal and professional passion is dedicated to learning and writing about the environment and working to protect it for the future. Here are just two of the dozens of wonderful resources I turn to on a regular basis.
Speak Up For the Blue features the best of the ocean blogoshere, brought to you by Ocean Leaders from around the world. is the brainchild and passion of Andrew Lewin, a marine scientist dedicating his time to encouraging people to speak up for our endangered seas. I am honored to be included as one of Andrew’s Ocean Leaders, alongside such great advocates and personal heroes as Sylvia Earle and the Cousteau family.
The Lake Titicaca Frog: one of the cool and bizarre critters waiting for you at Arkive.org.
Arkive: With my two-and-a-half year old daughter poking her head under my arm as I try to avoid typos write this post, I have to toss in one of our favorite nature sites. Arkive is a collaborative collection of images and information about endangered animals and plants from all over the globe. With photos and videos of everything from elephants to octopus, frogs to eagles, my daughter and I are entertained for hours.
Gardening & Health – Gardening is something else I like to do barefoot. OK, not the serious digging, but I’m often out there shoeless, picking weeds and harvesting greens – or just admiring what’s come up. Being outside toes in the grass is good for you, as are all the yummy things I plant, so I’ll toss some health stuff in here, too.
When I was getting started with my new veggie garden, Kenny Point’s Veggie Gardening Tips was the first gardening blog I read and still one of my all-time favorites. Kenny introduced me to the joys and ease of growing garlic and fall and winter veggie gardening, which is A LOT easier than you think. This year he’s inspired me to plant goji berries – I’ll keep you posted on how they do! Subscribe to his blog for a free intro to veggie gardening.
The main garlic patch, mid-March. Now the greens are twice as big.
Mark’s Daily Apple is one of the web’s best intros to the ‘paleo’ or ‘primal’ type diet. After 27 years as a vegetarian, and 3 years as a reluctant meat eater, I’ve recently become convinced of the superiority of eating those foods that our bodies evolved to consume: meat, veggies and healthy fats – and eliminating those that are products of recent agricultural history: all grains and grain products.
The result: I feel better than ever, and although I was not overweight to begin with, I’ve lost 5 lbs in two weeks with only minimal exercise (so it wasn’t just ‘water weight’). Check it out. Another good intro to the primal lifestyle is Whole9Life.
Writing & Creativity
Time Management for Writers – Getting More Done in Less Time, by author and blogger Kristen Lamb. As a fellow ENFP, I can relate to her struggle to learn the organizational skills that come naturally to her more detail-oriented husband (mine is the same), and REALLY appreciate the insights and suggestions she shares. I’ve learned a whole lot about writing, online media from Kristen’s blog and even more from her online classes, so don’t be surprised if she shows up on my list in the future. You can find her on Twitter as @KristenLambTX
Writing is an art and the well that all artists draw from is called creativity. Patrick Ross, creativity explorer extraordinaire and the blogger behind The Artist’s Road, tweets as @on_creativity and sends out some really great stuff. If you’ve missed his gems, you can catch his weekly round up: Creativity Tweets of the Week.
Round of Words: Week Four Check-in
I’ve set three types of goals for this 80-day challenge. You can read the details about them here. Some of those goals are right on track:
Blogging: Twice weekly check-ins (Sunday & Wednesday) as part of a weekly Wednesday post, and now a regular Sunday mash-up.
Writing:
Morning pages (an exercise from the Artist’s Way): and EVERYday, so far. Nnot always first thing, but more often than not in the morning, so that’s something,
Daily/Weekly words: Over the past four weeks my writing goals have flip-flopped from revising to writing and back again. After attending a weekend retreat called “In the Company of Writers,” I’ve come back to my original goal of revising the current WIP (work-in-progress): the first draft of a fantasy novel focused on the sea. Since I’m back in revisions I’m going to drop the daily wordcount, and instead give myself a target of doing some revising everyday. I may make that more specific as I get further along – or not.
Learning: I didn’t even look at the Artist’s Way last week and skipped the artist’s date as well. Will jump back in at Lesson/Week Four in the upcoming week. Since I’m not creating but revising, my coursework will shift from Holly’s How to Think Sideways course to How to Revise Your Novel. But the goal to do some revising via Holly’s method everyday.
Check out all the other wonderful writers taking the 80-day challenge here.
And you?
