• Sergeant Major (Abudefduf saxatilis) – A post at Larval Images about one of my favorite ecosystems and one of the great juvenile fish that are commonly found there.
• Budget Hacking – A post here about the importance of NOAA for the myriad jobs they do, many of which are important for public safetly and economic security in addition to research. A post that I feel is a very important read, especially as the 2012 budget fight may still cut NOAA deeply, including the satellite’s needed to track and predict severe weather events as well as we do. Without NOAA’s work I think it is safe to say the Alabama death toll would have definitely  been significantly higher.
• Gulf of Mexico Dolphin Mortality Event – Posted as Scientist in Residence at Deep Sea News – in which I use the data from NOAA to take a more slightly more detailed look at deaths of dolphins since the oil spill in the Gulf, and explain the box and whisker plot.
• Dolphin Whiskers – now only Babies – published a few days later here, to address the concern that there is a higher that normal number of babies washing ashore, but the graph, as presented by NOAA and in the MSM, does not really support that claim. So again come out the box and whisker plots.
• My ‘Seascape of Fear’ – A second posting as  Deep Sea News Scientist in Residence, I discuss my recent trip to Belize as a teaching assistant for a coral reef fish ecology class and the arrival in Belize of the highly invasive Lionfish.
• How does a floating plastic duckie end up where it does? – A guest Blog post at Scientific American Part of a four post series on drifting junk in the oceans and how, sometimes, they can help us explore and learn more about the ocean currents. Other posts in the series include a review by Lindsey Hoshaw of the book Moby Duck (I’ll post my own review here later, I liked the book quite a bit more than Lindsey), an interview by David Manly with Moby Duck author Donovan Hohn, and a Matthew Garcia review of Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer’s bookFlotsametrics and the Floating World about tracing accidental drifters and the information they can give us.
• Is It Time to Relax Fishing Regulations? – Another Scientist in Residence post at DSN, this was a response to fisheries biologist Ray Hilborn’s recent op-ed in the New York Times advocating a relaxation of the current fishing regulations. (Enric Sala, Peter Singer, Daniel Pauly and Mark Kurlansky all replied to the paper.)
• Finally, Reflections, posted here, in which I examine where I have been, where I am and the options going forward.

Hopefully in the next few days we will have a guest posting or two here by Johann. Discussing some of his recent adventures and science from his point of view.

In addition to the postings there are several new YouTube videos I uploaded in the past weeks, mostly of the underwater variety.

Be sure and play with the axis and selecting species etc.

This would be sweet to use on the Vinal Edwards data! I know i still have it around here somwhere… or the NEBO data?

Next add subsort by price per pound and trophic levels then….[edit] done!

All my life I have struggled to overcome negative exposure to sharks. I think I have won, but it has been a long haul.

My earliest memory of sharks is from 1975. I was spending the night at a friend’s house. Across the street from his building was the base movie theater. All that Friday night we were scared witless by the constant screams we heard coming out of that theater during the three showings. We had seen the posters on the movie theater billboard and our imaginations filled in all the rest, which is not too hard for imaginative 7–year–olds. It would be years later before I actually saw the movie, which only reinforced my abject fear of sharks.

Fortunately, my folks exposed me to National Geographic and the Cousteau Society, so I was also exposed to sharks as amazing animals and important parts of the ecosystem. Yet, whenever we’d visit the coast and go swimming, in the back of my mind I would worry about the sharks. As an adult in the Caribbean, I was revisited by that fear when I began diving. I have to admit my greatest concern when I began diving was that I was entering their realm. I slowly got over that fear (mostly) as I got more dives under my belt, including several dives with reef and nurse sharks. Then came Somalia.

In Somalia there was a strict order not to swim in the beautiful waters around Mogadishu. I have to tell you it is VERY tempting to take a small dip in the water to escape the equatorial heat, especially when you’ve been riding convoys in full battle gear and are caked in sweat, dust, and dirt. A moment of wading in cool salt water to escape it all was very inviting. I wanted nothing more, but the order was there for a reason. In a little over a year 6 UNOSOM workers were bit by sharks in Mogadishu. Three died of their injuries. I knew Mogadishu was a unique place for the sharks. The area had become a rich hunting ground for them, thanks in part to a history of townspeople throwing carrion and refuse into the waters nearby. Eventually the UN installed a shark fence around the beaches at the airport. I wonder if it’s still there.

