Cookiecutter

A new study from researchers at the University of Florida details the first known attack of a cookiecutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) on a live human.  The victim, a long distance swimmer, was attacked in 2009 while swimming the channel separating the islands of Hawaii and Maui.  Previously, cookiecutter bites have been found on drowning victims and assumed to have been post-mortem. 

The cookiecutters jaw and tooth structure is unique, and the resulting wound is a nasty one.  The bite scoops out a a golf-ball sized chunk of flesh and leaves a deep, round wound. 

Researchers believe that cookiecutters use their bioluminescence to hide among schools of squid.  When large fish like tuna are attracted to the squid, the small sharks attack.

Some computer animations..

Björk

For some time now, my daughter has been trying to enlighten me to the gifts of Björk, the Icelandic singer-songwriter whose music, and voice, are among the most distinctive out there. I've resisted. The voice grates on me a little.

But, I may have to try again. Her new album and her tour promoting it are named Biophilia, after E. O. Wilson's theory regarding an evolved bond between humans and other organisms. The show features narration by naturalist David Attenborough, Björk's childhood hero.  Any artist that is inspired by these two guys deserves another listen.

Teaser for the album...

Release the Kraken!

Photo by Jeff Gage, University of Florida

More squid news.  A 25-foot giant squid, Architeuthis dux, found off of Florida, is now in the collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. A group of fishermen found the animal about 12 miles off Port Salerno.

Admittedly, even the giant squid doesn't impress greatly when in this state.  So, take a look at one the few encounters with the real,  live beast.

A graphical look....

...at percentage changes in state appropriations, by year, in Alabama and our neighbors.  We were doing OK at making up the gap for a while.  Not any more.

Rising cost of an education

Our economic mess has impacted just about everyone, including college students.  Today, the U.S. Department of Education posted information on education costs at Universities around the country.  If you follow the link "College Affordability and Transparency", you'll find information about the most and least expensive institutions of various types.  For example, you can find out that tuition and fees at Penn State will cost you $14,410, while one of the lowest tuitions for a four year public institution can be found at Great Basin College - only $2,010 compared to the national average of $6,397.

A more interesting link is the one that carries you to the "State Spending Charts."  Here you'll find data on changes, since 2003, in state and local appropriations, tuition costs, and government grants.  The national data shows that appropriations increased slightly from 2003 through 2008, then declined dramatically (-7.0%) between 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 with the tanking economy.  It's worth taking a few minutes to take a look at how that national average compares to individual states.  A few states actually showed increased appropriations during the time frame - Ohio, for example, showed an increase in appropriations of over 6%.  A few states are noteworthy in the tremendous decline.  Alabama, of course, is one of them.  State and local appropriations per fulltime undergraduate student in the Heart of Dixie declined 22.2% between '07-'08 and '08-'09. 

Maybe Miss Alabama's level of understanding of biology isn't all that surprising, after all.

Arribada

Photo from USFWS

Good news from Mexico.  7,000 Kemp's ridley sea turtles on a nesting beach.

Chasing the red devil in the Sea of Cortez

I talked today to my zoology students about cephalopods, and shared with them this video of William Gilly and his work with Humboldt, or "jumbo", squid.

And then found this. Gilly is currently in the Gulf of California (as the Sea is more commonly known) on board the research vessel New Horizon on an NSF-funded project studying the big squid. Since this site takes its name from a quote in Steinbeck's Log from the Sea of Cortez, it seems appropriate to follow the expedition. 

In this case, I do wish they all could be California girls...

Not a big proponent of beauty pageants.  They remind me of a visit to the local livestock market.  But the recent Miss USA pageant certainly produced some interesting moments.  Most notable?  One of the questions posed to the contestants - "Should evolution by taught in schools?"

The fact that most of the young ladies waffled is understandable - a young woman trying to become Miss USA is in the same intellectual boat as a politician hoping to be elected to the State Senate.  Make it sound like you have an opinion, but don't say anything that you might have to answer for later.  Still, Miss California (the eventual winner) was among the few contestants who came fairly close to the mark.  



An excessive number of "you knows", but she is, after all, from California. And you don't have to "believe" in evolution, any more than you have to believe in gravity. It just is. Add to that the apparent confusion of evolution with the origins of the universe. Still, for a 22-year model, it's not bad. The best answer, of course, would be something like, "What a stupid question. Of course. You can't understand biology without an understanding of evolution."  Probably not getting that at a beauty pageant.

You'll certainly get a lot of "teach both sides."  You can see all the responses here.  Count the number that suggest that a treatment of evolution should be balanced with the "other theories", or that students should be exposed to "both sides of the story."



Sorry, kids.  If you want your science teacher to "teach" the science of intelligent design, you're out of luck.  There's nothing to teach.  "We should teach other theories."  Like what?  It's science class, girls.  Not theology, not philosophy.

And then, alas, there's Miss Alabama, You saw her leading off that last clip. Madeline Mitchell from Russellville and the University of Alabama, has a strong and completely misguided view.

“I do not believe in evolution, I do not believe it should be taught in schools, and I would not encourage it.”

That's Madeline Mitchell, senior at the University of Alabama majoring in elementary education.  Madeline, who graduated from Russelville High School in 2007.  Well, take a look at this, Madeline.  These are figures from the most recent Program for International Student Assessment indicating where U.S. 15-year olds stand in science in relation to students from other nations.  The figure shows the top ten nations, and the U.S.  Notice the gap between Australia in the 10th spot and the U.S.  That's to represent the gap between 10th and 23rd. 

Are we willing to accept this?  Well, in certain circles, the answer appears to be yes.

Let's hope that Madeline will be able to make a living modeling lingerie.  Maybe she can land a gig on a soap opera. Anything to keep her out of the classroom.  If that sounds mean-spirited, I'm sorry.  But I take science education seriously.  Madeline doesn't.

Today's irony - Miss Georgia - "We're smarter than ever these days."

Just as I suspected...