How are your writing, revising, blogging or other goals coming along? How does your garden grow? I’m always looking for new resources and new online friends, so stop by and say hi below!
Welcome to Wonderful Waterful Thursday! WWT as I like to call it is the extra special blog post that follows what would otherwise have been Wonderful Waterful Wednesday, if I hadn’t spent an extra five hours waiting in Baltimore-Washington Airport for a flight to California…
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What is a “Sometimes Ocean”?
If you’ve ever visited the shore and poked among the rocks, you’ve seen them: shallow puddles on the edge of the sea, cut off from the great Mother Ocean for hours, even days at a time. They’re tidepools of course, and a whole host of organisms have become adapted to living in them.
Some of the marine creatures common to tidepools in North America are sea stars and urchins, snails, barnacles, and crabs. And of course various kinds of seaweed or algae thrive in tidepools, providing all important cover and shade for the creatures who live there.
Living on the Edge
Life in a tidepool is a study in extremes. Temperatures rise and fall over the course of the day. Salinity too. A water evaporates the pool itself can shrink and at times disappear. Considering that conditions are relatively constant in the open ocean, these kinds of conditions are pretty unusual for marine creatures.
And while they may seem idyllic, dangers lurk in those placid little ponds. In the sea, there’s lots of space to flee and find food. Not so in a tidepool, where you’re trapped until the next high tide, which can be hours or days away. Some parts of the intertidal zone (the area between the high and low tide levels) are only submerged at the highest of high tides, while other areas are only uncovered during the lowest of the low.
The Whys of Tides
The rise and fall of the tides is caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon on the oceans. When all three celestial bodies are arranged in a line (called syzygy), we get spring tides, which are higher and lower than usual. Quadrature is when the sun, Earth and moon form a right angle. This occurs during the quarter phases/half moons. The tidal range is smallest at this time – the highs are lower than
Every shoreline has its typical tidal range determined by the shape of the basin and where on Earth it’s located. In some areas the range can be as little as a few inches a day; in others many feet. The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia holds the record for the largest range: more than 53 feet during a spring tide!
Most coasts have semi-diurnal (twice daily) tides, but a few shores experience only a single cycle.
Tidepooling at its Best
Rocky shores like those found in New England and the Pacific Northwest are my favorite places to explore. I have a very clear memory of holding a sea cucumber given to me by a park ranger in Acadia National Park in Maine. My dream of becoming a marine biologist was cemented that day.
I also saved a couple of sea urchins from a grim fate as souvenirs, but that’s another story.
Marine Mammals Poster Giveaway
This month’s giveaway is an out-of-print NOAA poster of Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Every comment left in the month of May equals one entry. Every link or reference to this blog on your site equals two entries. The drawing will be held on the 1st of May, so start your entries now!
Have you ever held a prickly sea star, caught sight of a crab scuttling through a tidepool forest, discovered a sea star clinging to the underside of a wet rock? Share your tidepool discoveries – and any other fond seaside memories – in the comments section below!
Week Two of a Round of Words in 80 Days, or #ROW80 for those of us who spend waaay too much time on Twitter. It’s been a good week.
Among my goals for ROW80 is to work through Julia Cameron’s creativity rediscovery program as detailed in the The Artist’s Way. Each week there are specific assignments as well as tools that carry over from week to week.
One such tool is the artist’s date. I think of it as taking my Muse on a date. Like all relationships, it’s important to spend time one-on-one with your creative self. What you do is up to you but there are two ‘rules’: take around 2 hours and go alone.
Last week, I took a trip to the local art supply store. I’d passed it regularly for three plus years but this was the first time I’d ventured in. Whoa, was that an education! I discovered some very deeply-held beliefs about my own lack of artist ability and remembered childhood attractions to certain art materials (including cray pas and colored pencils).
I bought some things that caught my fancy and put them, along with some materials I’d been squirreling away, into one of my dad’s old art supply boxes. (Yes, my father is an artist. Yes, it occurred to me that that has something to do with my insecurity). That stuff will come in handy during a future artist’s date.
This week I took my Muse for a walk. On Friday morning, I had a doctor’s appointment around two miles from my home. I took the bus there and walked home through Sligo Creek Park, one of the many streams that feed into the Anacostia-Potomac river system.
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The walk was about 2.5 miles, and took an hour and a half. It was a gorgeous day: high fifties, sunny with a slight breeze. I stopped whenever the mood struck and took pictures (in the slideshow above). Along the way I helped the park by pulling up any garlic mustard I saw. It’s a terribly invasive plant – bad for the park but yummy when sautéed for my lunch.