To the south in Kismayo, I did a couple dives with several sharks in the area. My job was to keep an eye out for sharks while the underwater specialists carried out their jobs. I was pretty scared, but I was young and dumb and diving with a bunch of seriously gung–ho types, so I wasn’t about to admit it. The funny thing is the sharks were there, but their behavior was very non-threatening, even the largest of them. They occasionally came into view, swam lazily at a distance, then receded back into the blue. They were not terribly interested in us or our activities.

I continue to dive, even in the “dive by touch” conditions that the locals call “high visibility” in Long Island Sound. I have studied sharks a bit more and the critical part that many sharks play as part of their ecosystem. Intellectually, I know that even as a diver and someone who works in the marine environment, I am less likely to be bitten by a shark than I am to be struck by lighting or electrocuted by my toaster. Yet, in the back of my mind, there is still a little kernel of concern. When I see the replica of the great white in the cafe on campus (caught just outside of Long Island Sound), or I hear of the juvenile great white found in the estuary near here, I find myself having to shake off that fear and refocus my thoughts.

I have been fortunate to see sharks up close in the wild and I realize that they are not the killing machines that the media often portrays them as. Even the Discovery Channel uses sensationalism and fear to sell their Shark Week. I haven’t watched Shark Week for several years, since I was disgusted by their inaccurate and sensationalistic portrayal of sharks the last time I did watch. Shark Week then was about 80% fear and sensationalism, 15% interesting factoids, and 5% conservation, proactive education, and recent science. The shame is that Shark Week could be a force for genuine education about shark conservation and the importance of sharks in the ecosystem.

I certainly hope that they have changed their portrayal of sharks, especially since the sharks are in desperate need of our help. Even Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws, expressed his deep regret over having written Jaws after the damage it caused.

“Knowing what I know now, I could never write that book today,” said Benchley, who also co-wrote the screenplay for “Jaws.” “Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges.”

Unfortunately, with shows such as “Deadly Waters” and “Sharkbite Summer” in the lineup, it doesn’t look likely. I could take a very optimistic view and hope that “Deadly Waters” is describing the terrible daily massacre of sharks for shark fin soup. Maybe “Sharkbite Summer” is about us putting the figurative bite on sharks. But as far as the Shark Week advertising and show titles go on the Discovery Channel website, the message is still all about fear.

I mean really, how far have we come in 34 years??

The 1975 film poster for Jaws

and 34 years later, the 'Web Poster' for Shark Week 2009

Torosaurus latus bronze in front of the Yale Peabody Museum

Johann studying and sketching part of the Darwin Exhibit on evolution while Tammy studies the exhibit on Dana.

Johann and Tammy discussing Hesperonis crassipes

Johann was fascinated by the Hesperonis crassipes skeleton.

Another favorite, Moeritherium, a prehistoric mammal that Johann identifies almost as a friend.

Alas Poor Erectus…

Normally cold, rainy days are so dreary, but not when you get to go to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History! We desperately needed a family science immersion day to rejuvenate! Eric took the day off. I had hoped to get some yard work done, but that wasn’t going to happen with the rain. So we decided to buy membership to the Yale Peabody Museum and go. They have a reciprocity agreement with a lot of other science museums and centers. We have plans to go to all the ones we are interested in while we are still on the East Coast, especially the Museum of Science in Boston, so we now have two years to take advantage of the membership benefits.

At the Yale Peabody Museum there are three floors, but we only managed to cover the first floor, the Discovery Room for children on the second floor, and the gift shop in the four hours we were there. We will go back to see the third floor and view the Darwin exhibit again before it comes down August 23. Johann didn’t want to validate the parking ticket so that we couldn’t get the car out of the parking lot. He figured if that happened, we would have to stay at the museum overnight, maybe even indefinitely!

The exhibit “Darwin: 150 Years of Evolutionary Thinking” was very well done. There was information on Dana and Marsh as well, and it was very interesting to see the similarities between Darwin and Dana, who has been referred to as the American Darwin. Some of the correspondence between the two scientists was on display, as well as a map of the sea voyages each man went on as part of their path of scientific discovery.

The Hall of Dinosaurs and the Hall of Mammalian Evolution were amazing. Eric and I enjoyed seeing the wonder in Johann’s eyes and watching him soak it all in. We all kept thinking about the movie Night at the Museum while we were looking at the dinosaurs. Johann loved to see real examples of the animals he’s studied in his books.

Johann was also very excited to see everything in the “Fossil Fragments: The Riddle of Human Origins” exhibit. He recognized the discoveries that were written about and the specimens on display from the documentary shows he’s seen on the Leaky family’s work. He took time to draw sketches and make notes. The Age of Reptiles mural and the Age of Mammals mural were incredible. Since Eric was permitted to take pictures without a flash, we are going over the pictures of the fossils and can even read some of the information about them again.

