The early years

1. Could your parents afford to live on the good side of town? The one with the right schools? Did they send you to that elite private school?

There are clear advantages to attending a top-tier high school as is evidenced in a study of college admissions data. The Harvard Crimson recently reported that in Harvard’s Class of 2017, 6 percent of admitted students came from only 10 high schools. Eleven percent of high schools with students admitted to Harvard sent 36 percent of students, while 74 percent of schools sent only one student. [link]

2. For Christmas, your birthday, or because, did you get your own computer?

In every country, students reporting “rare” or “no use” of computers at home score lower than their counterparts who report frequent use…gains in educational performance are correlated with the frequency of computer use at home. [link]

3. Could they afford for you to participate in all those afterschool STEM activities with their fees and hidden expenses?

Afterschool programs can have an impact on academic achievement. Improved test scores are reported in evaluations of The After-School Corporation (TASC) programs in New York City (Reisner, White, Birmingham, & Welsh, 2001; White, Reisner, Welsh, & Russell, 2001) and in Foundations, Inc. elementary school programs (Klein & Bolus, 2002). A more recent longitudinal study showed significant gains in math test scores for elementary and middle-school students who participated in high-quality afterschool programs (Vandell, Reisner, & Pierce, 2007) [link]

Those who are admitted to UC are likely to participate in more precollege activities. The study also shows that there is a positive correlation between student precollege participation in these activities and their college experience, academic and civic engagement although the relationship is rather weak. The results also reveal that the participation in extracurricular activities and volunteer and community services is a significant predictor on first-year GPA and persistence. The more activities students participate in, the higher their first-year GPA is and the more likely they persist with their current college programs. [link]

However, we found that a substantial portion of students, particularly those in lower-income groups, are not fully engaged in a well-rounded school experience that includes activities — and too often, it’s because of cost. [link]

4. Did they send you to that cool summer camp?

Steven Infanti, associate vice president for admissions at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, said a STEM camp experience is something that makes him take a closer look at a student’s application. “When I look at an applicant who has a 2.5 [GPA], which would be kind of a borderline admit for us, but I see on his application, I participate in this camp…that shows a lot of initiative and someone who has a passion,” he said. [link]

5. Did you get to travel to the ocean on vacation? Could you afford to travel abroad?

From a prominent university’s website,

High school study abroad programs, and even international vacations, are fantastic opportunities for cross-cultural understanding, learning, and personal growth. For that reason, they can certainly be helpful experiences to draw on when applying for colleges. [link]

6. Did you get to learn to scuba dive?

Being a scuba certified is not at all recquired for being a marine biologist.  Although I do scuba dive and am a divemaster, I rarely if ever use it for my research.  However, many “career advice” websites online definitely recommend it.

There are no certification requirements for marine biology. However, because diving is a large part of marine biology, many schools recommend that students become open water certified and take a course in scientific diving. [link]

7. Did you get to participate in all kinds of wonderful experiences because you had free time? Were you blessed and did not have to work a full- or part-time job?

Data was collected from a very large sample of students when they were in 8th, 10th and 12th grades, and again two years after they graduated. The researchers compared groups by controlling for their economic background, ethnicity, gender, and prior educational experiences. They measured outcomes including standardized test scores, school grades, courses taken, attendance, staying out of trouble, educational and occupational aspirations, post-secondary employment and college enrollment. In general, results showed a pattern of negative effects for students who worked during high school. In particular, working in the final year of high school had a significantly negative effect. These negative effects occurred even from working a small number of hours per week… working during high school undermines students’ commitment to and identification with school and subverts traditional academic goals. [link]

8. Could you even afford to stay in high school?

Using data from the 2008-2012 American Community Survey, researchers at the Urban Institute found that nearly a third of the 563,000 teenage dropouts left school to work. These 16- to 18-year-olds were disproportionately male and Hispanic, and ended their education either at the beginning of high school or nearing the end. Roughly 75 percent of them are native-born Americans, the new study said. [link]

The college years

9. Could you afford not to go to the best school?

Of the 113 Supreme Court Justices, 40% of them attended an Ivy League university. Currently, all of the nine Justices went to an Ivy League. In CNN’s top 100 startups list, 34 of the CEOs went to Harvard…A study conducted by the US Department of Education in 2015 revealed that a decade after enrolling in a four-year college degree, the average income of a typical student is $40,500 USD a year…at the very least you’ll receive on average $19,200 USD more than the standard US college graduate [by attending an Ivy Leage University] [link]

