Author: Andrew Thaler

Marine science and conservation. Deep-sea ecology. Population genetics. Underwater robots. Open-source instrumentation. The deep sea is Earth's last great wilderness.

Tournament marlins get bigger?

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 7 Comments on Tournament marlins get bigger?
Science

ResearchBlogging.orgThis week’s ResearchBlogCast featured the paper “Decline in top predator body size and changing climate alter trophic structure in an oceanic ecosystem”, originally discussed at Fish Schooled (Prey populations explode as predators get smaller). In both the podcast and the blogpost, the authors argue that prey abundance booms despite predator biomass remaining constant because the average size of predatory fish is decreasing, a trend that has been describe as fisheries induced selection.

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Monday Morning Blogaerobics – Aquatic Owls and Cephaloid Overlords

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Uncategorized

Southern Fried happenings from the weekend of April 24, 2010. On Friday, a Great Horned Owl was driven into the water by a flock of gulls at the Duke Marine Lab. I posted a few picture of it on my twitter feed – The Owl and The Owl Rescuer. XKCD rocked the marine science world … Read More “Monday Morning Blogaerobics – Aquatic Owls and Cephaloid Overlords” »

What the hell happened to the environmental movement?

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

This post was originally published on Earth Day, 2009. The responses I received from it were tremendous, both positive and negative. Were I to write it again today, I would include a discussion of Carbon Offsets and Eco-Guilt.

There is a real challenge in the environmental movement. On one hand, the science is on our side, but on the other hand, there is a growing group within the movement committed to dogma and willing to sacrifice facts for pseudoscience. So, this Earth day, we once again bring you “What the hell happened to the environmental movement?”

473px-rachel-carsonForty-seven years ago, a brilliant, passionate scientist who understood the power of public outreach, noticed a decline in songbird populations, discovered a trend of decreasing egg shell thickness, and correlated this effect with the increase in the use of DDT as a pesticide. After thoroughly and rigorously verifying her results and conclusions, she did something revolutionary; she wrote a book. The publication of Silent Spring in 1962 marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement in America. Its simple, elegant prose made the complex interaction between humankind and the environment accessible to a public that had limited exposure to scientific writing. Like other works of literary science, Silent Spring, wove the scientific method into a narrative; observations, questions, conflicts, discoveries, joy and sorrow. To struggle and to understand, never the last without the first. The beauty of her words still echo with that same power today.

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Crowdsourcing ConGen – Effective size of a population in flux

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 2 Comments on Crowdsourcing ConGen – Effective size of a population in flux
Conservation, Science

ResearchBlogging.org

When presented with a threatened population in need of conservation, the simplest and most basic question a manager can ask is “how big is it?” Unfortunately, this is one of the most challenging questions to answer. Determining the number of individuals in a population is fundamental to effective management. Small, concentrated populations can be destroyed in a single sweep, while large, broadly distributed populations require more resources and complex management involving many stakeholders.

A population that is easy to sample is rare. Animals move – sometimes over enormous distances. Habitats are difficult or impossible to access. Entire popualtions may be adept at avoiding capture. For most populations, it is impossible to count every individual. In marine ecosystems populations can span the entire globe, and the cost of mounting an expedition to systematically sample all members is huge. In order to get accurate estimates of the number of individuals, ecologists have had to devise statistical techniques to estimate the size of a population.

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