The Yale Peabody Museum has a good interactive exhibit about energy conservation right now. We also enjoyed the smaller sections where the Hall of Pacific Cultures, Hall of Native American Cultures, and the scale model of Machu Picchu are. The Discovery Room has a leaf cutter ant colony, a black rat snake, and poison dart frogs. There were drawers full of fossils, rocks and minerals, and various preserved spiders and insects that each had a magnifying glass and a please touch policy. They had a variety of stuffed birds and preserved butterflies for kids to see. There were lots of books out for kids to read and a display comparing eggs from different birds. Johann particularly liked holding the cast of the T.rex tooth and the coprolite.

There was so much to see and learn in every room we went into, that even though we spent four hours there, we still feel like we missed some of it. Where some of the homeschooling families use their vacation time to go to the Creationist Museum, we prefer to revel in places like the Yale Peabody Museum. Now that we’ve gone, we might just have to make a weekly pilgrimage there!

The Johnson Sea Link II being deployed from the R/V Seward Johnson for Life on the Edge 2005

Some people question the real need for manned submersibles, arguing that ROV‘s like Hercules, Jason and Kraken II can do anything a manned vehicle can do, only better and safer. It’s a valid question, and one that needs to be repeatedly asked, especially as more advanced ROV’s designed from the ground up for science come on line. But my answer today is that there is a need for both of them still. ROVs can not go everywhere an HOV can, and their mobility and responsiveness are limited, compared to HOVs, by the ever-present tether to the mother ship. An ROV also lacks the ability to provide 3D visual-spatial analysis and true in-situ contextual observations which only a scientist and pilot on the spot can provide, at least with todays technology. ROV’s while extremely capable are still a telepresence technology, and many of those that have used both HOVs and ROVs, such as Dr. Craig McClain at Deep Sea News, attest that something significant is lost in that translation.

These experiences combined to give me a first hand knowledge of an environment, that previously I had only studied remotely. I studied the deep sea for three years before my first deep dive and my understanding, although incomplete, of this environment has radically changed since those dives in the JSL.

Perhaps more important, these manned submersibles stir the imaginations of young minds, leading them, like me, to dream abut exploring the sea, maybe one day sitting in awe within a submersible 1 kilometer below the surface, surrounded by organisms we are still only beginning to comprehend fully.

Please help us let those in control of the JSLs fate aware of the JSLs importance to science and to our ability to understand the seas and stir the imaginations of the young explorers in our midst. Young explorers like Johann. Please GO SIGN A PETITION TO STOP THEIR LOSS.

So, a bit more on the new NOAA Cooperative Institute, since that also directly affects my future. NURC-NA&GL, along with all the other NURC centers, are NOAA supported, non-federal organizations under NOAA’s National Undersea Research Program (NURP). NURC-NA&GL’s mission is as a center for excellence in research related to the North Atlantic and Great Lakes region. They work with NOAA scientists on long term research goals including developing oceanographic research technologies (such as the Kraken II), fisheries and conservation research, historical site identification and documentation along with major outreach efforts. They are also tasked with Postdoc and graduate student training to provide the next generation of oceanographers. Unfortunately NURC-NA&GL may lose all NOAA funding with the establishment of the new center at HBOI, as it will replace the four existing East Coast NURC centers, including the one at UCONN. Personally I think cutting support for the existing centers is a mistake, even though the new Cooperative Institute sounds wonderful.

So my summer and the next two years are set, sort of. There are still some questions (second year funding, nailing down the thesis topic, now that we have health insurance, do we have another baby, etc., etc.), but at least the path forward is clear enough to begin charging down it! The summer will be hectic, split between two projects for NURC (video and GIS outreach products for high school teachers and students to use and possibly video highlights from a recent deep sea cruise), two projects for Prof. A. (both habitat related), a cruise for Prof. A, and then the remainder of my time will be dedicated to finishing up an outreach book and cards for grades K-12+ on molluscs. Whew!

*Johann pointed out that even Playmobil recognizes the JSLs and their full sphere compartments as the iconic submersible.

What is your iconic research submersible? Is it Human operated or remote?

Whatever it is, please do Sign the petition to keep the JSLs operating.

Check out the Deep Sea News collection of JSL videos.