Even when there isn’t a policy of exclusion, students at elite universities join networks of professors and alumni whose members offer each other information, support, and advice that isn’t available to outsiders. [link]

In a corporate environment that still largely favors white men, an Ivy League college degree opens doors that would otherwise remain closed for most. In recent years, I’ve interviewed successful people in a variety of industries. Among them: One of two black presidents in the history of the Harvard Law Review (the other was Barack Obama) who now runs a multi-billion dollar private equity firm, and a Yale graduate Latina female CEO of the Girl Scouts. In both cases, intelligence and perseverance got them far. But they also both agreed that an Ivy League education afforded them pivotal opportunities for their careers today, decades after graduation from those hallowed institutions. For both minorities – the Ivy “stamp of approval” became the first in a long list of achievements. [link]

Tech founders with Ivy League degrees also tended to start companies that produced higher revenue and employed more workers than the average, the report added. [link]

And while Princeton and some other Ivy League schools have generous financial aid programs, this is not the case among all universities.  It is near impossible to get an accurate view of what a typical amount of loans a student is burdened with after four years.  Take Duke University,  several reports suggest the average student loan debt is $25,000.  However, take note of the term average.  Only 37% of the student body is receiving Federal Student Loans.  This begs the question, how is this average actually calculated?  In my time at Duke as a faculty member, the dozen or so students worked in my lab as part of the Federal Work Study Program, meaning they come from lower and middle socioeconomic classes, were taken on $25,000 per year.  So pardon me if I don’t believe the average total student loan debt for Ivy League schools is low.  These universities have large student populations who can afford to attend and not take out student loans as reflected in that 37% amount.

Just keep in mind that low-income students cannot afford 95% of colleges.

10. Did they tell you that they would meet 100% of your financial aid only for you to realize that meant pile you up with school loans and work study?

Yeah me too.

11. Could you afford to leave your home and not financially help your elderly, sick, or young family members while you pursue your dreams? Could you afford not financially support your spouse and children?

Likely to be parents of young children: Roughly half of independent college students, or 4.8 million students, are parents of dependent children. Seven in 10 student parents are women, with women of color in college are especially likely to be student parents.

Twice as likely to be living in poverty: 42 percent of independent students live at or below the federal poverty line, compared with 17 percent of dependent students. In fact, nearly two in three college students living in poverty (72 percent) are independent. [link]

12. Could you afford to move to college? What about all those hidden fees and costs? Parking? Transportation?

Almost 74% said extra activities like study abroad programs and unpaid internships are important to reaching professional goals. But the same percentage (74%) had to turn down such activities due to a lack of money.  Expenses beyond tuition were higher than they thought, too. The top 5 expenses students said were “much more than expected” include: Textbooks: 63% Housing: 56% Food: 46% Exam prep classes: 45% Moving: 41% [link]

13. Could you afford your books?

the average cost of college textbooks has risen four times faster than the rate of inflation over the past 10 years. That has caused 65 percent of students to skip buying required texts at some point in their college career because of a lack of affordability. [link]

14. Could you afford a computer?

Yeah its time to update that one from high school. It should be obvious how not having your own computer could be damaging but take this one students perspective (also see this post),

The problem with not having a laptop comes with online assignments. It may be even more for me as a cs major, but even in gen ed courses we often had to submit assignments online or do readings online which is easier with a laptop. You can survive without one as you can use the library computers at your college or if you have a desktop you can do all your online things there- but it would be easier to just whip out your laptop wherever you are (cafeteria, empty classroom waiting for class to start, etc) to work on assignment [link]

15.  Could you afford the time for extracurricular activities, lectures, clubs, student events? Did you need to work a full- or part-time job while attending college?

More than two-thirds of independent students work on top of going to school, and the majority work at least 20 hours per week…39 percent of dependent students work at least 20 hours per week). [link]

16. Did you not participate in that marine biology volunteer opportunity because you needed to work?

Volunteer research that prevents a student from making money. Remember that most financial aid packages REQUIRE a student to make a certain amount of money over the summer. If they aren’t getting paid to do research, then they are either adding to their debt or working two jobs, neither of which is setting them up for scientific success. [link]

17. Did you not do that great educational experience at sea because you could not afford the hefty fees?

While again I don’t agree, the Semester at Sea Program is often promoted for the aspiring marine biologist.  That at least $25,074.  Keep in mind that both the University of Pittsburg and Virginia pulled out of the program for “safety concerns and complaints that its suggestions for program improvement were being ignored.”

18. Did you not take those field summer courses because you couldn’t afford it? Did you not participate in a summer research opportunity because you could not afford to not work for a summer?