Obviously, the minor problems associated with burning of fossil fuels are nothing compared to the global threat posed by alternative energy sources.


In The Know: Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit

Kids could drink that water and get wind in their brain.

Transmutation on Tuesday

Wherein we talk evolution, or cases thereof.

A new paper from Stuart Newman, a development biologist at New York Medical College, is generating some heat in an already torrid arena - the one that looks at the evolution of birds and of flight.  The most notable features of birds, of course, are feathers and wings and the flight that they allow.  Not far behind, though, is the prodigious musculature that drives those wings.  In some birds, the pectoral muscles alone make up 20% of the mass of the animal. 

This seems simple enough to explain.  Flight isn't easy.  I routinely offer a free A to any of my vertebrate zoology students who can open the second floor windows of Bibb Graves Hall and take off.  No one's claimed it yet.  On the surface it seems clear that, as birds developed flight, they gradually developed the powerful musculature to drive it.

Newman has another idea, and it's related to genetics (as, it seems, everything is these days).  It appears that the dinosaur ancestors of birds lost the gene to produce uncoupling protein-1 (UCP1).  This gene is required  for the ability of "brown fat" tissue to generate heat.  In newborn mammals, it is the heat generated by this tissue that provides protection from hypothermia.    Newman suggests that, following the loss of this gene, the ancestors of birds had to rely on increased muscle mass to generate the needed heat.  He thinks that this increased muscle mass enabled them to move to an upright, bipedal posture.  And, he further believes, it was this upright posture that enabled the anterior appendages to be modified for extravagances like flight.

Let your love shine

OK, let's extrapolate the heck out of this.  There are some 2000 species of fireflies in the world.  In some, the females fly; in others, the females are wingless.  These flightless females sit on the ground or a twig and attract males with their luminescence.  It's the strategy of the male, though, that's interesting.  Biologists from Tufts University examined 32 species of fireflies.  They found that, in species with flying females, males provide sperm supplemented with protein that helps the female produce more eggs.  In most species with wingless females, the male provides no nutritional bonus.

What's motivates the different approach?  Perhaps it's just not necessary.  Could be that the flightless females don't need the extra energy. but their flying counterparts do.  Or maybe the males are just pissed off that they have to get up and go to work while the missus sits home and watches firefly Oprah.

The only good shark is a live shark

This sounds like a good thing.  But is it?  Research published in Current Issues in Tourism demonstrates that sharks are worth more alive than they are dead.  Austin Gallagher and Neil Hammerschlag from the University of Miami examined ecotourism businesses from 83 locations around the world and found that sharks, in addition to their ecological significance, can provide a significant boon for local economies.  They were able to value a single living reef shark at $73 per day, while the same shark dead might have a one-time value of $50.  Worth noting - shark-driving tourism produced more than $78 million in revenue in 2007. 

Obviously, it would be a major step forward to convince local governments and businesses that a swimming shark is more valuable to them than one reduced to fins and jaws.  My major concern with shark ecotourism are those operations which put humans AND sharks in harm's way by feeding animals as a means of providing photo ops for their Mike Nelson wannabe clients.  I'd love to believe that a tour operator could make a decent living by providing an opportunity to view sharks in the natural habitat, without catering to the guys who think that their penis size goes up if they're in a photo frame with a tiger shark.

Borneo's cool

Any place that has 24 species of carnivores, including animals like the Sunda stink badger, the the Borneo bay cat (pictured), and the hairy-nosed otter is OK by me.

Taz

Genome sequencing has come a long way since the Haemophilus influenzae, the first bacterium to be sequenced, had its hereditary pants pulled down in 1995.  Since that time, nearly 200 organisms have been sequenced.  Certainly most would point toward Homo sapiens as the most significant of these, I'm going with the Tasmanian devil.

Interesting, and disturbing, sidebar to this story is the devil's extinction threat rising from a contagious form of cancer known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease.  The concern that low genetic diversity might be related to the spread of the disease was one factor motivating the genome sequencing project.

Mentoring on Monday...

...wherein we talk about that most peculiar species, the student.  The topic for a while is going to be grad school.  The specific topic for today will be, finding one.

Quite simply, if you want to be a practicing biologist in this day and age, you will almost certainly need to go to grad school.  There are exceptions - I know some very good, very successful biologists who stopped at the baccalaureate level.  They're few and far between and, almost without fail, they've only been able to actually DO biology after years of grunt-work.  It's just too competitive out there for a student to have any realistic expectation of finding a job in the field without a Masters or Ph.D.

So, let's start with the premise that you've decided you want to go to graduate school in biology.  What strategy will allow you to be successful?  While, admittedly, there's sometimes a lot of luck involved, I think the following protocol will stand you in good stead.

Start early.  Once you've made the decision that you want to be a biologist, begin to narrow down your options.  What is it about biology that fascinates you?  Read, watch videos, talk to your professors.  How do you want to spend your days when the preparation is finished?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  Describe the adult, hard-working you, and describe him/her fully.

Once you've identified the biologist you want to be, find others that are actually doing that now.  This is an important part of the process, and may have a lot to do with where you spend the next few years.  So, put some effort into it.  For example, let's say I've decided that I want to work with the ecology of squid (a particularly sexy choice).  How do I build an opportunity to pursue this in graduate school.  That's going to involve a little searching, and there are a couple of strategies.  The best, and most direct, is to find researchers that are actually doing what you want to do.  Get into the literature and see who's publishing in that area.  I like to use Google Scholar, and do an "Advanced Scholar Search".  This allows you to create a finely tuned search for particular topics with delimiting variables.  For example, I might enter into the search window "cephalopod ecology", and I might limit the search to papers published between 2008 and 2011.  When I conduct this search, I get a return of some 3,700 papers, sorted by how well they match my search.  I'm typically able to read the abstract for any of them, and (on our campus at least) the full-text of those to which our University library has a subscription  I find, for example, an article in Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries written by Gretta Pecl and George Jackson examining potential climate change effects on inshore squid species.  Unfortunately, when I examine the paper, I find that Drs. Pecl and Jackson are both at the University of Tasmania - probably not an ideal option for our typical Small Southern student.  However, a little further down the page, I find a 2008 Ecology paper by Rui Rosa, Heidi Dierssen, Liliana Gonzalez, and Brad Seibel looking at diversity patterns of cephalopods in the Atlantic.  On inspection, I find that Dr. Dierssen is in the Department of Marine Science at the University of Connecticut while Dr. Seibel in the Biology Department at the University of Rhode Island.  A quick check of web pages reveals to me that Dr. Seibel is an associate professor whose lab specializes on the physiology of animals in extreme environments, while Dr. Dierssen is an assistant professor at Connecticut where she heads up the Coastal Ocean Laboratory for Optics and Remote Sensing.  She also has an interest in biogeographical distributions of marine organisms, which is probably her interest in the cephalopod work.  So, I now have the names, addresses, and email contacts for two people who are actually involved in research in the area that interests me.  The ball is rolling.

