Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Could today’s oil rigs be tomorrow’s biodiversity hotspots?

*Guest post by Bryan Flood -one of several posts selected from the graduate EES3001 Scientific Literacy course at University of Toronto-Scarborough.

ResearchBlogging.orgNew research by Jeremy Claisse and colleagues at Occidental College in Los Angles have discovered that secondary fish production at oil and gas platforms off the coast of California is up to an order of magnitude higher than other marine ecosystems. This includes reefs and estuaries, normally considered some of the most productive ecosystems on the planet.

Photo from: US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management - http://www.data.boem.gov/homepg/data_center/other/imagecate/imageview.asp?ID=292
The authors measured the total productivity at oil and gas platforms and divided by the platform’s footprint to get a per-square-metre productivity. Herein lies the secret: The authors attribute these phenomenal productivities to the large hardscape (physical surfaces of the rigs) to seafloor ratio.

Having a structure that spans the total water column creates a range of habitats for a diverse variety of species and life stages, as well as creating a complex structure with large surface area which translates directly into habitat. This habitat attracts many species including rockfish larvae, invertebrates and planktonic food resources. These form the base of the food web, subsequently attracting adult fish and other organisms.

These results have important implications for the future of the more than 7500 oil and gas platforms around the world that will need to be decommissioned at the end of their service life. Should they be dismantled, or left as artificial reefs? Should future platforms and wind turbines be designed with an afterlife as an artificial reef in mind? Could these structures one day dot the seas with aquatic metropolises?


Claisse, J., Pondella, D., Love, M., Zahn, L., Williams, C., Williams, J., & Bull, A. (2014). Oil platforms off California are among the most productive marine fish habitats globally Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111 (43), 15462-15467 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1411477111

Monday, November 10, 2014

To Keep Invasive Asian Carp from the Great Lakes, Carp Catchers Get Creative

*Guest post by Noemie De Vuyst -one of several posts selected from the graduate EES3001 Scientific Literacy course at University of Toronto-Scarborough.

Some say fishing is a peaceful pursuit. Not so if you're one of the self-dubbed Carp-Hunters, a pair of Illinois fishing guides whose carp-catching antics have turned them into YouTube celebrities. Over the last three years, videos of their over-the-top methods have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

They've netted carp while on water-skis, and speared them with samurai swords and costume Wolverine claws. In Illinois' rivers, the Asian carp are so abundant they practically jump into the outstretched nets themselves. In an ecosystem where the invasive species has largely displaced native fish, the Carp-Hunters’ new hobby has a higher purpose; “We care greatly about preserving out natural ecosystem”, their video’s intro reads. “Since we can’t bass fish anymore we have taken on this burden.”




Silver Carp in the Illinois River, 2009. Nerissa Michaels/Illinois River Biological Station, via Detroit Free Press. 

Kooky as their methods may be, the Carp-Hunters have something in common with government agencies on either side of the Great Lakes; they're both battling the highly invasive Asian carp.
Though the U.S. and Canadian officials may not be going after the invaders with the same flair – not everybody gets to name their fishing boat the “Carpocalypse” - they've been labouring to keep the fish out of the Great Lakes since escapees from fish farms were discovered in the 1990's. With their enormous appetites and extraordinary ability to reproduce at speed, Asian carp would be disastrous to ecosystems and economies if they ever reached the Great Lakes.

First brought to North America in the 1970's, Asian carp already dominate some US waterways. The town of Havana, Illinois, just 85km downstream of Carp-Hunters fishing grounds, is thought to have one of the highest abundances of Asian carp on Earth. Here, the carp make up 60% of the fish community.

The uphill battle to keep carp from the Great Lakes has popped up in the news recently. In early October, the routine testing of 200 sites found a single sample of silver carp environmental DNA (or eDNA) in the Kalamazoo River, a tributary to Lake Michigan.

What does it mean that this one sample tested positive? The presence of eDNA shows only that silver carp material was present at the site. What it can't tell us is whether the carp was alive, or how many fish there might have been. In fact, the presence of eDNA doesn't tell us that a silver carp was present at the site at all; it's possible that scales or tiny amounts of mucous were transported by boats or fishing equipment, or even in bird droppings. With no silver carp sightings in the Kalamazoo, it seems likely the positive result comes from one of these explanations.

