Science – Page 14 – Southern Fried Science

Have you heard the good news about shark populations? Shark population increases are cause for #OceanOptimism

February 28, 2018February 28, 2018 David Shiffman

Did you know that some shark populations have declined due to overfishing? Did you know that some once-declined shark populations have recovered? If you’re like my twitter followers, it’s likely that you’ve heard the bad news, but have not heard the good news.

Why does this matter?
It’s important to share bad news so that people know there’s a problem, and that we need to act to solve that problem. However, it’s also important to share good news so that people know that a problem is solvable! This idea was behind the birth of the #OceanOptimism online outreach campaign.

Canada proposed revisions to the Fisheries Act. Here’s how science and conservation experts reacted.

February 7, 2018February 7, 2018 David Shiffman

Science

Yesterday, the government of Canada announced some proposed amendments to the national Fisheries Act. The full text of the proposal can be viewed here. So far, it’s gone through the First Reading in the House of Commons (for my non-Canadian readers, here is what that means). I reached out to fisheries and conservation policy experts across Canada to ask what they think of these proposed changes.

Image courtesy Fisheries and Oceans Canada, **modified by Hakai Magazine**

Fun Science FRIEDay – A blood test for cancer

January 26, 2018 Kersey Sturdivant

Science

Cancer is a tricky disease. It comes in many varieties and can pop-up anywhere in the body seemingly at random. The somewhat cryptic nature of this disease can make diagnosis difficult; this can be frustrating because most cancers are treatable if diagnosed early. Thats what makes this most recent breakthrough all the more exciting; a method to detect cancer through a single blood test!

The blood test is called CancerSEEK and its speculated that it would cost less than 500 USD, which is comparable to or lower than other screening tests. CancerSEEK, is a single blood test that was shown to detect 8 types of common cancer (ovary, liver, stomach, pancreas, esophagus, colorectum, lung, and breast) and helps identify the location of the cancer.

A year of snot-oozing, carcass-scavenging, slime eels: Hagfish Science in 2017.

December 27, 2017December 27, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Science

Hagfish. You love them. I love them. The owner of this sedan has no choice but to love them:

2017 was a big year for hagfish science.

Big Ideas (the ecologic paradigms that hagfish shifted)

Heincke’s law is one of those ecologic principles that more often acts as a foil for rejecting the null hypothesis than as a consistent pattern in ecology. It’s most basic summary is: The further from shore and the deeper dwelling a fish is, the bigger it grows. Heincke’s law does not appear to be true for hagfish, whose size appear to have no relation to the depth at which they occur. On the other hand, phylogenetic relationships do seem to play some role in regulating body size in hagfish.

Schumacher and friends (2017) No support for Heincke’s law in hagfish (Myxinidae): lack of an association between body size and the depth of species occurrence. DOI: 10.1111/jfb.13361.

Defense and Behavior (how hagfish do the things that they do)

Hagfish are master escape artists, capable of squeezing in and out of tight spaces barely half the width of their body. This great for getting in an out of rotting whale carcasses on the sea floor, creeping into crevices, and avoiding predators. But how do they accomplish this incredible feat? Hagfish have a flaccid sinus under their skin which allows them to control the distribution of venous blood and alter their body width as they wriggle through narrow passages. Freedman and Fudge identified 9 distinct behaviors which take advantage of this adaptation, including anchoring, forming tight loops to push the body through an opening, and bending the hagfish head 90 degrees to force it through a slit. And there are videos!

Freedman and Fudge (2017) Hagfish Houdinis: biomechanics and behavior of squeezing through small openings. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.151233.

The Fudge lab has been busy this year, cranking out some of the most noteworthy work on the incredible behavior of hagfish. In addition to examining hagfish motility, Boggett and friends looked into how those flaccid sinuses aid predator avoidance. The team build wee little guillotines loaded with shark teeth to see how hagfish skin protects the animal from vicious bites. In a year when a truckload of hagfish spectacularly crushed a car, the fact that this research was the biggest breakout sensation in hagfish pop culture says everything you need to know about the compelling results of this study. You can read more about this study at The Verge, Futurity, Popular Science, and plenty of other outlets.

Boggett and friends (2017) Flaccid skin protects hagfishes from shark bites. DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2017.0765.