I should say that, for many students, there are geographic or financial limitations on where they can go to grad school.  If that's the case, you may need to define your interest in more general terms.  Let's say, "ecology of marine invertebrates."  Now, go to the departmental pages for the schools in your state/region.  Look at the faculty interests, and find out who matches best with you.  The fit may not be as perfect, but at least you can find someone near you who's doing work that is potentially interesting.

Next Tuesday - making contact. 

The B word

Know your candidates.  Michelle Bachmann declared her candidacy for president today, and a disturbing number of folks in my neck of the woods actually think she's a viable candidate.  I vote largely on the basis of science and education policy.  So, as a public service.

Bachmann on evolution

Bachmann on climate change

Bachmann on stem cell research

Bachmann on environmental issues

Bachmann on education

To summarize, it would be difficult to construct, part by part, batshit-crazy idea by batshit-crazy idea, a more perfect anti-science, anti-education candidate.  She out-Palins Palin.  I would be tempted to wish for a Bachmann nomination, with the thought that she would be easy to defeat in November of 2012.  However, my faith in my fellow Americans is not as strong as it once was.  Like a rampaging rogue elephant, she needs to be stopped in her tracks.

Bunny huggers?

Not quite sure how to react to this news, in which an English politician disparages those who would insist that developers pay for archaeological excavation before starting development.  It's certainly another depressing illustration of the strategy of dismissing those of us who wish to protect what we have (be it historical artifacts, pristine habitats, or endangered species) as somehow silly or juvenile.  On the other hand, it's a bit refreshing to see that such inanity is not limited to the U.S.  Our brothers across the pond can be assholes too.

Coming home

Some good news.  The New Zealand population of southern right whales, hunted to extinction in their home grounds over a century ago, have found their way home.  Researchers have determined that at least seven whales are now migrating from the sub-Antarctic waters now used by the species to the coastal waters of New Zealand.  They expect more to follow.

Eye evolution

Nice slide show from Scientific American illustrating a variety of eyes found in the animal kingdom.

Deniers, prepare your rationalizations

Neodenticula seminae, a diatom that went extinct in the North Atlantic about 800,000 years ago, is back.  It's drift from the Pacific has been made possible by the melting of polar ice in the Arctic.

Black skies....

...over west Alabama.  It'll be along time before people around these parts see skies like this the same way.

Blowing bubbles

Interesting work here on feeding in humpback whales from David Wiley and others.  While the bubble feeding behavior of humpbacks is well.  Wiley and his coworkers used tags to record depth and orientation of whales below the surface.  Their results show that the behavior is more complex than previously known.  The whales were seen to swim upward in what the researchers dubbed a "double loop."  In this complex behavior, humpbacks make a spiral loop upwards that concentrates fish in the center of the ring, slap their flukes on the surface, and then make a second upward lunge with their mouths open to capture their prey.  Wiley and his coworkers also found that the whales work in teams, but may steal the prey from bubble nets of other whales.

Check out humpback's bubble feeding here...

Fast enough?

There's little question that coming decades will bring dramatic environmental changes.  While we can only guess at the severity and rapidity of those changes, there is real concern about the power of evolutionary change keep pace with a deteriorating environment.  There have been attempts to model such changes, but Graham Bell and and Andrew Gonzalez report, in the June 10 edition of Science, the results of experimentation to help answer that question.

The McGill University researchers exposed 2000 yeast cultures to changing environmental stresses (in the form of salt) and found that, in many cases, evolutionary change was sufficient to allow the yeast to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.  The ability of populations to evolve was enhanced by previous exposure to the stress and by the ability to acquire beneficial mutations from neighboring populations by dispersal.

Quite likely that studies such as this one will become increasingly interesting in a culture where we seem determine to destroy our environment as rapidly as possible.

Fossil art

In my Subtropical Ecology course, we devote some time to a discussion of the Pleistocene fossil fauna of peninsular fauna, including a fascinating group of mammals rivaling that of modern-day Africa.  These megafauna included a number of probscideans such as mammoths and mastodons.  A newly published paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science describes a fantastic new piece of evidence tying this fossil fauna to the earliest human inhabitants to the region.

13,000 year-old engraving on Florida
fossil (Credit: Chip Clark/Smithsonian)

Amateur fossil collector James Kennedy, in inspecting a fossilized long bone from an unidentified mammals, noticed the engraving pictured here.  It shows an elephant-like animal, whether mammoth or mastodon cannot be clearly determined.  Experts at the University of Florida have determined that the engraving is authentic.  This means that the artwork was likely produced at least 13,000 years ago, when the last of the ancient proboscideans disappeared from the region.

The fossil was uncovered at a site known as the Old Vero Site, where the fossils of Pleistocene mammals are found side-by-side with human fossils of the same age.  While such proboscidean art is common in Europe, this find represents the first instance of from the Americas.

Rest in peace, Big Man

Have a good life, Will and Kate

Meanwhile, in the real world.