Despite the low likelihood that silver carp had really spread to the Great Lakes, news of the positive eDNA result was quickly picked by many local news outlets. Within days, the US Fish and Wildlife Service sped through the collection and testing of 200 more samples, and appealed to anglers to report any carp sightings.

Why such a quick response for a finding with such high uncertainty? If Asian carp were to spread to the Great Lakes, it's feared they take over aquatic ecosystems and cause the fishing and angling industries millions of dollars of loss. Silver carp are especially worrisome, since they have a taste for the same microorganisms and algae that many native species rely on.

By late October, the results of Michigan's second batch of eDNA testing were announced; all samples were negative. For now, it seems the silver carp have crept no closer to the Great Lakes watershed. Canada and the US continue to monitor their waterways closely and to put in new measures to prevent the spread of the fish. This past July, Fisheries and Oceans Canada opened a new Asian Carp Science Lab. In a political climate that has squeezed environmental sciences from all sides, the funding of a new facility highlights the carps' immense potential to cause damage.

So even with their home-built contraptions, it looks like Illinois’ Carp-Catchers are doing their bit for the Great Lakes.


  
For more information on eDNA sampling at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources:
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153--340230--rss,00.html
http://www.asiancarp.us/edna.htm

For details on the new Asian Carp Lab at Fisheries and Oceans Canada:
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=865809

And to see those Carp-Hunters do their thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN2gMP3Q2Z4

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Deconstructing creationist "scientists"

I’ve been fascinated by creationism since I first moved to Tennessee over twelve years ago –home of the Scopes “monkey” trial. And though I’ve been away from Tennessee for about seven years now, creationism still fascinates me. I find it interesting not because their arguments are persuasive or scientifically credible –they’re absolutely not; but rather my interest in it is as a social or maybe psychological phenomenon. Why, in the light of so much compelling evidence, do otherwise intelligent people hold on to something that contradicts the record of life that surrounds us. I’m a biologist because I find the tapestry of life full of wonder and richness, with an amazing story to tell.

But what fascinates me most of all are trained scientists, who hold legitimate PhDs, who take up the cause of creationism. This is interesting from two angles –first the ‘scientists’ (more on them later), and second the organizations that support and fund their operations. Creationist organizations readily adopt and promote these scientist-turned-creationists, even though they routinely belittle and try to undermine working scientists. Its like the Republican party that dismisses the Hollywood elite as not real Americans, but proudly flaunting Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood. When the PhDs are on the side of creationism, they are great scholars with meaningful expertise, and when they are against creationism (as are 99% of working scientists) they are elitist and part of a conspiracy.

Enter the latest parade of creationist scientists, who’s authority is meant to persuade the public, at a  ‘Origin Summit’ at Michigan State University in a few days. The first thing you see are four bespectacled PhDs, who are authoritized by the fact that they are PhD ‘scientists’. They are: Gerald Bergman, Donald DeYoung, Charles Jackson, and John Sanford. But, unfortunately for them, not all scientists are created equally.




What makes a scientist? That is not easily answered, but education is one element –and having a PhD from a recognized program and University is a good start. But being trained is not enough, there needs to be some sort of evaluation by the broader scientific community. First and foremost, a scientist needs to communicate their research findings to other scientists by publishing papers in PEER-REVIEWED academic publications. Peer-reviewed means that experts on the topic with examine your paper closely, especially the experimental design and analysis, a provide criticisms. All papers are criticized at this stage, but those with especially egregious problems will not be published. Scientists are also evaluated by other scientists when applying for research funds, being considered for promotion (for example, your record and papers should be sent to 5-8 scientists so they can evaluate the meaningfulness of your contributions), or being considered for scientific awards.

Table 1: How to know that you are doing science.