I am obviously biased serving as the Executive Director of a marine laboratory.  As an undergraduate, I took summer marine biology courses for credit…at the marine lab I currently serve as the director.  These courses were invaluable for round out my education and kick-starting my career in marine science by offering experiential learning.  Likewise, a paid Research Experience for Undergraduate one summer launched my career in deep-sea biology.  These experiences are vital.

In conclusion, students with research experiences reported disproportionate gains in their ability to apply critical thinking skills in a novel context, and gain a greater understanding of the scientific research process. Many students who did not participate in research reported gains in general critical thinking skills from their coursework, but out-of-class research experiences were more effective in helping students to develop the intellectual abilities and capacities particularly valued for doing research…students who engaged in an authentic research experience, with adequate amounts of both challenge and support, described gaining an appreciation of the process of scientific research and an understanding of the everyday work and practice of research scientists. Though other out-of-class experiences clearly offered a host of benefits, student reports indicated that participation in research is a more effective way to socialize novices into the scientific research community by helping them to develop the mastery, knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary to become a scientist. [link]

19. Did you not participate in a great paid opportunity on overseas or even across the nation because you did know how you would afford your travel there?

20. Did you purchase all those extra study guides for the GRE? Did you take the GRE training course? Could you afford to take the GRE multiple times? Could you afford to send it to numerous graduate programs?

You can read all about my views on the GRE here.  I’m not a fan but the fact of the matter is many schools still require this boondoggle of a test.

21. Did you apply to multiple graduate programs and pay all those additional application fees? Did you pay to travel to the visit those prospective graduate schools?

Given that most acceptance rates are less than 20%, applying to several programs is advised.  The application fees typically range from $50 to $100 per graduate program.

If you don’t think all of this matters, consider that,

The percentage of students enrolling in graduate school increases with family income. Among dependent 2007–08 four-year college graduates, 39 percent of those from families in the lowest income quartile, 42 percent from middle-income families, and 45 percent from the highest income quartile had enrolled in graduate school within four years of college graduation. [link]

Graduate School Years

22. Did you have enough money to take a gap year and travel abroad to visit the oceans you want to study?

In my experience, students that have traveled more extensively and have more life experiences fair better in graduate school.  No hard data here merely anecdotal but worth considering nonetheless.

23. Could you afford to move to graduate school?

Moving from Arkansas to Boston was more costly than I anticipated.  Gas, U-Haul trailer, food, and one night in a very cheap hotel all added up.  I couldn’t afford any of this and charged it all to my credit card.

24. Did you buy all those books your advisor recommend you have and read? What about the ones you will need for your research and courses?

Several books a scientist needs on a regular basis, far more often than would be convenient or practical to obtain from a library.  In many cases, these highly specialized books may not even be in the university’s library.  And because these are specialized and low print run volumes, the prices can be astronomical.  These are often out of pocket purchases.  Right now there are three books on my wishlist I simply cannot justify or find the extra fund for: Compendium of Bivalves: Full-color Guide to 3,300 of the World’s Marine Bivalves for $294.51, Reproduction, Larval Biology, and Recruitment of the Deep-Sea Benthos for $169.07, and Pattern and Process in Macroecology for $106.45.

25. Can you afford the computer and software you needed for your research?

That cheap, outdated, and slow laptop leftover from college is going to need a major upgrade.  Time for a new computer because science is becoming more and more computational and data driven.

Referring both to the modelling of the world through simulations and the exploration of observational data, computation is central not only to astronomy but a range of sciences, including bioinformatics, computational linguistics and particle physics…Computation has been an important part of science for more than half a century, and the data explosion is making it even more central.  [link]

26. Could you afford to travel to that conference or collaborators when you grant, or travel awards weren’t available?

If your advisor has grant money to cover your travel or you are lucky enough to obtain a travel grant or award you are set.  However, if not then you will need to find a creative way to pay for it on your own.  These professional conferences are tremendous benefits to your career and you cannot afford to miss the opportunity to network and hear about the latest advances in the field.

Nearly all (91%) gained new contacts that improved their research, in-the-field conservation, science communication, and/or conservation policy making. Two thirds (64%) gained ideas, contacts, and/or lessons could lead to publications. Over a third (39%) gained new ideas, contacts and/or lessons that led to grant proposals, and 36% gained contacts that led to funding. A conference is not just an avenue for a scientist to present their research to the wider community, but it can be an important venue for brainstorming, networking and making vital connections that can lead to new initiatives, papers and funding, in a way that virtual, online meetings cannot. This is why conferences matter. {link]

27. Can you afford to live on an income of $10-25k per year? Could you afford not to support your family while you pursue your career? Does your partner have a stable and high paying job?