Actually, don't want to be that guy.  It's just been a particularly gut-wrenching year in our part of the world.  Cynicism abounds.  However, the good people of Small Southern seem to have largely escaped the full hell of this round of storms.  Some of my students and colleagues lost homes, which is certainly tragic enough.  Still, as far as we know, no loss of life in our little academic community.  That can't be said for our neighbors to the northeast.  Hang tough, T-town.

A little something for the shark lovers

In the waters off California's Farralon Islands, the great white may not be top dog.  Some video from a National Geographic special that will air tomorrow...

In transit

Left Louisiana marshes behind.  Headed for Alabama marshes.  Will leave them late tonight.

Roots

Much of my Ph.D. work centered on Louisiana's LUMCON Lab at Port Fourchon.  Many long days and nights in Bay Champagne and the nearby marshes.  Haven't been back in almost 20 years.  Until today.  Collecting meiofauna samples in Timbalier Bay, and dredgimg up some good memories.

Invaders from Mars?

Rest assured that when convincing evidence of extraterrestrial life emerges, it will generate some buzz.  It would be hard to imagine a scientific find that would more profoundly impact our understanding of our place in the universe.  Are there new claims?  Sure.  Is there new evidence?  Maybe.  But the scientific community remains largely unimpressed.

Where do you fall?

I'm pretty much on the pitcher's mound.

I've earned a little...

...night music. I feel some Richard Thompson coming on.

BBB redux

The other video from our initation banquet.  Quite a few of these photos are from the Subtropical Ecology class that many of these students took last fall.  That's the Subtropical Ecology class that I promised myself I'd develop a lengthy blog post about a long time ago.  Reminder to myself.  Regardless, here you go...

Photos: "Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

For my zombie-loving friends...

Photos: "Zombie" Ants Found With New Mind-Control Fungi

Controversy revisited

OK, I'll call it a controversy as long as we identify it as the creationism controversy.  While there are certainly controversies within evolution (e.g. gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium) there's nothing controversial about evolution, at least in scientific circles.  The controversy has been created by people who are motivated to undermine scientific thought.  Here, the folks at Scientific American provide a state-by-state update on some current issues.  What's really interesting is how the nature of the controversy differs between regions.  Hover your mouse over California, and you'll find out that the University of California has been allowed to deny credit to applicants who took biology courses employing textbooks that reject evolution.  Visit Ohio, and you'll learn that a local school board has fired a teacher for teaching creationism in his science classroom.  But visit Louisiana and Tennessee, and you'll find lawmakers promoting bills that encourage the critical examination of scientific theories, with specific mention of biological evolution, the chemical origin of life, human cloning, and global warming.  If the inclusion of that last (scientifically) unrelated topic doesn't clearly illustrate that this all comes down to politics, nothing will.

Here in Alabama, home of Small Southern, it's a very rare high school science teacher that has the fortutide to teach the truth in his/her science classroom.  It requires real courage, a quality far too rare in education these days.  That's a shame.  There's a war going on, and the future of this country is at stake.  We're on the front lines - don't be a coward.

That time of year again

Last night, our chapter of Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society initiated some 25 new student members.  A good night for a great bunch of students.  A growing tradition are the little music videos that we do to compile some of our photos and experiences. We did one to remember our time on the water - we have a real preoccupation with water - as well as to advertise the upcoming Tombigbee River course that my colleague plans to offer this summer.  So, I give you...

Ornithologists

From xkcd comics.

The "controversy" continues

An update here on Scientific American from Jennifer Miller, one of the Dover, PA, science teachers who refused to read the statement undermining evolution and supporting "intelligent design" that the local school board had placed in the district's books.  This, of course, led to one of ID's more highly publicized failures when Judge John Jones ruled that ID was not only nonscientific, but that the whole episode was simply a ruse to allow the advancement of a creationist agenda in public school science classrooms.

Miller talks about her experiences in the classroom since Judge Jones' ruling.  She sounds like she's probably a very good science teacher.  Her comments remind me of the atmosphere my college-level evolution classes - there's no controversy and very little skepticism.  Once students have an understanding of how the process works, all but the most heavily propogandized are able to follow the weight of the scientific evidence.

More troubling is the discussion of what goes on in other classrooms.  Many (most?) of our high school science teachers continue to avoid the topic of evolution or, worse, confuse their students with false information and flawed logic.  Whatever your religion or philosophy, cowardice and hypocrisy are not admirable traits.  If you're one of those science teachers, do your job.  Or find another.

Morning music

It's Johnny's birthday...



Takes me back to a time when things were simpler. Or, at least, we thought they were.

Chris DiCarlo...

...was in Tuscaloosa tonight as part of the University of Alabama's ALLELE (Alabama Lectures on Life's Evolution) series.  I took a group up from Small Southern for the talk.  The science was a fairly low-level summary of what we know about our African origins.  The more interesting part of the talk dealt with the philosophical questions that rise from that knowledge.  Can scientific proof of our commonality save us? 

I have my doubts - we seem to be hard-wired for hatred.  Still, spreading the word can't hurt.  So, we're 95% similar, DNA-wise, to chimpanzees.  Well, we're a lot more similar to each other.  It's kin selection, guys.  We're carrying each others genes - let's look out for each other.  For the interested, here's a DiCarlo pub that summarizes his main points.

Although I enjoyed the DiCarlo talk, it was a toss-up between him and the stage production of Moby Dick.

Darwinian night music

Talking Darwin to the Honors group tomorrow.  Getting in the mood with Chris Smither.

Wait a minute....

...I was promised dolphins and coral reefs.

Two Brothers

In 2008, archaeologists discovered a large anchor in the shallow waters of French Frigate Shoal in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  All indications now are that the anchor is a link to a remarkable historical chapter, one that helped give rise to one of our greatest literary works. 