This is a special mission for us, one we feel connected to if only in some extremely remote way. We watched the ramp up and mission development on NOVA Science Now about a year ago. In the mean time we have followed the writings of Phil Plait, who writes Bad Astronomy, and worked on the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, or STIS package that is being worked on today. This mission also features K. Megan McArthur, an Oceanographer trained at Scripps, as one of the mission specialists. She’ll be the last person to handle Hubble.

Of course we have enjoyed so any of the shots from Hubble in the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) so we desperately want to enjoy many more fine images and discoveries.

We have also found another connection to the recent space adventures in what might seem an odd place. The Beagle Project, which aims to rebuild the HMS Beagle to set out on round the world science and outreach in the spirit of the great explorations of Darwin et al. have become partners with the ISS and NASA. Karen James’ infectious enthusiasm for this partnership have been rubbing off on us here.

It was not a straight forward mission to begin with, but somehow they managed to find all sorts of problems and issues that got in the way. Things got tense and it seemed as though everything was going to hell in a hand basket quickly, yet they stayed on it and eventually overcame all the problems to successfully replace the STIS.

Perseverance.

For me, today was that day.

Ah, the beauty of Avery Point and the Castle blanketed in a layer of calming white snow. Until the klaxon sounds and sirens wail.

Just to hit the high spots:
Very tired this morning after insomniatic night -> Roads not plowed -> three car pile up on the highway -> highway traffic diverted onto my commute route -> 15 minute commute (+15 for unplowed streets) now takes 57 minutes -> miss Chemistry lecture.

Trying to pack for Ft. Lauderdale trip interupted by two 20 minute fire alarms, both false alarms! Finally got the three crates full of the nav and video systems for the cruise, they are on the way. Hopefully they make it to Ft. Lauderdale and don’t end up in Ft. Leavenworth.

One of three hook and ladder trucks which responds to every Marine Science building alarm. I don’t mean that to imply that there are a lot of alarms.

Laptop died at ~8:40am -> three major projects, all due in next 1-3 weeks on dead laptiop, not to mention three almost complete web site redesigns I figured to complete while on the plane. Fortunately it’s only the video board -> after school Tammy and sick Johann accompany (very tired) me to Genius Bar where they verify, yes it’s the NVidea board. They have replacement mainboard in stock, 3-4 days to replace. Whew! Excellent Indian food from the food court(!!) as celebration.

I managed to get the projects off the laptop before we left for Providence by booting it blind as a firewire harddrive to the iMac. Slow process, but at least I’m safe there. 2 hours sleep in the past 48. This day.. you can have it back (though I’ll keep the vindaloo and nan in the food court, thank you!) Now to sleep perchance to dream, or if not just forget this day.

Dr. McClain over at Deep Sea News recently published a very readable open access paper at PLoS ONE about the potential connectedness of seamounts and nearby habitats. I love that the paper was highly accessible, both in the writing and the fact that anyone can download it from PLoS One and read it for free, especially since, in the case of Davidson Seamount and Monterey Canyon, there are significant implications on management policies, if the goal is to protect and preserve the diversity within the canyon.

A Little Closer to Home

Tim Shank and his lab have been doing a lot of work on connectivity, including genetic analysis, among and between the seamounts of the North Atlantic, especially the New England Seamounts and the Corner Rise Seamounts. Though I haven’t seen any papers yet (I believe Walter Cho is working on this for his Ph.D.) what I have been exposed to is that they are finding connectivity between seamounts and seamount areas, but it is a complex situation with very different connectivity from one species to the next, one depth to the next and one region to the next. Connectivity factors likely include reproduction and recruitment strategies, bathymetry, depth, habitat availability, and hydrodynamics (regional and local).

So Why Should We Care?

Ultimately understanding how these deep sea ecosystems are interconnected is critical for conservation and management of marine resources, including potentially many commercially important species (and the deep sea cephalopods who lay egg capsules on the deep corals, thank you very much!). It needs to be studied further to understand the extent of the connectivity. Connectivity studies have a significant number of challenges though, not the least of which is the seemingly simple task of identifying the interaction time and space scales of the relevant processes. In part these define the boundaries of populations. Identifying all the species using traditional morphological taxonomy and molecular techniques, can be a herculean task as well.

Unfortunately, the seamounts are also being impacted by deep sea fishing. Trawling across the mounts can remove entire communities of slow growing deep sea corals and the complex communities they support, potentially causing a significant effect on the deep sea coral community connectivity as well.

My Tiny Personal Connection

This last year I have been working part time with video captured on several deep sea cruises to the New England Seamount Chain and the Corner Rise Seamounts. Much of the work has been producing support video and a DVD for a variety of presentations, which I can’t present here. I can, however, finally show one piece of the package I put together, which was the last piece we did to give to the funding partners.

