[Coral-List] corals digest their zoozanthelle
Risk, Michael
riskmj at mcmaster.ca
Tue Aug 29 21:01:24 UTC 2023
Time to inject a little religion into the discussion.
There are two critical mis-translations in the Bible. At least. In
Genesis, we are not given "dominion over" the Earth and all its
creatures, we are given "custody of." Makes a huge difference in
attitudes, I think-and this is one way Islam is ahead of us. The error
stems from mistranslation of the original Aramaic. The other is the
statement "For the love of money is the root of all of evil." (1
Timothy 6:10). But this is also wrong. It should read "GREED is the
root of all evil."
I thought you'd all like some inspiration before carrying on with the
rest of your day.
I do have a point, really. When we build a system in which scientists
are judged by the # of papers we write, and the citations we receive,
no one should be surprised when the system is gamed. I regularly
receive MSS to review that contain the nugget of maybe a decent term
paper in a senior course-with 20 authors. Members of research
institutions routinely cite each others' papers to juice their
h-scores. All unsurprising, simply going to show that, while scientists
may well be a more ethical bunch than the general populace, the
difference is not great.
If we then overly the pressure always to be "new", then the snake
enters, hissing "if you don't cite prior work, people may think you
were the first."
All we can do is hold feet to fires. Tom is dead right: if you write a
paper on X, you bloody well have the professional responsibility to
research and cite relevant previous work-no ifs or ands.
Sure, poor downtrodden students (we were all one, once) may not have
time or energy-but if YOU are writing a paper, you hope for a short
shining moment to be a leader. You should lead.
And on top of that: Sammarco and I thought WE had solved that, in 1999.
(Sammarco et al, MEPS v 180). I had "solving Darwin's Paradox" in the
title. Some reviewer thought that hopelessly arrogant on our part, so I
edited. That was then, this is now.
__________________________________________________________________
From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of
Tomas via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2023 2:23 PM
To: Hannah Mazurek <hnnhmaz at att.net>
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] corals digest their zoozanthelle
Caution: External email.
Hi everyone,
I do not believe that there is anyone here on the list that expects us
to read every paper that is published in our field. I think that what
appears to be sadly lacking is the curiosity of chasing after the
original idea. I found Wiedenmann et al. (2023) article of great
interest, but clearly the hype in the mainstream media took it over the
hill with headlines like this:
[1]https://scitechdaily.com/darwins-paradox-of-coral-reefs-solved-scien
tists-unravel-age-old-mystery/
Not that long ago we were told the same:
[2]https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/11/scientists-
solve-darwins-paradox/
I am happy that we solved "Darwin's Paradox" not once, but twice!
With thousands of research papers from the past now digitized, and
easily available trough most university libraries, it really is not
that
difficult to search if someone else has also done research on the
topic.
In case of Wiedenmann et al. (2023), the digestion of zooxanthellae by
the coral animal. I used the 'Google Scholar' and searched for
"digestion of zooxanthellae" and this is the results that popped up:
[3]https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=digestion+of
+zooxanthellae&btnG=
Boschma's 1925 article is second from the top, yet it did not make it
as
a reference in Wiedenmann et al. (2023). If a claim is being made of a
major discovery (well, the mainstream media certainly seems to think
so)
than it is only fair to search the literature for past work on the
subject.
In 1996, Titlyanov et al. (2019) also concluded that: "... hermatypic
corals are capable of regulating their zooxanthellae populations by
digestion and extrusion of zooxanthellae remnants". Yet, this article
is
also missing from Wiedenmann et al. (2023) reference list. For anyone
interested in that article here is a link:
[4]https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/139/m139p167.pdf).
I don't expect anyone to read all the papers being published on coral
reefs and corals (an impossible task to begin with), but I am
disappointed that more effort is not being made to search the vast
literature that is now at our fingertips for more relevant articles.
Cheers,
Tom
ps: Citing:
Darwin, C.R. (1842). The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs.