In 1820, the whaleship Essex, out of Nantucket and captained by George Pollard, Jr., was stove in by an enraged sperm whale and sank.  If the story sounds familiar, it should - it became the foundation for Herman Melville's Moby Dick.  Of course, Melville's Ishmael was picked up by the Rachel the day after Captain Ahab's Pequod went down. The survivors of the Essex disaster were not so lucky.  The drifted in their whaleboats for three months, reduced to drawing lots to determine who would survive and who would be cannibalized.  Captain Pollard himself helped execute, and eat, his own nephew.  Their trial by ocean is the subject of another truly great book, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick.

After the Essex survivors eventual rescue, Pollard was granted another captaincy, this time on the Two Brothers.  His luck, however, had not improved.  In 1823, the Two Brothers struck a reef in the Hawaiian Islands and went down.  The crew survived, but Pollard's career ended.  He spent the rest of his days as a night watchman in Nantucket.

It is the anchor of the Two Brothers that was spotted in French Frigate Shoals in 2008.  The find has now been extensively investigated, and is the subject of this piece at National Geographic.  It's not biology, but it's pretty good stuff.

The attack begins

Today marks the beginning of the new Republican-led Congress' attack on a number of pieces of important environmental legislation.  It's predictable, and it's worrisome.  It's important, too.  If you'd like to follow it, The Wilderness Society is blogging live from Capitol Hill.  A number of key votes coming up tonight.  I suspect the folks at the Society would not object to my cutting and pasting of their "Threatened 13" - key elements of the attack on the environment.  Take a look - there's a recurring theme here:

From the Wilderness Society....

"The Threatened 13" are The Wilderness Society’s list of worst budget cuts proposed by House leadership. That list includes:


1.Eliminating the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). According to the Department of Interior’s budget brief for 2012, the $675 million that it requested for public land conservation “will contribute an estimated $1.0 billion in economic output and support about 7,600 jobs … Activities funded under the LWCF will continue to ensure public access to the outdoors, preserve natural resources and landscapes, and protect irreplaceable cultural and historic sites.”

2.Stopping science in its tracks. Driven by radical ideology, not proven facts, the House majority has decided to deny the existence of global warming by eliminating funding for climate change science. The legislation would cut at least $123 million for climate research -- funding needed to assess our vulnerability to climate disruptions and to develop the tools needed to adapt to climate extremes.

3.Eliminating forest planning that keeps the damage caused by offroad recreational vehicles under control. This impairs public safety for all national forest users and threatens drinking water resources, big game species, and other key resources.

4.Eliminating the EPA’s authority to hold polluters accountable when they foul our air and poison our water.

5.Closing National Parks and Wildlife Refuges.

6.Cutting back on forest rangers, youth outdoor education, and law enforcement.

7.Limiting access to hunting and fishing – slashing the local jobs those activities create. Putting off maintenance projects, fighting invasive plants, restoration work, timber cutting, and managing wildfire.

8.Putting off maintenance projects, fighting invasive plants, restoration work, timber cutting, and managing wildfire.

9.Preventing federal agencies from moving forward with their responsibility to protect wild lands, wildlife habitat, and watersheds.

10.Eliminating the Department of Interior’s ability to inventory, monitor and protect potential new Wild Lands (Wilderness areas).

11.Failure to adequately fund the Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Program, which would threaten drinking water supplied to 66 million people. The cut could also eliminate up to 2,500 jobs. The program funds road and trail improvements, maintenance work and road removal projects that improve the health of local watersheds.

12.Revoking the President’s ability to keep our wild places safe by using the Antiquities Act, which has protected iconic places like the Grand Canyon.

13.Weakening of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is the most important conservation law that ensures that federal agencies take a careful look at the effects of their actions on the environment and that the public has an opportunity to provide input and information to federal decision makers. Without NEPA, the public’s ability to protect their communities would be largely silenced.

The linked page provides an opportunity for you to express your concerns to your legislators.  Take advantage of it.

Organic chemist...

...meets salt marsh.

Fresh meat

Working today in the marsh with two new student helpers.  Here's the "before" picture.

The Frankenstein syndrome

This semester, I'm helping out in a special topics class for our Honors Program which we call Science and Literature. We're investigating the interface between those two divergent aspects of human endeavor, and why the relationship so often appears antagonistic. We started with a reading of C.P. Snow's 1959 lecture The Two Cultures, and followed that up with an investigation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In that light, I thought the guys might be interested in this offering by Phillip Ball from New Scientist...

The Frankenstein syndrome: Why fear making humans? - life - 14 February 2011 - New Scientist

It discusses the reluctance of many to welcome new reproductive technology, relating it to mythological and literary depictions of human-making. As we've discussed in class, these inevitably end badly. Why is that? Does it reflect some deep wisdom, Kass' "wisdom of repugance"? Or does it just make for a better story?

Night music....

....Mumford & Sons.  I like it.

First numbers are in...

..for meiofauna from our sites in oiled/unoiled areas in Alabama coastal marshes.  They're interesting, to say the least, but just a first step.  We leave Monday to collect a second set of samples.  Hoping to see a bit more this month from the ongoing macrofauna collections in our weirs.  Progressively higher tides as we move into the spring should make the weir samples more interesting - not much to see in the first set.  Taking a couple of new victims, including a prospective thesis student, for their first exposure to the salt marsh. Thankfully, it looks like the bitter cold is passing.  Hopefully, our next thermal challenge will be an afternoon sampling in August.

Don't forget your booties...

...cause it's cold out there today.  It's cold out there every day.

It's Science Saturday, boys and girls.  Math version - Kandinsky Did, Can You? Think about it. Then work on the new ecology storage building, and prep for a coast trip. Back later to discuss.

Florida find

Not sure what's more interesting here, the video of the blanket octopus (which may show the greatest size difference betweent the sexes of any large animal), or the "ooh, that's scary" attitude of these so-called newspeople.

Catchy....

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Back on the road...

