[Coral-List] reef resilience, hypothesis testing, and the need to know one's animals

Dennis Hubbard dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu
Thu May 26 10:26:50 EDT 2016


Thanks Alex:

As we go further down the rabbit hole of specialization, we get less able
to see the larger picture. We retreat into the comfort of our own
sub-sub-sub specialty and, as I'm fond of telling my students, our papers
are increasingly aimed at the other five people who do what we do. Even
with multi-disciplinary (note: *NOT* interdisciplinary - as rare as posts
where Billy & Gene totally agree) projects, each person or group focuses on
their own piece of the puzzle and never looks at the picture of the front
of the box. Ship time is expensive and we are often on deck at different
times to maximize financial efficiency. I have often wondered jokingly
whether NSF's zero tolerance policy on shipboard hasn't contributed to this.

In any event, it seems ironic that as our view of the planet has
evolved...... from one limited to what you can see from 6 ft above the
surface to a balloon's-eye view, to aircraft, to orbiting satellites and
not from objects leaving the solar system..... what we actually see gets
narrower and narrowed. This is apparent in the upcoming reef symposium when
compared to the first three. Part of this is just the size of the meeting.
However, part of it can be attributed to a general sense that we are each
part of the select group that "gets it" and that just going to see a good
talk by a colleague who works on very different things in the same system
as you is not so good an investment. Recently, I have been experimenting
with just sitting down in a session that focuses on something broadly
related to what I study but certainly pretty far afield. It reminds my why
I spent so many years knocking around field labs - and keep going back to
the same places to just look around.

Best,

Dennis

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 6:43 PM, Alec Scott <scottalec at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I just wanted to add to this conversation an article about the decline of
> natural history training in ecology that was recently brought to my
> attention by a former professor who studies grassland ecology (just to
> highlight that this is happening across the whole field):
>
> Scientific American write-up:
>
> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/80-percent-of-young-environmental-scientists-could-use-more-natural-history-training/
>
> Original article:
>
> http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/08/biosci.biw043.full
>
> Cheers,
> Alec
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 4:28 PM, Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Peter,
> >     Your views on the field biologists and the lab scientists has a
> > parallel in an old article by Chuck Birkeland, which supports what you
> say.
> >
> > Birkeland, C.  2009.  Important roles of natural history in ecology.
> > Galaxea, Journal of Coral Reef Studies 11: 59-66.
> >
> >     As Chuck points out, if you don't know the natural history of what
> the
> > organisms are doing, you can get the interpretation of the fancy
> technical
> > data wrong.
> >
> > Cheers,  Doug
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, May 22, 2016 at 3:47 PM, Peter Sale <sale at uwindsor.ca> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Listers,
> > > A couple of weeks ago, Joe Pawlik drew attention to a new paper of his
> in
> > > BioScience.  I read it, read a little bit further, and was prompted to
> > put
> > > some thoughts on my blog, mainly about how we have to know our study
> > > organisms or ecosystems well if we are to be able to generate, and then
> > > test hypotheses about them.  I think Pawlik's paper, and the 2012 one
> by
> > > Roff and Mumby make clear that we still have numerous competing
> > hypotheses
> > > to account for the failures of reef resilience following disturbances
> > that
> > > lead to loss of coral cover, and far more variation from place to place
> > > than would ever be apparent when reading accounts of what I call the
> > > herbivore-mediated hypothesis of coral dominance.
> > >
> > > I fear, rightly or wrongly, that our ability to generate and test
> > > hypotheses about coral reefs is getting weaker, at the very time we
> need
> > it
> > > to be getting stronger, because of the general down-grading of field
> time
> > > in undergraduate and graduate education, plus an appalling erosion of
> > basic
> > > biological knowledge because that is considered old-fashioned and
> > > unnecessary.  (I also admit I learned some new things (for me) about
> > > sponges after reading the Pawlik paper!)
> > >
> > > Anyhow, my thoughts are here: http://www.petersalebooks.com/?p=2237
> > > I hope this does not annoy, because I do not want to have to wear a
> > > bullet-proof vest under my aloha shirt in Honolulu next month.  I'll be
> > > very interested to talk to people about this topic, and also about your
> > > views on the fate of coral reefs over the next few decades during ICRS.
> > >
> > > Note that my blog post includes the statement that it is precisely
> > because
> > > coral reef ecology is relatively strong as ecology goes that I feel
> free
> > to
> > > demand it get stronger.  As I conclude at the end, careful, detailed
> > > monitoring of the gradual loss of coral cover across the reefs of the
> > > world, without any success in building understanding of why and how,
> > would
> > > simply be a time-consuming effort to document the demise of one part of
> > > Earth's biodiversity, a description of a part of the sixth extinction.
> > Not
> > > of any great value once the extinction is over!
> > >
> > > Peter Sale
> > >
> > > Distinguished University Professor (Emeritus)
> > > University of Windsor
> > >
> > > e-mail:                  sale at uwindsor.ca<mailto:sale at uwindsor.ca>
> > > web:                      www.petersalebooks.com<
> > > http://www.petersalebooks.com/>
> > > Twitter:                @PeterSale3
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Coral-List mailing list
> > > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Douglas Fenner
> > Contractor for NOAA NMFS, and consultant
> > "have regulator, will travel"
> > PO Box 7390
> > Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
> >
> > phone 1 684 622-7084
> >
> > Join the International Society for Reef Studies.  Membership includes a
> > subscription to the journal Coral Reefs, and there are discounts for pdf
> > subscriptions and developing countries.  Check it out!
> www.fit.edu/isrs/
> >
> > "Belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."- Jim
> Beever.
> >   "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own
> facts."-
> > Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
> >
> > The political hurdles facing a carbon tax- and how to overcome them.
> >
> > http://www.vox.com/2016/4/26/11470804/carbon-tax-political-constraints
> >
> > Earth's hot streak continues for a record 11 months.
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/earths-hot-streak-continues-record-152700358.html
> >
> > Solar can power more than 100 times America's current electricity needs,
> a
> > new report finds
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/news-and-blogs/solar-can-power-more-than-100-times-americas-current-electricity-needs-new-report-finds
> >
> > website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner
> >
> > blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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>



-- 
Dennis Hubbard
Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 775-8346

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
 Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"


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