Smith Elder and CO, London, 214 pp. (Reprinted 1962 University of
California Press, Barkely, CA).
in the first sentence of the Wiedenmann et al. (2023) article would
have
been nice.
On 2023-08-28 4:02 pm, Hannah Mazurek via Coral-List wrote:
> As one of the young/newer researchers and individuals on this list
this
> exchange has been very disheartening to read. I am new to the large
and
> growing field of coral work and research. My undergraduate degree
> really only covered the basics of coral ecology, reef structure, and
> importance as I was at the time getting a bachelors in biology from a
> university surrounded by freshwater. Only within maybe the last two
> years have I even been close to the world of coral research and only
> the past year has involved me working directly in this realm. If in
> that year all I did was read current and past research there is no
way
> I could have even scratched the surface of the literature, and I did
do
> a lot of reading to build myself up from a base of zero technical
> knowledge regarding corals or my work with histology. However, that
> wasn't the only thing I did. I was completing my masters degree and
> internship, running fecundity calculations, spending long lab hours.
> When I wasn't in the lab I would be doing statistics or reading
> literature, including yours, to increase my understanding and
> knowledge. And of I wasn't doing either of those things I was working
a
> second job because that is what I needed to do. I want to learn, I
want
> to read, and I want to remain within this research world but it is
> saddening to see this attitude.
> Austin, thank you for your words of encouragement.
> Hannah MazurekMPS Rosenstiel schoolCoral Histology Technician, Nova
> Southeastern University
>
>
> It is a shame that so many people who have an interest in coral
reefs>
> > haven't either had the opportunity to take a higher level coral
reef> > ecology and physiology course, or in lieu of this, taken the
time to> > actually read the scientific literature. I was of the
impression that> when> > Coral-List was started by Jim Hendee it was
oriented to coral reef> > scientists communicating with each other
about substantive coral reef> > topics. It was open to all which is a
good way for those with little> > background to learn from scientists
with more experience. Over the> years, I> > find that this scenario has
changed and it is now more a forum for> > afficionados, but not
necessarily ones with any background in the science> > of corals and
coral reefs. I have shelves of books about all kinds of> > geological,
ecological and biological aspects of corals that I use to> brush> > up
on topics, and there have been excellent overview books over the>
decades> > for those who take the time to read them. e.g. Ecosystems of
the World> Vol> > 25 Coral Reefs
(1990). Then there is [5]https://scholar.google.com for more> >
specific
literature searches.> >> > I am sorry, but I will not apologize for
being shocked that in 2023> people> > on this list would be so
uninformed about coral biology to not know what> is> > basically
general
knowledge that corals digest some of their> zooxanthellae.> > As Rob
pointed out, the first paper on this was by Boschma back in 1925.> He>
>
also did cool experiments showing how he could infect aposymbiotic
corals> > with zooxanthellae by feeding them bits of zooxanthellate
coral tissue> > mixed up with crab meat. He did a lot of his research
with the cold water> > coral Astrangia danae (now poculata). I used to
spend hours and hours> > reading the literature to catch up with what
had been learned over the> > decades, even centuries, before I came
along. Apparently that doesn't> > happen anymore: everyone is too busy
reinventing the wheel. I was at the> > Bremen ISRS and did come away
with the impression that oh
so many young> and> > intelligent researchers are underprepared for
tackling major research> > topics because of lack of knowledge with
which to reason with.> >> >> >
***********************************************************************
**>
> Dr. Alina M. Szmant, CEO> > CISME Instruments LLC> > 210 Braxlo
Lane,> > Wilmington NC 28409 USA> > AAUS Scientific Diving Lifetime
Achievement Awardee> > cell: 910-200-3913> > EMAIL:
alina at cisme-instruments.com
> _______________________________________________
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> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
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References
1. https://scitechdaily.com/darwins-paradox-of-coral-reefs-solved-scientists-unravel-age-old-mystery/
2. https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/11/scientists-solve-darwins-paradox/
3. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=digestion+of+zooxanthellae&btnG=
4. https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/139/m139p167.pdf)
5. https://scholar.google.com/
6. https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
7. https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
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