So that was one goal achieved this week. And the others?
Writing:
(1) Submitted my application for the writer’s workshop – Woo Hoo! While on a roll, I also sent in page one of my manuscript to “American Author” a first-page live critique done by agents and editors at the Washington Romance Writer’s retreat (coming up at the end of the month). Not for the faint of heart – thank God its anonymous!
Now that that is done, the 3000 words/week goal kicks in.
(2) Morning pages – not always morning, but more often than not, and everyday. I’m working on a new program to get more restful sleep, and wake earlier. That should help me get up before the kids, and get them done before chaos is unleashed (usually between 6:30 and 7:00am in our house).
(3) & (4) Blogging twice a week: doing by my regular post on Wednesdays (including the mid-week check-in), and adding the Sunday check-in. Next month I’ll add another blog day, if I can work it in with my 3000 words. Those are words of fiction – the blog doesn’t count.
(5) The Artist’s Way. I’m starting week three, so that’s going well. I haven’t completed all the exercises from last week but that because some require a bit more thought. Overall, it’s going well.
(6) How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers: I’ve re-read the first two lessons, and I’m working through the assignments. I love it! I have an idea for a flash fiction contest, and I’m hoping that doing HTTS will inspire me.
There are dozens of folks participating in a Round of Words in 80 Days. Among them are these two fabulous women: Kerry Meacham, who is Desperately Seeking Sanity, and Robin McCormack, who counts the many ways she is fortunate starting with My Two Blessings. All the other amazing writers who are on this 80-day journey can be found here.
Marine Mammals Poster Giveaway
This month’s giveaway is an out-of-print NOAA poster of Marine Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. Every comment left in the month of May equals one entry. Every link or reference to this blog on your site equals two entries. The drawing will be held on the 1st of May, so start your entries now!
It’s the end of week one of a Round of Words in 80 Days and the beginning of a three-month long journey to turn writing goals into long-term habits. I discussed my goals for this round in this post. So how did I do?
1. Writing.
3000 words did not happen this week, unless you count all the rewrites and revisions I did on the piece I’m submitting as an application for a writers workshop. I didn’t expect it to – but as soon as this piece goes out (tomorrow!) that goal moves to the front burner. I’m going to put my current WIP aside to breathe, and work on something new. Looking forward to it – and a bit nervous too.
Morning pages. They happened everyday, I’m happy to say – but not always in the morning, unless you’re referring to somewhere over the Pacific just this side of the international date line. Things got better later in the week, when I realized how easy it was to let them slip. It’ best to do them as soon as I get up – both for the subconscious and to get them done. However, on the days when I get up with the kids and I don’t beat them out of bed (no, I don’t mean it THAT way!) I’ll get to them as soon as the house clears, which is around 9am. Not ideal, but not too bad.
2. Blogging
I did my Sunday and Wednesday posts, but decided to put off launching a regular Friday piece until May. I have a bunch of other projects going on right now and want to be sure that the new blog feature gets the attention it’s due. So look for it on the 1st Friday of next month.
Check-ins. Here’s the end of week one and my second check-in. So far, so good!
3. Learning
I had to return the library’s copy of the Artist’s Way, but luckily mine arrived on the same day. I’ve worked through week one and I’m reading the material for week two. I even got in an artist’s date, although not as much of one as I’d hoped. Next week’s is already on the calendar – I’m taking myself to one of the Smithsonian art museums. I’m so excited!
After put this workshop submission to bed, I’m going to start working through Holly’s Course, How to Think Sideways. So that moves to the front burner along with my 3000 words, starting this coming week.
I’d love to write more, but in celebration of finishing our taxes early and meeting most of my writing goals, and the facts that we’ve discovered swing dancing at our favorite local pub AND we have childcare, my husband and I are going dancing as soon as the kids are in bed!
Most science conferences are like little in-group parties, where people who know each other’s work intimately get together to discuss their latest results, and query each other about what to do next. Don’t get me wrong – I love them. You meet interesting people, learn A LOT, and come home with new ideas, and great T-shirts or shoulder bags. Since I am a generalist by nature, I’ve attending lots of different kinds of conferences: the Geological Society of America, the American Physics Society, the European Geophysical Union, the Estuarine Research Federation, and the Coastal Society, to name a few.