The current poverty levels in 2018 are for 

• One person $12,140 $15,180
• Two people $16,460 $20,580
• Three people $20,780 $25,980
• Four people $25,100 $31,380

The average graduate stipend in science is $20,000-$30,000 per year.  This puts any graduate student with a family below or near the poverty level and nowhere near the middle class.  “Middle-income households – those with an income that is two-thirds to double the U.S. median household income – had incomes ranging from about $45,200 to $135,600 in 2016”

28. Can you afford your own health insurance?

Most universities do not offer health insurance to graduate students.  Health insurance for a graduate student is going to be obscenely expensive if you need to get it independently.  Current cheapest plans with high deductibles, i.e. do not ever, ever need any medical assistance, will average $440 per month.

29. Can you afford that scuba or field gear you will need for your research?

Some gear, e.g. wetsuit, hiking boots, backpacks, binoculars, is considered personal and will not be covered by a grant or your advisor.  There may not even be funds currently available to purchase these things.  When I worked in the Antarctica Seas as part of my graduate research, I needed a set of good set of wrap around polarized glasses.  There was $100 I did not have.  You need to get in the field to get that data though.

30. Can you afford to be social over drinks and food with other scientists you need to network with?

Networking is a must and nobody in science seems to give a damn if you cannot pay.  You can try to drink cheaply but at some point, that restaurant or bar bill is going to be out of your control.  When I was a graduate student, this senior professor came to dinner and charged up a tremendous bill with a fancy entree and a bottle of expensive wine. This while ordered water and the cheapest dish I could find on the menu.  When the bill was brought, the professor stated we would just split the bill evenly “because it was easier”.  By the way, as aside, here if you are a faculty member and ever pull stunts like this YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.  Pardon my language but its true.  If you are faculty member you should really be following the pay down rule; the faculty member should always pay for the food and drinks of the all the students.

31. Can you afford to wait a long time to be reimbursed for expenses from your university?

The major invisible difficulty that I’ve observed has been the reimbursement process. It’s common practice for people to spend their own money on scientific supplies and then apply for reimbursement from their grant, actually receiving the money 3-8 weeks later. For people without substantial cash flow, this can lead to credit card debt and future problems. [link]

Postdoctoral Fellow and Faculty Years

32. Can you afford that new set of clothes to interview in?

if you’re interviewing for a job, you might want to pay some attention to the way you dress. Because interviewers — yes, even a committee of curmudgeonly old tenured faculty members, most of whom don’t wear Armani themselves — are going to make judgments about you, fair or not, based on how you present yourself. And what you wear is part of your overall presentation. [link]

33. Can you afford to be social over drinks and food with other scientists you need to network with?  Do you have the funds to take care of the people in your lab group?

See above. Don’t be an asshole.

34. Did you just realize you are 35-40 haven’t paid off your school loans and just started to contribute to retirement?

A scientist doesn’t start thinking or paying into retirement plans until that first faculty position is landed.  With the current track record of 5-6 years of postdoctoral or soft money research positions until landing a permanent position could mean being 40 before landing that first job.

To afford a comfortable retirement, a 40-year-old couple with household income of$100,000 should have amassed savings of 2.6 times salary, or $260,000, according to research by J.P. Morgan [link]

35. Can you afford for your partner not work or do they have a mobile job?

Yeah with all that moving around for graduate school, postdocs, and faculty positions good luck to your partner trying to find a meaningful career.

36. Can you afford to wait a long time to be reimbursed for expenses from your university?

See above

38. Can you personally afford to float your research and travel needs between grants?

It happens and it sucks.  Are you just going to stop doing research?  Not go to conferences?

39. Do you have the funds to pay for society memberships?

A lot of grants will not pay for society memberships.  So there is that.

So this all leaves us needing a lot of money to get from Point A to Marine Biologist.  Conservatively, I estimate that cost, to ensure the greatest amount of success, to be $591,395 to make it to Associate Professor. Granted you could choose not to do some of these things, I didn’t do many of the things listed above as undergraduate or high school student and here I am.  But it was a tremendous amount of struggle and sacrifice for me being from a lower socioeconomic group.  If you poor and then non-white and non-male on top of that, the disadvantage is even greater, the proverbial one-two punch.

But let this sink in for a moment.

Nothing above is out of the recommended, ordinary, or expected.

We have created a system that to succeed it costs

half a million dollars.