17 amazing and important things about sharks and rays that scientists discovered in 2017

December 22, 2017December 22, 2017 David Shiffman 1 Comment

Science

2017 was… yeah. Of all the years I’ve lived through, 2017 was definitely one of them. Anyway, some interesting things happened in the world of shark research. Here, in no particular order, are 17 amazing and important things that scientists discovered about sharks and rays over the last year.

1 Sharks can switch between sexual and asexual reproduction. We’ve known that several shark species can reproduce asexually for over a decade now, but this year, Dudgeon and friends showed an individual shark switching between sexual and asexual reproduction for the first time!

Noteworthy media coverage: CNN, National Geographic, Gizmodo

A scientifically accurate list of the most endangered sharks in the world

November 2, 2017November 2, 2017 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Conservation, Science

One of the most common questions I get during my “ask me anything” sessions on twitter is “which species of sharks are the most endangered?” Whenever I can’t completely answer a question in a single tweet, I like to link to more information from a reliable source.

However, I’ve struggled to easily answer this question with a link, because much of the information out there about this particular question is incomplete, misleading, or just wrong. Several online lists of the most endangered species of sharks* don’t actually include the most endangered species of sharks. Many of these lists could be re-titled as “the conservation status of some species of sharks I’ve heard of and could easily find pictures of” or “some random information I heard out of context about shark conservation.” Since there isn’t an easily accessible source of accurate information about this important shark science and conservation topic, I’ll make one myself. ( I should note here that I am referring only to true sharks, not to other chondrichthyans, even though other chondrichthyans in many cases face similar or worse threats. )

Long live sharks and rays!

October 9, 2017 Guest Writer

Science

Alastair Harry is a fisheries science practitioner based in Perth, Australia. He assists in implementing ecosystem based fisheries management to support the sustainable use of wild-capture fish resources. He is a generalist and works across multiple areas including stock assessment, bycatch, and threatened species. He also holds an adjunct position at James Cook University and has a specific interest in the conservation and sustainable management of sharks and rays.

In August I published a review paper entitled Evidence for systemic age underestimation in shark and ray ageing studies. In it I suggest that many sharks and rays live considerably longer than is currently recognised. This increased life expectancy isn’t due to medical advancements or a more nutritious diet (or even better fisheries management), but rather the result of ageing error.

Protecting the ocean means lots of rigorous, mundane science.

August 21, 2017 Andrew Thaler

Science

Bathymodiolus manusensis. Photo courtesy Nautilus Minerals.

I have a new paper out today: Population structure of Bathymodiolus manusensis, a deep-sea hydrothermal vent-dependent mussel from Manus Basin, Papua New Guinea.

We sampled two sites in Papua New Guinea where these deep-sea mussels aggregate and looked at their genes to determine if there was any population structure across this relatively small spatial scale (~40 km). We found one homogeneous population. We also looked at representatives from other ocean basins and determined that mussel populations within Manus Basin are younger than those in neighboring basins. This is a pattern we’ve observed in several other studies as well.

This is not, by any stretch, a ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting study. But studies like this, baseline, foundation-building studies, are absolutely essential for conservation biology.

Background information on our land-based shark fishing paper

August 15, 2017August 15, 2017 David Shiffman 5 Comments

Science

A photo used in this study showing a hammerhead shark taken completely out of the water. As with all photos used in this study, the angler’s privacy has been protecting by blurring out his face.

I have a new paper out on the conservation impacts of recreational shark fishing. The paper is called “fishing practices and representations of shark conservation issues among users of a land-based shark angling online forum,” and it is published in the journal Fisheries Research. If you don’t have institutional library access, you can read a copy of the paper here. The goal of this blog post is to provide background information on the study.

Journalists are free to quote or paraphrase information from this blog post. Additionally, I provide some suggested quotes below, and I am available for interviews about this paper (please contact me at WhySharksMatter at gmail).

What Google Searches Tell Us About The Ocean… and Us

May 20, 2017May 22, 2017 Bluegrass Blue Crab

Open Science, Science

I recently discovered that Google Trends is a thing. Specifically, that they aggregate their search data and make it publicly available. Which is awesome. People Google much more honestly than they interact with others in person, more honestly than they answer surveys, and more honestly than they behave in a world where politics is important. So what people Google is insight into what people are curious about, where online outreach can have the most potential impact, and what is on the top of people’s brains at particular times. It tells us something about regionalisms, and seasonality of thought. I encourage everyone to play around with their data, for work or for play.

Here’s a couple of examples of things you can learn. Let’s start with the basics. Which states, over the last 12 months, have searched for “ocean” the most?