Your Seamounts on Fishing

The Future?

While I loved deep sea biology and invert communities before, spending many hours scouring HD video of these invert communities helped really hook me on the idea of studying them long term. As I watched the communities of inverts on the screen I had so many questions about their distribution, their physiological adaptations, limitations on growth and distribution, recruitment triggers, etc… etc… etc. I would love to be able to study these communities, the larval distribution, development and recruitment for the communities and individual species, and the ecological and anthropogenic pressures on these communities.

(Yes, I would still also love to study cephalopods and larval development and ecology within the mangroves, still lot’s of wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night questions there too!)

Notes

All footage in the piece was taken on the 2005 Deep Atlantic Stepping Stones mission, but not necessarily from the same dive or on the same seamount. The final sequence is the result of an otter door impacting and dragging across a part of the Kükenthal Seamount. An otter-door is a large metal rudder that holds the trawl nets wide open.

There is more impact footage from the mission, including trash and meters upon meters of clean parallel lines cut through communities of coral and sponges where the rollers on the bottom of the net rolled through. The otter door impact zone, however, was the starkest example of clearing the communities from the seamount in the video I surveyed, devastating damage.

Sources and Further Reading

Peter J. Auster, Jon Moore, Kari B. Heinonen, Les Watling (2005). A habitat classification scheme for seamount landscapes: assessing the functional role of deep-water corals as fish habitat. Cold-Water Corals and Ecosystems, 761-769 DOI: 10.1007/3-540-27673-4_40

Craig R. McClain, Lonny Lundsten, Micki Ream, James Barry, Andrew DeVogelaere (2009). Endemicity, Biogeography, Composition, and Community Structure On a Northeast Pacific Seamount PLoS ONE, 4 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004141

Rhian Waller, Les Watling, Peter Auster, Timothy Shank (2007). Anthropogenic impacts on the Corner Rise seamounts, north-west Atlantic Ocean Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK, 87 (05) DOI: 10.1017/S0025315407057785

Even though we showed him how a statically charged balloon will light up a compact fluorescent bulb when held up to it, he had yet to see a big enough charge that threw a spark on its own. He had played with the classic experiment of dragging his socked feet on the rug in order to shock both of us, but that was still something you couldn’t see. He knew it was there because you could feel it. I wanted him to see it too and I wasn’t sure he believed me that you could under the right conditions. This was beyond frustrating.

About a month ago I was doing one last load of laundry before bed. Eric and Johann were getting into their pjs in the bathroom where it’s warmer. I was in the bedroom folding the white polyester blanket. Since I’d run out of fabric softener, it was more staticky than usual. I heard a couple of good crackles as I started to pull it apart and realize this was my chance to show Johann.

I ran and got Eric and Johann, we turned out the lights, and then I pulled the folds of the blanket apart. It was a fairy fireworks display! The moment I was waiting for finally happened. Johann not only saw it, but got big round eyes and had a sense of wonder and awe on his face. “Whoa! That’s really cool, Mommy!”

We played with the blanket until it seemed like all the static was gone, but then by shaking the blanket, we were able to generate more static electricity. Eric got into it and at Johann’s urging, kept shaking it more and more to make more sparks. Eric brought the blanket high as he was shaking it and I noticed the ceiling light flickered.

Eric did it again for Johann to see. The same compact fluorescent light bulb lit up. You could see the light inside the coil was the same purple-blue light of the sparks. Eric continued to shake and lift the blanket to try to get more of the light bulbs in the ceiling light to turn on. At that point I could feel the hairs on my face standing on end and started getting an apprehensive feeling that we were generating too much of a charge. So I suggested we stop.

We let the charge die down, but Johann’s enthusiasm for our static experiment hadn’t. He didn’t want to stop. So Eric did one more run on everything. When the charge got to be as high as before, he stopped again. The whole room felt electrified. Then I noticed the air smelled so clean like a magnified post thunderstorm sky in the mountains. The last time I’d smelled that smell was years ago when we had used an ionizer in our livingroom that didn’t shut off when it was supposed to. Bedtime had passed over an hour before, but that didn’t matter. Johann’s skepticism had been replaced with scientific wonder. I don’t think any of us will look at the white blanket quite the same again.

He has been doing a series of these quick weekly videos highlighting endangered species and the science we talk about that he thinks are especially interesting or cool in a video podcast format he calls Johann’s Science Week. We are negotiating his own, tightly monitored, blog when I resurrect heupel.com as a family portal.