This is not the kind of science I want.  The beauty of being a marine biologist and scientist should not be only those privileged enough to pay the price.

More reading

• Poverty in the Ivory Tower
• A field guide to privilege in marine science: some reasons why we lack diversity

Below the tab, my calculations for putting real numbers on the costs of this pathway.

The post Can you afford to be a marine biologist? Or a scientist? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

1. We focus a lot on science communication as the generation of content.  However equally, and if not more, important is the filtering of content.  In the last few years, poorly informed, incorrect and out right maliciously wrong content has become prolific.  We need now, more than ever, for trusted domain experts to amplify, share, and provide reliable and accurate information. I saw this first hand reporting here at DSN with both the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and the Fukishama Reactors that bad information was rampant and people were looking for trusted content.

2. Somewhere we stopped teaching students and the public how to critically evaluate information. Or may be it never existed at all.  We need with renewed vigor to teach students and the public how to think, reason, and evaluate information.  We need mandatory classes and lessons across education levels in logic, philosophy, mathematics, statistics, problem solving, and scientific methodology.

3. We need to make sure good and correct information is more accessible and more viral than bad information.  We need to make it easier for students and the public to get the information they need to be an informed citizenry.

4. Science needs to be more open.  Open access publishing, science communication, and citizen science and other initiatives were good start of a larger “open” movement.  But now we need to swing the doors of science open a little wider.  We are not open or honest to our failures in the enterprise of science.  Metal health issues, inequality, profiteering, and harassment run rapid.  We need change and a river in Egypt isn’t the first step.

We need to be more open about our failures not just successes. @DrCraigMc giving a rallying cry rant I needed to hear and can get behind this morning. #nerdsoftrust

— KT (@vivalakt) June 25, 2018

5. We need to renew the social contract between educational institutions and the public.  We need to place value on an informed and educated citizenry.   This is the hallmark to economic prosperity and quality, political stability and growth, innovation in the sciences and humanities, and overall public health.  The renewal of this contract comes first and foremost with economic commitment from local to national levels and the foresight that this investment will be returned 10-fold.

6. Scientists need to all become nerds of trust. On Facebook, over beers at the bar, in your local and state government meetings, you need to be there with science.

@DrCraigMc of @deepseanews encourages us librarians to be “nerds of trust for friends & family” & use social media like Facebook to discuss science in our social spheres. @alaannual #alaac18 @ALA_ACRL #STS pic.twitter.com/8it9UtOV4m

— Michael R Leach (@mikeleach42) June 25, 2018

7. Science communication needs to be goal and mission oriented.  The idea of a “Field of Dreams” model of putting something out there and expecting it work is ridiculous.  If you have not thought about what success is and how you are going to measure it, stop now.  Science communication has to be deliberate in action.

“We need to stop half-assing our science outreach” and to think I almost meh’d out of this mornings session because sleep. >⁦@DrCraigMc⁩ https://t.co/5wOgz5bTEJ

— KT (@vivalakt) June 25, 2018

8. We need to break out of the echo chamber.  If you defriended all of your Facebook friends who had different political leanings to you, you are probably part of the problem.  Are your science communication efforts only reaching the NPR and PBS, science-enthusiast audience?  Was the last science and drink night you talked at just hipsters in tweed? Probably…  Are you still wondering why the public is struggling with science or just actively anti-science.  YOU ARE NOT TALKING TO THEM.  We need new and creative ways to reach new audiences especially those in lower socio-economic classes. We need to go to where they are and put science there.

9. We need to create and support places and times of innovation…places that domain experts in humanities, social science, education and pedagogy, science communication, and scientists learn from each other and build together.  These need to be places that applaud risk and go after moon shots while focused on action and products. Events like #oceandotcomm are one example.

10. Even if we don’t get anything else right, we need to get one thing right.  Be passionate.  This idea of science as cold, heartless, and stale enterprise needs to die.

“Be passionate. Science is not a cold place, it is an amazing place. Share that.” – @DrCraigMc in how we connect and excite the community in science efforts #alaac18

— Paige Dhyne (@LibandLife) June 25, 2018

The post 10 Things Science, Science Communication, and Just Maybe All of Academia Needs first appeared on Deep Sea News.

This year marked the 100th Anniversary of the Western Society of Naturalist (WSN) meeting. An organization developed in 1910, WSN is the second oldest natural history society on the West Coast of the U.S. Every year since 1916, they have held a sort of science shin-dig as it were that has seen the likes of some of the most renowned ecologists in the field.