The AAAS Annual Meeting, which I attended for the first time this year, was completely different. The raison d’etre of “triple-A-S” is right there in its name: the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I didn’t really get what that meant until now. Instead of technical talks, where experts talk to their peers about the incremental advances in their area of science, this meeting was all about the big picture. Panels of speakers addressed different aspects of a single topic, speaking broadly about what was known, where the gaps and questions were, and what they’d like to see happen next. Scientists from different fields sat in on each others’ sessions, offering all sorts of interesting and cross-disciplinary questions and comments. The meeting wasn’t only for and about scientists, either. A number of panels focused on the communication of science, and the relevant of science to society. It was amazing. There was also a two-day Family Science Fair, which my son and nephews loved. I picked up all sorts of great science swag, including posters, bumper stickers, calendars and buttons, which I will start giving away next week.
Over the next few weeks I will report on some of these great sessions in depth, including:
Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next
Adapting to a Clear and Present Danger: Climate Change and Ocean Ecosystems (I may have to dedicate two blog posts to this session, which included fabulous talks on coral reefs and ocean acidification by James Brady of MBARI, and Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian).
2050: Will There Be Fish in the Ocean?
Comparing National Responses to Climate Change: Networks of Debate and Contention (focusing on the differences between how climate change is viewed in the US and India – the two countries where I do my climate change work).
First up: science and the media.
Media Unbounded
“Science Without Borders and Media Unbounded: What Comes Next,” focused on the impact of the Internet on media, and featured a panel of journalists who focus on science and environmental reporting: Tom Rosenstiel, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Elizabeth Shogren, reporter for National Public Radio (NPR), and Seth Borenstein, reporter for the Associated Press (AP). Kerry Emanuel, a researcher in the Program of Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) responded to their presentations.
Tom Rosenstiel gave a fascinating overview. The world of media is both shrinking and expanding. The editorial aspects are expanding: there is more commentary and discussion than ever. The reportorial component – where people actually go out to discover and confirm things – is shrinking. As more people get their news online, the print newspaper is fading, but publishers are not: most people still get their news from a handful of trusted sources like the New York Times, Washington Post, and others. However, since they’re not paying for it, newspaper budgets and pressrooms are shrinking. There are more readers, but fewer reporters. This has led to the loss of specialized beats, like the environment, particularly in local papers. This also means that reporters don’t get into stories in-depth, instead sticking to breaking the news. There are fewer interviews, less follow-up. What has this done to our public square? Perhaps the world we’re exposed to is smaller, our common knowledge pool is shrinking. As readers (and listeners) we’re spending less time learning about the larger world and more time on our particular interests.
Elizabeth Shogren spoke about how the Internet has made her job easier and more interesting. She can spend more time getting the interesting stories (because that is still a priority at NPR), and can do more with them. In addition to a radio report, she can – and is expected – to present a whole multi-media story, complete with online images, and videos. She can include information that didn’t make it into the recording, and give listeners resources for more information. She noted that the Internet makes information more accessible, and has the potential to make governing more transparent. Now, even if she can’t be on Capitol Hill at 1:00 AM to follow the debate on an important bill, she can get all the information – videos and transcripts – online. In theory, this takes away one of the tactics that lawmakers have used to ‘hide’ debates they didn’t want the public to pay attention to – but only if people take advantage of the information that is out there.
The Differences Between Researchers and Reporters
Seth Borenstein spoke about the incredible access that the Internet gives him to scientific data, allowing him to dig through the databases and reports about climate change that researchers routinely put up on their websites or on government and other shared sites. (I took note of these, and you can expect to here more about specific findings and studies in future posts). He used this access to disprove a recent claim of climate change deniers: that January’s temperature were colder than usual and therefore ‘proved’ that global warming wasn’t happening. Instead, he discovered that for the past 311 months – every month since February 1985 – temperatures have been warmer than the long-term average for that month. He followed with a statement that had all the scientists in the room groaning in disbelief. He said that IF January 2011 had been warmer, THAT would have been a story that his editor would have wanted to hear, but the fact that every month for nearly 26 YEARS had been warmer was not a story! The facts weren’t interesting – only the controversy. And this from a reporter who truly gets, and likes reporting on science and climate change. Is it any wonder that so many scientists are reluctant to speak to the media?