It's been a long, cold, winter (in multiple senses), and I haven't been very diligent with the morning run.  Bess and I are feeling the effects of our inactivity.  So, it's time for a new leaf.  Hopefully, that carries over to SKTS.  The book now is The Emperor of All Maladies:  A Biograhy of Cancer.  It's not my normal read (probably helping explain my lack of desire to run the Loop in the freezing pre-dawn), but the topic has hit close to home during the long winter.  Better the beast you know.  Add in the fact that most of my advisees see biology as simply an entry into medicine, and this is subject matter that I need to get into.

Experimenting...

...with the phone.

Being shit on isn't always bad...

Typically, having someone move into your home and shit on the floor is a bad thing.  Not always.  Here's a coevolutionary relationship between a woolly bat and a pitcher plant in which both benefit.

N-control? Not so much

Seagrass damage from the N-Control

This week NOAA reported findings from a 5-year monitoring of a patch of seagrass in the Florida Keys Marine Marine Sanctuary.  The seagrass was damaged in 2001 when a 45 foot motorboat, the ironically named N-Control, went aground.  The restoration effort included seagrass plantings and the installation of stakes for seabird roosting.  The rationale for attracting seabirds is the significant nutrient input provided by their droppings.  Indications are that the restored area is recovering faster than if left alone, but it's a slow process.  Coverage of the seagrass species in question, Thallasia testudinum  increased from less than 1% to over 12% in the restoration area.  T. testudinum coverage in adjacent, undamaged seagrass beds are close to 30%.  

Seagrass habitats are impacted by hundreds of groundings annually.  State and federal authorities have taken steps to deal with the problem.  Damage to seagrass habitats in the Sanctuary carry fines of $100 for incidents less than one square yard, and $75 for each additional square yard up to 10 square yards. Grounded vessls may incur damages of up to $100,000 per day.

I'm preparing...

...a rather lengthy summary of the adventures of the 2010 Subtropical Ecology class.  That will take a few days.  In the meantime...

Learning curve

This is the first t post ith the new phone. If the phone is smart, I'm not.

Coming back

Hope to be back with some regularity over the next few weeks.  My Subtropical Ecology class is gearing up for their big trip to all points Floridian, and we'll be relaying the events here.  Departure in the wee smalls this Friday.  Weighty itinerary including: Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, Lake Okeechobee, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Everglades National Park, Ocala National Forest, and others.  Watch this space...

Good to know

Watermelon, watermelon, good for the heart.

There are side effects, of course...

Whale poop

A friend of mine (well, maybe it was me) used to be fond of the expression "lower than whale shit." The idea, of course, was that, since whale feces had to sink to the bottom of the deep ocean it, you just couldn't get much lower than that.  Turns out that would be, well, wrong.

Truth is, whale poop doesn't necessarily sink.  In fact, a significant component of it floats at the surface of the ocean and has a real impact on the productivity of fisheries.  Joe Roman (University of Vermont) and James McCarthy (Harvard), publishing October 11 in PLoS One, have determined that deep-feeding whales actually carry nutrients back to the surface in a an "upward biological pump", rather than sending nutrients on a one-way trek to the abyss.  They estimate the the nutrient input of whale excrement to the Gulf of Maine is greater than that of all rivers combined.  Roman and McCarthy go on to suggest that, historically, whales likely played a very significant role in providing a nutrient base for fisheries and that the decline in whale abundance may be one of many factors that have led to declining productivity.

And, a little night music...

Trying to return, with a manageable schedule.  We'll see.  Moondoggies...

New meat-eater



Durrell's vontsira.  Credit:
Photo from Durrell Wildlife
Conservation Trust

 The world's newest carnivore has surfaced in Madagascar.  Researchers at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust have identified Durrell's vontsira (Salanoia durrelli), a small meat-eater belonging to a carnivore family known only from Madagascar.  The little guy weighs only about a pound, and immediately becomes not only the world's newest carnivore species, but one of its most endangered.  The mongoose-like animal was observed swimming in a lake in the Lac Alaotra marsh region.  After capture, it was determined to be distinct from the brown-tailed vontsira that is also found in the region.

Stealth predator

It's no secret that ctenophores, or comb jellies, are voracious predators on zooplankton.  They can make a serious dent in copepod densities, even though calanoid copepods aren't the easiest prey for most slow-moving predators.  This is because the copeods are highly attuned to the slighest motions of the water around them.  Ctenophores, however, have one-upped their crustacean prey.  The ctenophore Mnemiopsis uses tiny cilia within the oral lobes to produce a current of water that moves copepod prey very delicately into their gastrovascular cavity, before the copepods are aware that they're being consumed.  Here it is at PNAS.

The champ

The world's most fecund vertebrate.  Mola mola, the ocean sunfish, females of which may release as many as 300 million eggs at a time. 

Invasion ingestion

Lionfish are well established as an invader in the Western Atlantic, and the prognosis doesn't look good.  A new paper appearing in the journal Biological Invasions indicates that, to decrease populations, 27% of adults would have to be removed annually.  There is one bright spot, though, that could help stem the tide of the invasion.  Apparently, they taste great, with a flavor like that of grouper or snapper.  Hence, NOAA's "Eat Lionfish" campaign.

A couple of my students (one former, one current) have spent some time this summer catching lionfish.  Have to find out if they've tried them on the grill.

Last rhino

No, not the very last rhino.  The last adult at South Africa's Krugersdorp Game Reserve.  Shot and left to bleed to death after her horn was severed.  A horn made of essentially the same material as your fingernails, but valued as in traditional Chinese medicine.  And it's safe to predict that this is the fate that will, in fact, befall the very last one unless we somehow deal with these idiots.  Must say that I agree with P. Z. Myers' take on the solution.

Fixing it

Had an opportunity to meet yesterday with Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who has been designated by the President to oversee the development of a long-term plan for the restoration of the Gulf Coast.  Don't be overly impressed - I was one of a couple of professorial peons in a room full of University Presidents, VPs for Research, and Program Administrators.  Still, it was an interesting meeting and an opportunity to see how these things happen.  Secretary Mabus is looking for ideas about what comes next - after the hole is plugged, after the oil is off the beaches.  How do we start putting the pieces back together?  How do we assess the damage to ecosystems and begin to restore them?  How do we address potential threats to human health?  How do we put the impacted people back to work?  And, significantly, do we consider ways to move the Gulf states away from their marriage to the oil industry?  He closed the meeting with a charge to, "Think big; think holistic."