In celebration of a century of science and nerd-dom, 2016 WSN President Dr. Jay Stachowicz called on the help of the Society to (somewhat scientifically) compile an epic list of top 100 Most Influential Papers to Ecology. The Greatest Eva.

Over 450 papers were submitted to the bucket and out of those, 100 rose to the top of the salty brine. Check out the full list HERE. Unsurprisingly, Darwin’s Origin of the Species reigned supreme.

Also, if you are as cool as I am (I love data yes I do) and want to know how J.Stach sorted through it all… like any fine, upstanding Ecologist he laid out his methods and the caveats of his study HERE.

Let us know in the comments section what you would add to the list. Have any of our readers read all of these?

The post Last Name: Eva, First Name: Greatest first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Now lets schedule some Tweets! You can do this through Twitter but honestly Twitter does not make this easy. It requires multiple steps. I prefer using Tweetdeck. Clicking the Tweet composing button brings up an option for scheduling the Tweet.

Some other tools for scheduling Tweets are also available (see this post also).  I also really like Twuffer for its easy display and ease of use.

Choose a time a minute or so past the start of your talk for your first Tweet. You may opt to schedule them to start later if you feel the culture of the conference is for talks to start several minutes past time. Schedule Tweets to hit one per minute apart form each other. Protip: Make sure the computer in which you schedule your Tweets from is set to the same time zone as the conference. Yeah I’ve made this mistake…in the last week…at my latest conference.

Load your presentation to SlideShare (You can see my presentations here). The first Tweet you schedule should be a link your entire presentation. This will make it easy for people to find figures and statements they may miss. Protip: Alternatively, you can go with figshare, which will give your presentation a DOI that can then be cited in papers and other works.

What should you Tweet? Anything related to your talk. Definitely Tweet links to your papers if you are talking about the research within in them. I like to provide a link to a downloadable PDF. However, indicate the link is a PDF so others are not caught by surprise by a downloading file.

Also Tweet any images you want disseminated, main points, links to relevant papers, and figures. Also Tweet a thanks to coauthors and acknowledgements. Protip: Make sure to use their Twitter handles. They can RT and help promote the talk to their networks. Make sure to use the conference hashtag!  Yeah I’ve messed up this one by using the wrong hashtag. Another Protip: Bonus points if you make your own hashtag so people can see all of your schedule Tweets.

Protip: Do not schedule too many Tweets. You need to find a balance between getting relevant information out and overwhelming the conference hashtag. As a general rule, do not schedule more Tweets than slides in your presentation. For a 12-15 talk plan on 10 or so Tweets. For a longer talk 30-60 minutes, plan on no more than 20. Trust me it takes a bit of work to schedule Tweets. You will be burned out by 20 or so.

Now get Tweeting.

The post Become a Social Media Pro User: Tweeting Your Own Talk first appeared on Deep Sea News.

*Turns down the music*

Sorry about that. Just get’s stuck in my head and then there is no stopping it. Anyways, yes, we converged on Miami for the first ever ScienceOnline Oceans conference. New friends! Old friends! Mini-DSN reunion! I do believe a great time was had by all!

The entire conference was off the hook and I send mad love to Karyn Traphagen and David Shiffman for being the masterminds behind the whole thing.

Perhaps the most epic part of this world wind weekend however involved something I have been wanting to do for quite some time now. Shark tagging with the crew from University of Miami’s RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program.

If you have ever been out on one of their tagging trips then you know what I am talking about. If not, then you need to go sign up for one right now: http://rjd.miami.edu/participate

As a fellow marine scientist this was cool, I can’t even imagine how amazing it is for the thousands of students and other groups they bring out every year. Some of whom have never even seen the ocean!! Essentially they took us through the whole process of what they do for their research and it was truly impressive. The morning began with a run down from the great @WhySharksMatter himself, David Shiffman, discussing the research that is currently being done in their lab and what feats they have been able to accomplish not just in Florida, but all over. All of this going on while the RJD interns, or their “undergrad army” as I like to call them, are prepping the boat for the sharkapolooza that is about to go down. It was like watching a well-oiled machine.

Once we had reached our destination, RJD PhD student Austin Gallagher used the #ShiffmanShark to explain the measurements we were going to take and why. With three measurements alone, we were collecting REAL, usable data for about 7 different projects!!!  AMAZING!!! Then with a kiss of the tuna the lines were in and we were fishing.

After pulling the first 10 lines, we had yet to catch any sharks. So what do you do when you aren’t catching sharks? A shark dance of course. And to show you the fine art of the shark dance, I give you some of my new and old SciO friends: Sarah, Violet, and Kathryn.