Kerry Emanuel took up this issue in his comments. He opened with a quote from Oscar Wilde to express how many scientists see the media: “In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.” He noted the dichotomy in the modern media (and one that journalists rarely acknowledge): the media as the fourth estate, with high ideals vs. media as a business. Scientists sometimes get tripped up by this tension. They often assume (perhaps naively) that they and the reporter have the same objective: to get to the truth. Even if languages are different, the end result is usually good. However, that is not always the case – sometimes the journalist just wants to sell the story. Sometimes journalists bend the story into something they think will sell. This makes scientists wary – they have to determine where the journalist coming from. (Shogren’s response was that scientists need to do their homework, and learn more about the journalist who is approaching them. If they don’t like the kind of things he or she writes, the researcher doesn’t have to talk).
Global Warming Deniers: Who’s To Blame?
Shogren complained that she though the global warming debate was settled, but was frustrated to hear it coming up again. Disturbingly, she blamed it on the scientists, saying that they (we) hadn’t done a good enough job explaining it to the public! There was an immediate outcry: the science has gotten stronger, but the media keeps allowing the debate to be re-opened. She said that if there was controversy, they had to report it. Researchers said: there’s no controversy in the facts, but the media keeps giving the stage to fringe groups with vested interests in undermining the facts. Very interesting.
During the Q & A, I asked all the members of the panel how Twitter and blogs had changed the way they do their reporting, if at all. Surprisingly, there were few comments. (Perhaps they thought those venues were about information, not ‘news’). Rosenstiel said that the Internet gave any expert access to an audience (unspoken, but implied was the critique that it also gives access to the clueless, as well).
Coming up next: Climate change and Ocean Ecosystems.
Think that I have a clue about oceans and climate? Want more Brave Blue Words? Tune in next week for more on the latest from AAAS. And stay tuned for information about how you can win some of the great science stuff from AAAS!
Coral reefs are vulnerable to ocean warming and acidification. Researcher Nancy Knowlton says that there's still time left to save them - but not much.
The bridge of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Duane intentionally sunk in 1987 off Key Largo to create an artificial reef at 120 feet. Credit: David Doubilet
Subway cars, shipping vessels, oil rigs, tanks, cement pipes, and piles of volcanic rock. These are some of the odd materials that rest on the sea floor, put there deliberately to serve as artificial reefs. The goal of these massive efforts, which included the sinking of the USNS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg in 2009, is to turn these bare metal and stone surfaces into colorful reefs, full of fish, algae and other underwater creatures. And it works – if you sink it, they will come. But why?
Space is limited
While the ocean is huge, hard surfaces in the photic zone (where sufficient light can penetrate to support photosynthesis) are rare. Like a new apartment building in Manhattan, open space is colonized almost as soon as it becomes available. Algae and the larvae of sessile (fixed in place) invertebrates like barnacles, bryzoans, and sponges settle in virtually overnight. Larger crustaceans follow, as do fish, making the reefs popular sites for diving and fishing. Enhanced sport fishing is the primary reason that most coastal states cite for the creation of artificial reefs. In some areas, reefs are used as a mitigation measures, to make up for damage caused by power companies onshore or oil drilling. Proponents say that the man-made structures provide the means to bring back depleted fish stocks or encourage the growth of algae forests and groves.
The Attraction-Production Debate
There’s debate in the research community about whether artificial reefs create new habitat or lure fish from natural reefs. It’s an open question, but many states and the federal government have been encouraging reef development and deployment for decades, with little sign of slowing down. Some scientists fear that trash disposal, fishing, and diving interests may be superseding environmental considerations, and could cause harm in the long run. A 1997 review of the literature on artificial reefs found numerous studies that showed that reef construction could have negative effects on natural reef fish populations, and few that demonstrated that reefs increase fish productivity. Some research suggests that reefs only enhance fish production where habitat is limited. This could be true in places where it has been impact or destroyed by human activities. But overfishing is a more common cause of plummeting fish populations, and concentrating fish in smaller areas only makes them easier to catch.
The largest artificial reef in U.S. waters lies offshore of San Clemente, CA. It was built to mitigate damage caused by the massive San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The project was twenty years in the planning, and finally got underway (underwater) in 2008. Initial studies suggest that the reef is meeting its goals for kelp production, but it has fallen short of expected fish production, so far.