The Secretary made an interesting point with his contention that, perhaps, the Gulf region might serve as a national or international model for dealing with disaster.  I've said for a while now that the biological communities of the Gulf might be uniquely adapted to survive disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon spill because of their long history of dealing with environmental stresses.  Hardy organisms - the ones that can handle hurricanes, low oxygen zones, high temperatues, and hydrocarbon seeps - have been selected for in the Gulf of Mexico.  I don't think it's a stretch to say the same for the human inhabitants of the region.  No, the folks that live along the Gulf don't own the franchise on hard times - there's been plenty of that to go around, geographically speaking.  But I don't think anyone would argue that we've had to deal with our share of disaster.  We know how.  Give us your best shot.  Blow away our homes.  Blast our economy.  Coat our waters with oil.  The believers among us will pray.  The profane among us will curse.  The passionate among us will shed a few tears and the drinkers will throw back a few.  Hell, we'll all throw back a few.  Then, as a people, we'll get up in the morning and go to work.  Just watch.

Final Fish Feast

Last lecture in Biology of Fishes, and the guys brought in various fish dishes.  Represented families - Engraulidae, Thunnidae, Centrarchidae, Cichlidae, Salmonidae, Pleuronectidae, Serranidae, and Gaddidae.  On the final, they'll match the fish to the dish.

Sounds good, but...

...I'd say the jury's out.  It appears possible that that warm temperatures and, perhaps, a biological community better equipped to deal with an influx of petroleum may lessen the potential impact of Deepwater Horizon.   However, there's also the possibility that dispersants like Corexit 9500 have simply turned a toxic threat into an invisible toxic threat.

We'll see.

Don't confuse me with facts...

The Livingston Parish School Board in Livingston, LA wants to explore the possibility of teaching creationism in their public school system's science classes.  Some of the pertinent quotes from school board members.

David Tate: "We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this school board believe in creationism."

Clint Mitchell:  "I agree.... You don't have to be afraid to point out some of the fallacies with the theory of evolution."

Board President Keith Martin (after noting an increase in discipline problems):  "Maybe it's time that we look at this."

 Dave again:  "Why can't we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?"

Maybe this guy's available.  These are, after all, his old stomping grounds.  Hell, ole Dave probably hangs out with Jimmy at some of the roadhouses on Airline Highway.  After church.

None of these people, of course, know a damn thing about evolution.  Most of them probably don't know much about creationism either.  To be fair, some of them are just naive, and naive can be educated.  Others are just plain stupid, which is harder to cure.  But they're not all naive.  They're not all stupid.  Some are intelligent, and they're the ones that should be ticketed for that Hell they want so badly for you to be terrified of.  They're motivated by the very worst of human traits.  They want to use your fears to control you.  And they want to force you to think like they do.   Even if it hurts you.  They want to rob the children of Livingston and Denham Springs and Killian. 

We know what will happen, of course.  Livingston Parish will take its rightful place alongside the Daytons and Dovers of the country.  Another symbol of just how far we've failed to come.  But, if the ignorant and the naive and the malicious have their way for long enough (and clearly, there are a lot of them out there), the day may come when the judges of this country won't have the backbone to stand up for what's right.  And then, we'll be set back another 30 years while the rest of western civilization moves forward.  Don't stand for it.  It's time to quit playing nice.

For the good people of the Livingston Parish School Board.  They're playing your song....

Largest rat in history?

Take your pick...

Six kg rodent unearthed in East Timor.

Tony Hayward may be forced to step down at BP.

They're shrimping...

...in Mobile Bay.  Without much success at this point, but it's still good to know.

Can we learn?

This has been rehashed a thousand times over the last few months, but here's another synopsis from ScientificAmerican.com detailing the similarities between the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the collapse of the Ixtoc 1 rig - almost three decades ago.  It's sad that, almost always, a tragedy is required to focus our national attention on matters that we all know must be addressed.  The only way to make sure that something like this never happens again, and that we're able to maintain our standard of living into the forseeable future and beyond, is to address our national energy policy now.  The realization is growing that the time has come to put politics aside and actually DO something.  Let's strike while the iron is hot.

And...

...the return of night music.  I find myself desperately in need of something a little upbeat.

Gulf whale shark

Remarkable video from the Mobile Press-Register's Ben Raines.  Large whale shark about six miles off Alabama's Orange Beach.

Swimming with a whale shark off the Alabama coast

Unfortunately, these magnificent fish have been observed recently swimming and feeding in heavy oil.  They're unlikely to survive.

Worth knowing

Is BP attempting to buy up Gulf of Mexico marine scientists?  Appears so.

Pallid sturgeon

Here, Fisheries and Wildife officials from Montana discuss conservation efforts designed to increase stocks of the pallid sturgeon, Scaphrhynchus albus.  The pallid is one of some two dozen sturgeon species, most of which face a very uncertain future.  Pallids, natives of the Missouri and Mississippi River drainage systems, are similar to, albeit considerably larger than, the more common shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorhynchus).  That, in itself, is proving to be a bit of a problem for the big fish.



Researchers at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville have determined that the similarity of the pallid to the shovelnose may be helping push it toward extinction.  There is a thriving fishery for shovelnose sturgeon in Tennessee, where females are harvested for their eggs which are marketed for caviar.  The pallid sturgeon, which no longer reproduces in nature as a result of habitat alteration, is apparently also suffering from overexploitation through mistaken identity.  The researchers, in their observation of the shovelnose fishery, observed accidental by-catch of pallids.  Young individuals are virtually indistinguishable from the shovelnose, with the pale coloration typical of pallids showing up only in older fish.  Furthermore, pallids are occasionally killed in lost "ghost" nets left behind by shovelnose fishermen.