Teach me how to Sharky. Teach, Teach me how to Sharky. (Apologizes in advance for video shakiness….we were on a boat. Shaky happens.)

I think that deserves a round of internet applause.

Needless to say our shark dance worked for the group after us, but as David reassured us, even no data is good data.

For those interested in shark dancing tagging with the UM’s RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, I highly recommend it. They are doing some pretty amazing things over there and it is exciting to be apart of. Or if playing with a 6ft bull shark isn’t really your thing, consider virtually adopting one with RJD’s Adopt-A-Shark program. Then you can tell all your friends you have a pet shark and you will henceforth be the coolest person in school.

Special thanks to the cool kids at RJ Dunlap for hosting this most exciting adventure! Keep up the good work and best of luck with your ongoing research!

The post Want to catch a shark. Got to do a shark dance. first appeared on Deep Sea News.

1st bit of evidence. Whale sharks spend a lot of time below the surface.  Derrr, I might hear you say, it’s a fish…  Except, it is a fish that spends (or so we thought) a disproportionate amount of time at the surface.  This was based on observation (obviously) and some tagging data, but as the tagging has continued we have learned that in fact they spend much more time out of sight than we thought.  We used to think they were at the surface except for occasional dives, some of which could be very deep, but now we are learning that they may stay deep for significant chunks of their lives, which puts them effectively out of detection range.  And even when they are at the surface, they make such frequent short range dives that subsurface behaviour becomes a big part of their daily pie chart of time use.  This means we need to up the estimates of population by a correction factor that accounts for the portion of time they spend out of sight.  What should that factor be?  Dunno yet, I’ll get back to you after the next conference.

2nd bit of evidence.  Tags and photo ID disagree on connectivity. How groups of whale sharks in different parts of the ocean are connected (or not) is an important question both biologically and for effective conservation measures.  On this matter, two different research techniques disagree somewhat, but they do it in a way that hints at a bigger population.  Satellite tags have shown plenty of evidence of connectivity between different sites in the ocean, sometimes on scales of thousands of miles.  For example, animals tagged in Mexico often show up in Belize, Honduras and the Gulf of Mexico, even Brazil.  And yet, photographic identification databases (the most important is Wildbook for Whale Sharks, formerly ECOCEAN), show surprisingly little connectivity.  Despite over a thousand individual sharks identified in Yucatan Mexico, for example, only a handful have been re-sighted in the other places I just mentioned.  How is this possible if satellite tags show frequent proof positive of connectivity between these locations?  Well, it’s probably because tagging is a “population independent” method, but photo ID is not.  That is, the results of satellite tagging depend only on the movements of the tagged animal and not on the size of the population in either place, whereas the chances of re-sighting a whale shark photographed in one place at another place depends to a large degree on how many sharks there are at the new site.   The lack of photo ID re-sightings suggests that these populations are in fact pretty big, so big that finding that familiar “face in the crowd” actually becomes statistically pretty unlikely.

3rd bit of evidence.  Where are all the ladies at?  The veritable explosion of whale shark science in recent years has been due in large part to the recognition of the phenomenon of whale shark aggregations, or constellations as I now like to call them (you chose it, dear reader).  I’ve written a ton at DSN about the one that occurs in Yucatan Mexico but there are actually at least 12 locations in the world where whale sharks gather in large numbers – always to feed – relatively close to shore.  And those are just the ones we know about.  There are constellations taking place in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, the Seychelles, the Maldives, Mozambique and Tanzania, to name a few, but they all have one thing in common: they are dominated by immature males.  Very consistently so, in fact; nearly all of these selachian sausage-fests show the same 3:1  male:female sex ratio, and the overwhelming majority of animals are immature.  It’s basically an elasmobranch frat party, sans the beer pong.  We know that whale sharks give birth to the genders in a 1:1 split, so you have to ask: where are all the other immature females?  For that matter, where are all the mature animals, both male and female, and where are all the little ones too, under, say, 4 meters?  When you really break it down, we are basing a sizable chunk of whale shark research on one small demographic slice of the whale shark pizza: immature  males.  That’s no way to study a species, and it certainly makes it hard to get a good handle on he global population, when the numbers you are extrapolating from represent such a small segment of the overall population.

Taken together, these bits of evidence suggest that there might be a lot more whale sharks out there than we know of.  Some genetic studies have estimated populations (in the genetic sense this means the number of mature females) between 100,000 and 250,000, which is a LOT more than what we see, especially when you add in the males and immatures of both genders.  But genetic techniques are no substitute for observational data and there we are still sadly lacking.  One one level, this actually gives me a warm inner glow.  I find it both tantalizing and fascinating to think that we are unable to account for perhaps 3/4 of the population of the world’s largest fish.  It’s like the dark matter of the marine megafauna world.  It gives me a strange sense of encouragement that they are out there somewhere, evading our best efforts and proving daily that the ocean still has her fair share of secrets.