Onward and Downward
This hasn’t stopped the drive for more and bigger reefs. In 2008 – 2009 the State of Maryland (my home) teamed up with New York, New Jersey, and Delaware to sink hundreds of subway cars off their mid-Atlantic shores. The rationale was economic with little thought given to the environmental impacts: recreational fishing and diving contribute more than $1 billion annually to the Maryland economy. “Our top priority so far has been to raise the funds to do this,” says Martin Gary, a fisheries ecologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “We are just beginning to put a monitoring plan in place.”
This M60 is one of a hundred tanks sunk in 1994 in a 1,200-square-mile zone of artificial reefs off the coast of Alabama. Photograph by David Doubilet.
The inspiration for this article and the wonderful photos come from “Relics to Reefs,” an article by Stephen Harrigan in the February 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine, on newsstands January 25.
More of Doubilet’s phenomenal reef photos, including a series showing the sinking of the USNS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, can be found in this gallery.
This month’s National Geography also includes a wonderful article about the eerie ruins and relics that lie under Paris. You can check that out here.
February 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine, on newsstands January 25
References
Grossman, Gary et al. (1997). Do Artificial Reefs Increase Regional Fish Production? A Review of Existing Data Fisheries 22: 17-23, doi: 10.1577/1548-8446(1997)022<0017:DARIRF>2.0.CO;2
Babies are cute. They’re meant to be. We are programming to delight in the differences between puppies and grown dogs, lambs and sheep, and of course our own darling miniatures. Their big eyes, over-sized heads and smooth lines are meant to trigger some parenting instinct deep inside. But of course, they’re not really all that different from the grown-up versions. Dress a little boy in grown-up clothing, and everyone will comment on how he looks like a ‘little man.’
Cicada molting from nymph to adult
Not so for many creatures in the invertebrate world. Put a pair of pretty wings on a chubby caterpillar, and something would still be missing. And could you possibly dress a creepy-looking cicada nymph to resemble it’s B-movie flying future? (Come on – don’t those things look like something that should be fighting Godzilla on a Sunday afternoon. Yes, I know I’m dating myself here – give a shout-out if you know what I’m talking about). That future is not very long, anyway. Nymphs of the cicada species will spend either thirteen or seventeen years underground in their nymph stage, and only a few weeks above ground as adults They don’t even eat during the last phase of their life – they just reproduce and die. (Talk about one-track minds. I really hope it’s good for them, don’t you?)
Not all metamorphosis is alike. The caterpillar above goes through complete, or holometabolic metamorphosis. This includes an egg, larvae, pupa or resting phase, and adulthood. Bees and wasps go through this progression as do ants.The cicada’s path is hemimetabolic metamorphism, which includes the egg, nymph, pupal respite, before launching into adulthood.
Metamorphosis isn’t restricted to the flying and crawling critters. It’s also common among their marine invertebrate cousins. Take the crab, for example. When it hatches from a dust-sized egg cast into the ocean – if it hatches before becoming fish food – it bears no resemblance to its future self. It’s looks more like a tiny shrimp with a lance sticking through its head.
Carcinua maena (green crab) zoea larve
Green crab juvenile
Unlike the contented lifestyle of the caterpillar (a bit of anthropomorphising, perhaps?), the zoea, as the proto-crab is called, just floats along, another bit flotsam pushed here and there by winds and currents. It hangs out until some still unknown signal or environmental cue tells it that it’s time to move towards full crabdom. No architectural feats or deep sleep precedes this change. In fact, not only doesn’t it get a nice safe cocoon in which is transform; as any creature with an exoskeleton, it must shed its protective outer shell in order to become just a wee bit bigger and more crab-like than its former self. Again and again this shedding or molting happens, followed by incremental changes, making one wonder if all the fuss and loss of security is really worth it. Nothing dramatic here – no it just adds segments one by one, until it bears little resemblance to either its future or its former self. It’s at that point that the little half-crab must commit to its future, even before it can have any idea of what that future holds. The critter that has enjoyed – or at least survived – its early life floating aimlessly on the tide must now fight the same currents that have supported it to make its way to the shore – nursery for many marine creatures small and big – and settle down, hoping to become a crab someday soon. And not get eaten in the process.
I had planned to write a cool post about tides today, followed by one or more about tide pools, the intertidal zone, and other (possibly) related topics. I’d even thought of a clever title (which I won’t tell you in case you disagree with my wit). But then, as often happens, I was distracted by something else, something pretty, shiny, new, and totally cool. My copy of the “World Ocean Census” arrived in the mail.*
The World Ocean Census is one of the popular science books that catalogue the findings of the Census of Marine Life, that treasure trove of riches I told you about in an earlier post, and promised to write about again (and again, and again). As I started to peruse this beautiful volume, it became harder and harder to pick a topic.