The USFWS has been asked to invoke the "Similarity of Appearance" provision allowed under the Endangered Species Act, which would shut down the shovelnose sturgeon fishery in Tennessee.  A decision is expected in September.

Sex ratios in reef fish

A new paper appearing in American Naturalist examines the impact of overfishing on reef fish populations, and comes to some interesting and, perhaps, unexpected conclusions.  Australian biologist Stefan Walker and his colleagues observed that, as population sizes declined, many reef fish were producing fewer young per individual.  This in spite of the fact that lower population sizes should mean more available resources.  To get at the cause of this phenomenon, the researchers tagged and followed over 200 cylindrical sandperches (Parapercis cylindrica) on the Great Barrier Reef.  These fish are sequential hermaphrodites, born female with some later changing to males.  Walker and team found that the frequency of sex changes was inversely related to fish density, resulting in a higher percentage of males, and therefore lower egg production, in more heavily impacted populations.  The researchers go on to tout their findings as further evidence that marine protected areas, which do a better job of densities, are a more effective way to conserving populations than fishing quotas.

That which does not kill us

It's been a long, tough, summer.  Seems they always are.  But it's almost over, and it's been life-changing.  Again, seems they always are.  A few more scars, a little more recognition of mortality.  I'm  promising myself that this will be the last one like this - seems I always I do that.

But, it's time to establish the old routine.  Watch this space.

They're here....

Wrote several months ago about the steadily increasing number of sightings of alligators as they continue to spread into their former range.  My field methods class was doing fish community work in a local stream yesterday, and came across this...

That's an alligator track, and not a small one.  The hind foot measures about 11.5" to the tip of the longest digit.  With a little regression and some literature work, we're estimating a total length of 9-10 feet.  The stream is not a big one, some thirty feet across, averaging 1-3 feet in depth.  But there are some deep holes, and it supports (supported?) good populations of gar and bowfin.  Lots of beaver and raccoon in the area as well.  A crocodilian could do worse.

I've been working this stream for 18 years, and this is the first gator sign I've seen.  It won't be the last.  Alligators, in my view, pose of much more significant threat than do sharks, and statistics seem to bear that out.  Let's be careful out there, guys.

A frightening view...

...of what human future may hold, from the perspective of an evolutionary psychologist.  Probably up to us to make sure this doesn't come to pass, or that we can at least stave it off.

What we're up against

From a 1996 video depicting a Dayton, Tennessee biology classroom.  Dayton, by the way, was the site of the 1925 trail of John Scopes who was convicted of violated a state statute against the teaching of evolution.  The intervening years should have put an end to this silliness.  They haven't. 

In fairness, this video is some 15 years old.  I wish I believed that things have changed in the classrooms of our region over that span.  I fear they have not.

Science teachers, do your jobs.  If you can't, find another occupation.

Sabertooth cats...

...were bad, bad, animals.  Four feet tall at the shoulder, and armed with foot-long serrated canines (in the case of Smilodon populator, the largest of the group).  And, apparently, massively strong in the forelimbs.  X-ray analysis reveals that the bones from the front legs of sabertooths were dramatically thicker, and presumably stronger, than those of similarly-sized modern cats.  The cats apparently used their powerful forelimbs to hold down their prey while they dispatched them with the canines.

Making it right

Grandmothers

Few female mammals live significantly past menopause.  We're glad they do of course, but it's still an interesting question - one that comes up routinely in my evolution class when we're discussing life histories.  It's a trait that humans share with killer whales and pilot whales, and a new paper appearing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and discussed here at Scientific American delves into what we might have in common with those species.  Good stuff.

So, there you go

Topic that came up in class tonight...  One of the "mini-project" topics that my students are addressing is the idea of "fish as pets", the idea being to find out a little about the natural history of the species that have come to be popular in people's homes.  A number of the fish that students have chosen to examine are tropical marine species, and we had a discussion tonight about the conservation impacts that the aquarium trade is having.  And then this.  A new paper appearing in Marine Policy examines just that issue, concluding that international law is not doing an adequate job of protecting reefs and reef species from decimation from collectors.  Collectors remove some 30 million fish per year, belong to perhaps 1,500 species.  Since many collected fish will die before reaching markets, collectors overharvest to be sure they have enough to meet their needs.  Some fish, like the Banggai cardinalfish, have disappeared from much of their previous range.  The authors recommend that to deal successfully with the issue, pressure must be exerted on the U.S. market which accounts for over half the trade in reef fish.

Day on the river

Fish guys and I spent the day on the Tombigbee yesterday.  Not terribly productive.  Shoreline waters over 90 degrees down to three feet or so - seining doesn't yield much.  We're trying some different techniques - more to come.

As some know...

...summer has not been kind thus far.  Long, hot days.  Long, too.  And hot.   And not terribly conducive to writing blog posts when I get in at 9 or 10.  However, a variety of clues have indicated that there are some folks out there, mainly students former and current, that actually look to see what I've put here.  Lately, that hasn't been much.  Gonna try to be better.  Do me a favor.  Drop  a comment occasionally, so I'll know that these aren't just Dear Diary entries.

What can you say?

Mimic octopus

Remarkable video floating around the biological twittersphere.

Sharks off Bon Secour

Video from Ben Raines from the Mobile Press Register.  Evidence that the oil is forcing baitfish, and their predators, into nearshore waters.

Submerged oil at Bon Secour shoreline

I guess we should have known...

...that it would come to this.

From someone you can trust

Here, David Biello of Yale Environment 360 interview Dr. Tom Shirley from Texas A&M - Corpus Christi regarding the Gulf oil spill.  I know Tom Shirley, having worked with him for a couple of summers when he was at the University of Alaska's fisheries facility in Juneau.  He's as good a biologist as you'll ever hear.  Here's what he has to say about the situation in the Gulf.

And, from an appearance at the National Press Club.

Humboldt squid

From William Gilly, who is currently blogging from the Gulf of California from a research expedition investigating the big squid.