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” – Aldous Huxley

The post Where are all the ladies at? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In conjunction with the conference, National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry will be speaking at the aquarium on the evening of Tuesday October 8th, with proceeds going to support whale shark research. If you’re interested and around Atlanta at the time, Info and tickets are available here

One really important aspect of the conference will be an IUCN Red List Workshop, at which the global whale shark science community will debate the conservation status of this species.  Right now it is listed as “Vulnerable” and the scientists will be discussing whether there is sufficient cause to ease back to “Threatened”, or whether the data suggest we should remain vulnerable or advance to “Endangered”.

It’s unusual but not unique to devote an international conference to a single species (I once went to a mouth-watering Symposium all about lobsters).  They’re interesting meetings because they cut across all sorts of scientific disciplines like anatomy, natural history, biochemistry, genetics, and conservation, which provides a unique sort of wholistic perspective.  Some papers arising from the conference will be published in PeerJ, so we’re doing our bit for #OpenAccess too.

If you’re interested in following the conference, you can like it on Facebook, or follow Tweets with the hashtag #IWSC3, although to be blunt, whale shark scientists aren’t well represented on twitter, so you may as well just follow me and Simon Pierce :)

I’ll endeavour to send update during or after the conference, but in the meantime, here’s the whale shark emoticon for you all:

:( ) 

The post Cos you can never have too much whale shark first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Marine scientists and Deep-sea fanatics alike will be keen to keep tabs on some of these resources, which often fly under the radar:

INDEEP – the International Network for Scientific Investigations of Deep-Sea Ecosystems maintains a portal website, with links to new publications, meeting/conferences, policy initiatives and cruise news. It also funds projects  across five active working groups:

1. Taxonomy and evolution
2. Global biodiversity and biogeography
3. Population connectivity
4. Ecosystem function
5. Anthropogenic impact and social policy

Deep-Sea Life – a brand new newsletter published by INDEEP. The first issue (March 2013) is hot off the presses:

[Deep-Sea Life is] a new informal publication for the deep-sea biology community.  This newsletter aims to deliver curent news regarding projects, new papers, meetings and workshops, cruises, student progress, jobs and training opportunities, opinion pieces and other useful information for the science community and all interested parties.

Deep-Sea Biology Society – Yeah baby, soon we’ll be organized! Bhavani Narayanaswamy (Scottish Institute for Marine Sciences) and DSN’s very own Dr. M. are heading up the formation of a Deep-sea League of Researchers. Soon we’ll have our very own scientific society! More info can be found in the inaugural issue of Deep-Sea Life, but watch this space for an announcement when the society officially launches (hopefully later this year).

The post Extra, Extra! Getcha bookmarks ready and keep track of Deep-sea research! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

A shoal of Deeplings will be attending this week’s Science Online conference in North Carolina. If you’ll be there, come say hi to Craig, Al, Kim, Holly, and me. (Sadly, Rick and Kevin can’t make it.) We’ll be joined by many equally lusty ocean compadres. Come say hi! You can find us at our sessions (see below) or by following the sounds of clinking glasses and/or shanty singing.

If you won’t be at the conference, you can still participate! You can join a watch party if there’s one in your locale, follow the conference on Twitter at #scio13, and follow our shenanigans at #DSNsuite.

Sessions that the Deeplings are moderating:

Session 1B & 2A : Why should scientists ‘do’ outreach? – Miriam Goldstein, Matt Shipman & Karen James

Session 1D: Impressions matter: Embracing art & design in research and science communication – Holly Bik and Liz Neeley

Session 8B: What happens when people start taking your online ramblings seriously – Miriam Goldstein and Holly Bik

The post The Deeplings at Science Online first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Word on the street is that there are ~200 deep-sea biologists attending, and the one and only James Cameron will be delivering a plenary talk about his badass Deepsea Challenge submersible on Tuesday morning. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend this year, so I’ll be following along online whilst drowning my sorrows in Grey Goose martinis (and maybe inventing a twitter-based drinking game?).

Day 1 has already seen some über cool stuff, such as the new iDeep app being released for deep-sea taxonomy. What other exciting news will unfold??

The post Deep-sea researchers convene at #dsbs2012 this week in New Zealand first appeared on Deep Sea News.