Should I focus on the sooty shearwater, found to have the greatest migratory route of any organism? This little bird clocks 40,000 miles a year in its annual migration between New Zealand and the northern Pacific. No, that’s not a typo, it’s forty THOUSAND miles a year, up to 550 a day, with dives to 200 feet to hunt its usual prey of fish, squid, and krill.
A sooty shearwater taking a much-deserved rest.
Perhaps I should take a look at seamounts, underwater mountains or hills rising 3,000 feet or more from the ocean floor that are often hotspots of biodiversity in the vast ocean? Over 40% of the species found on any given seamount are unique to that particular spot. Over the course of the census, thousands of new species were discovered on seamounts – over 600 on 5 seamounts alone! How did this incredible richness arise? Does the isolation of one seamount from another encourage the development of new species? Are seamounts refuges for species whose ranges have shrunk? Only about 400 seamounts have been sampled to date, and only 100 in any detail, so we have yet to answer these questions, but the census has brought us that much closer.
Or maybe I should examine the activities that threaten these amazing species and ecosystems. “Overfishing and pollution were identified as the main threats to biodiversity across all regions, followed by alien species, altered temperature, acidification, and hypoxia, although their relative importance varied among regions.” These threats are real, and accelerating. So science must do the same. “There is a need to accelerate the discovery of marine biodiversity, since much of it may be lost without even being known.”
At the very least, let’s accelerate our discovery of the known, shall we? To begin with, I’ll let you in on a secret, something amazing that I have discovered: as a result of the Census of Marine Life, hundreds of articles have been published in scientific journals, much of them are in open access journals such as the Public Library of Science (PLOS One). So expect to see more about the amazing, spectacular, and ever extraordinary (is that enough, you think?) creatures that live in the world’s ocean in the weeks to come.
Crazy about octopus? Mad about sharks? Can’t get enough about bryozoans? (Hey, it’s possible – assuming you know what a bryozoan is…). Let me know, and perhaps that’s what will get pulled out of the Census magic hat next time!
Costello MJ, Coll M, Danovaro R, Halpin P, Ojaveer H, et al. (2010) A Census of Marine Biodiversity Knowledge, Resources, and Future Challenges. PLoS ONE 5(8): e12110. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012110
*FYI – I purchased a “used copy, good condition” for $10 less than the cover price, at Valore books. It arrived shrink-wrapped, clearly brand-new. Go figure – and hop on over to get one for yourself: http://www.valorebooks.com/
As many of you know, I have enrolled in an e-course, “Global Warming in a Still Unequal World,” taught by the Centre for Science and Environment in India. The course includes a number of assignments, which I will post as I complete them. Since I am leaving for India on June 27th, you can expect a number of posts in the next few weeks!
Our second assignment is to present an argument either in support of or against the following statement: “Climate change is not a ‘separate problem. It’s an effect of dominant trajectory of growth the world has embarked, & is still embarking, upon.” My response is below.
Since the European Industrial Revolution, what we call development has required enormous inputs of energy – energy to run factories, drive engines, to manufacture fertilizers, and to heat and light homes and businesses. Increasingly, this model of energy-intensive development is being employed in the developing world as well.
For the past century and a half, the energy needed for development has come form the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. This burning has released enormous amounts of CO2 and other GHGs into the atmosphere, GHGs that would otherwise remain underground. Therefore, it is clear that climate change has occurred as a direct result of the dominant mode of development. A mode that must always grow, always expand, is never satisfied with enough. That is by definition, unsustainable, as it depends upon non-renewal resources.
Therefore, I would say that climate change is not at all separate from the dominant trajectory of growth – it is a direct result of it and will not be ‘solved’ without addressing the completely contradictory and self-destructive development that has occurred to date. The development that is seen as “the good life” in the Western world – and the one to which the developing world aspires as well. It will not take tweaking or minor adjustments – changing a light bulb or driving less – but a major reorganization of Western cities and societies to reduce its carbon footprint and address the issue of climate change. The developing world can help by adopting low-energy technology and leapfrogging over the heavily polluting technologies and development trajectories of the West. But overall, it is the Western model of development that must be fundamentally changed for climate change to be fully addressed.