So then, the ability to publish and survive scrutiny is paramount to being a successful scientist. Of course someone who subscribes to science as conspiracy will say: “wait, then scientists control who gets to be a scientists, and so those with new or controversial ideas will be kept out of the club”. The next thing to understand is what makes a scientist “famous” within the scientific community. The most famous scientists of all time have overturned scientific orthodoxy –that is the scientists that were trailblazers and who came up with better explanations of nature. Many scientists appreciate new ideas and new theories, but work on these has to be scientifically robust in terms of methodology and analysis.

Now back to our Origin Summit scientists, how do they compare to normal expectations for a successful scientist? We will use the average expectations for an academic scientist to get tenure as our benchmark (Table 1). First, Gerald Bergman –biologist. He has a staggering number of degrees, some from legitimate institutions (e.g., Wayne State University), and some from unaccredited places with dubious legal standing (e.g., Columbia Pacific University). He had a real faculty position at Bowling Green University but was denied tenure in 1979. He claims that he was fired because of his anti-evolution religious beliefs (his claim –which to me says his creationism cannot be science). He went to court, and long-story-short he lost because he misrepresented his PhD to get a job in the first place. More importantly to our story here is, what was his record? Fortunately for us, scientific publications, like the fossil record, accurately reflect historical events. Looking through scholarly search engines for the period of time between 1976-1980 (when he would be making a case for tenure) I could only find one publication credited to G.R. Bergman, and it appears to be a published version of his dissertation on reducing recidivism among criminal offenders. Published theses are seldom peer reviewed, and this is certainly not biology. He does not meet our basic expectations for the scientific authority he is promoted as.



Next, is Donald DeYoung –astronomer. He is a professor in the Department of Science and Mathematics at Grace College, and Christian post-secondary institution. It has some accreditation, especially for some programs such as counselling and business. Its not fully accredited, but it seems to be a legitimate Christian school. I searched for legitimate peer-reviewed publications, which was tricky because there also exists another D. B. DeYoung, also on the math/astronomy side of the business. If we ignore his non-peer reviewed books, there may be only one legitimate publication from 1975 in the Journal of Chemical Physics, looking at a particular iron isotope –nothing to do with the age of the Earth or evolution. One paper, so he does not meet our expectations.

Third is Charles Jackson with a PhD in education. There is nothing meaningful on this guy to suggest he is a scientist by any stretch of the imagination. Next.

Finally, we have John Sanford, a geneticist. Now we are getting somewhere! How can a person who studies the basic building blocks of life, deny its role in shaping life? He is a plant breeder and was in an experimental agriculture station associated with Cornell University. I found about a dozen real papers published in scientific journals from his pre-tenure time. None are actually on evolution; they seem to be largely about pollen fertilization and transfer, and production of crops. His publications definitely changed later in his tenure, from basic plant breeding to creationist works. Most interestingly, he has a paper on a computer simulator called Mendel’s Accountant, published in 2007, that simulates genetic mutation and population fitness –the basic stuff of evolution, but which can presumably be used to support his theories about mutations causing ‘devolution’ and not the fuel for real evolution. I read the paper. The genetic theory underpinning is not in line with modern theory, and this is further evidenced by the scant referencing of the rich genetics literature. Most of the models and assumptions seem to be made de novo, to suit the simulation platform, instead of the simulator fitting what is actually understood about genetic mechanisms. I assume this is why the paper is not published in a genetics journal, but rather a computer science one, and one that is not listed in the main scientific indexing services (often how we judge a journal to be legitimate). Regardless, of the scientific specifics, Sanford is a legitimate scientist, and he is the one person I would love to ask deep questions about his understanding of the material he talks about.

The one thing to remember is that a PhD does not make one an expert in everything. I have a PhD in ecology and evolution, but I am not competent in basic physiology for example, and would/should not present myself as an authority to a broader public who may not know the difference between phylogeney and physiology.


So, at the end of the day, here is another creationist conference with a panel of scientific experts. One of the four actually deserves to be called that, and even then, he is likely to be talking about material he has not actually published on or researched. There is a reason why creationist organizations have a tough time getting real scientists on board, and instead are relegated to using mostly failed hacks, because there isn’t a scientific underpinning to creationist claims.