Film directors often call on scientific experts to lend some legitimacy to their production. A recent, notable example was that of the theoretical physicist Kip Thorne advising Christopher Nolan on the realism of the physics in Interstellar. I think directors ask for the counsel of scientists in cases where they seek to make a film with at least one foot in reality rather than an outright fantasy. In Jurassic Park, a more biologically relevant movie, director Stephen Spielberg had noted-palaeontologist Jack Horner instruct the production team of the latest findings in dinosaur biology. The book and film of Jurassic Park had a significant effect on the public perception of dinosaurs coming as they did in the wake of the dinosaur renaissance of the 80s where the animals were reappraised as fleet footed, intelligent creatures. This was a radical departure from the image of tail dragging sluggards common in the early part of the 20th century (see King Kong). For instance, Horner was quick to quash the idea of a snake-like forked tongue for the Velociraptors. This was a great example of science and art working together in symbiosis. The film was a box office success and the public consciousness was updated to have in mind a more accurate image of what dinosaurs were really like. Of course the film wasn’t perfect in its representations and nitpickers had plenty of grist for their pedantic mills, but overall both ‘sides’ were happy.
But now the release of the trailer for the 4th film in the series, Jurassic World, has caused consternation among palaeontologists. It’s clear from the footage that the dinosaurs haven’t evolved along with the science as they did with the first film. Mainly, that means no feathered animals; perhaps the studio executives weren’t convinced that a fluffy Tyrannosaurus could induce as much panic in an audience. Capturing the disappointment in the scientific community, John Conway writes, “Of course we realise it’s a film – but we also recognise the power it will have to shape people’s ideas about prehistoric animals. And in Jurassic World’s case, it looks like we’re getting a very dull monsters trope. ” This leads to the question as to what does Hollywood owe science? It’s a hard one to answer because there’s no moral imperative for a director to follow the strictures of scientific fact exactly. James Erwin says “The truth is that science fiction is, first and foremost, fiction—and that’s how it should be judged.” I agree with this to an extent, in that if a director is striving to give a message and has to break away from scientific reality to achieve this than so be it. Think of something like the ability of characters to invade dreams in Nolan’s Inception. Nevertheless in the case of Jurassic World I’d bet we’re going to get yet another discussion of man’s hubris , a trope that has been reiterated throughout the Jurassic Park series. If they were able to do this while creating the most realistic dinosaurs at the time in 1993 I don’t see why they couldn’t continue to do so in 2015. Maybe it just rankles with me that we’re seeing another edition in a series of diminishing returns and I should check my hopes. I wonder what other people think of this? But it’s still frustrating for me. Lost World? More like Lost Opportunity.
Quite regularly you get emails that annoy you… often they are flippant emails, and sometimes from students. Harmless or probably naïve that they are, they do get up some peoples’ noses.
But every once in a while you get one that really gets your goat. Several months after some media coverage of a research paper from my group (as it happens one of my favourite papers I’ve been involved with of all time) I got a real gem of an email.
“Woah!!! Who the F*%K is this guy and why is a CEO of an internet security company sticking his nose into what at this stage is an old press release for a research paper?” was my first impression. This guy just doesn’t get it was what I settled on in the end… but here is what played out.
Turns out Luke Latham has published 4 research papers with a modelling angle. He seems to have a bee in his bonnet though. He also has a knack for writing a totally rude and irritating email that only incited me to reply mirroring his rudeness – a subtlety of irony apparently lost on him. I have posted all the emails, along with some pointers as to how he managed to stuff up a perfectly reasonable email in the first instance. In the end I ignored this for my own sanity, and only now got around to writing up this blog post without getting too annoyed. My advice on how not to write like a [insert derogatory word of your choice] is in italics.
The icing on the cake was that he wrote to one of my colleagues (not my line manager) and told them they shouldn’t give me tenure because I was rude! I just don’t think this guy does social interactions very well. Needless to say he was told that it was totally inappropriate for him to try to influence decisions like that, and in any case, the Irish system is not like the USA one, and as it happens, I am tenured!
Subject: Major FAIL on one of your press releases [oh man.. before he has even begun this has annoyed me. “Major FAIL” is confrontational to say the least… I’m really hacked off already.]
Hello, [uh oh… the bad start continues… Dear Sirs/Madams/Prof/Andrew would have been better. This doesn’t bode well… ‘who is this dude’ I’m thinking]
“Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. ”
There is no such thing as “proof” in empirical science based on statistical models. Whomever wrote that summary of the research in your office is a scientific ignoramus. Scientists are not in the business of “proving” things. It is true that with an overwhelming amount of statistical and observational data, we lift a hypothesis to the level of calling it a “theory” and give it a special place as a scientific principle, but no single study can ever provide enough information to make a theory … and even theories are falsifiable in principle.
[Entirely correct about falsifiability of hypotheses.. but I stand by this statement…. “intelligence… can be driven by cooperation…” is the key finding… with emphasis on “can”. People have speculated for ages that it should drive it, and we showed, I think for the first time, that it can. Whether other selection pressures exist in place or tandem with this is beyond the scope of our paper. We did not say we proved that intelligence in humans was driven by cooperation, but that it could be. I see nothing at all wrong with this statement, no matter how pedantic one wants to get]
Next, you’re way, way off base claiming that this sheds new light on “what it means to be human.” The researchers’ 50 brain computer models that were run through a series of computer games (also vastly simplified over real-life interactions) were so simplistic and unlike real brains that its virtually impossible to draw any conclusions about such a correlation in real organisms. There is nothing wrong with computer simulation per se, as they can be quite helpful in research, but let’s put simulations in context: Simulations can point you in the direction of possible real-life biological relationships but never be used to draw firm conclusions about biological organisms. Simulations are just too vastly oversimplified to guarantee that the phenomenon under study will yield the same results when experiments are carried out on real organisms. Only empirical research on organisms themselves can be used to draw conclusions about organisms.
[I disagree, but I’m not getting into this here. This is a perfectly reasonable question, and one I would have been more than happy to engage with had Luke Latham, CEO not been such a jerk]
Educators (at least here in the US) have utterly failed to teach people what science is and how science works, and you jumped right on the bandwagon spreading misinformation. I think you should release a retraction on those statements in a new press release. In the future, I hope you will run your press releases that deal with scientific subjects past a REAL scientist before publication.
[I’m rather proud about how I, and my group communicate science to the discipline and to the wider public. We have a good track record of public engagement. This is just insulting, but again, I don’t think he gets it. He has also implied that we have “utterly failed” which is just inflammatory. And worst of all…. I was the “REAL scientist” that helped to write and ultimately signed off on that press release… so “[insert expletive of your choice here] you Luke Latham, CEO”]
Luke Latham, CEO
GuardRex Corporation
Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA
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So… in spite of my better judgement, I replied… and hastily… (though I don’t regret anything)
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Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 16:09:24 +0100
Subject: Re: Major FAIL on one of your press releases
hello to you too [this was me being ironic and parodying his own choice of impersonal address… he didn’t get this… but maybe one can start to build up a picture about how this guy thinks and deals with people]
yeah, thanks for this. I feel enlightened. [ok… so straight up sarcasm]
maybe next time you could proof all our press releases? You seem to have a special grasp [of] things. [parodying his “In the future, I hope you will run your press releases that deal with scientific subjects past a REAL scientist before publication.”]
I think you should read things a bit more carefully and put some thought and maybe even a hint of decency and politeness into your missives. [this is me parodying his “I think you should release a retraction” bit, but again he seemed to miss this irony]
In the future, I hope you will stick to whatever it is you might be good at. [and a return to his “in the future I hope you will….”]
Andrew
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He replied. But also apparently wrote to a colleague behind my back in a vain (both narcissistic and pointless) attempt to have my tenure blocked… nice guy eh?
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Subject: Major FAIL on one of your press releases
Dr. Jackson,
My comments have nothing to do with the quality of your research or institution. I happen to be a great supporter of computer simulations of biological phenomenon (see http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1662/0002-7685%282008%2970%5B30%3ACARSFT%5D2.0.CO%3B2 ). My comments were directed to your Communications Office regarding their comments about your research … their inappropriate statements regarding “scientific proof” and the extrapolation of the results to “what it means to be human,” which you well know are inappropriate.
[well Luke… had you taken some time and being vaguely more polite you would have discovered that I wrote that press release with my co-authors, and signed off on it too. So actually your comments do have relevance to me and my research. Also… by your logic, you were not being a rude ass to me, but to my communications office? It’s not ok to write emails like this to anyone, and as it turns out, your ire was directed at me]
If your study drew conclusions on differences in simulated brains with a statistical model, then I doubt that your P-value was 0 (zero)! I don’t understand your hostility to my remarks. You should be just as upset as I am that non-technical, non-scientists constantly speak about scientists “proving” things, when that is utterly impossible and not really the point of advancing our knowledge of biological phenomena.
[he doesn’t get it. I seriously wonder about this guy’s social skills]
“Read things a bit more carefully”? What do you mean? … that was a direct quote from your institution’s press release. It is abhorrent to the process of science and to the education of a public that is scientifically illiterate (here in the US … I know things are much better in your country, where education is taken more seriously). As for “stick to whatever it is you might be good at,” I really don’t think that’s a fair remark given that you really didn’t explain how my original argument is false. In regard to “decency and politeness,” I don’t understand that attack either: I don’t make a single statement that can be taken as a personal attack on anyone. I’m talking about scientific incompetence … I’m sure the fellow or lady who wrote that press release is a perfectly nice person. My differences with the press release are professional … and respectful insofar as one can be when I see a daily misrepresentation of the process of science (here in the US, again, I know these matters are handled better in the UK).
[nope. Doesn’t get it. Also Luke… Ireland is not in the UK, we are a sovereign independent country. It really is difficult to endear oneself to this guy.]
I’m sorry that you are offended by my concerns, but we’re losing the battle over here in the US. The press release was taken out of context by a popular blog writer here and used to inappropriately support his arguments about cooperation in business organizations. We really don’t need scientific results misused in this way. I’m just attempting to call attention to a serious general problem in the dissemination of scientific information. If you don’t want to take the matter up with your Communications Office, if you feel their statements were perfectly acceptable, then just forget the matter. But if you do, then don’t cringe the next time someone says that evolution is “only a theory” or that climate change is not a heavily man-made/man-caused problem.
[I think I finally see where he is coming from. He has a bee in his bonnet about how science is treated by some corners of the media. You can’t get bent out of shape with the free press for how they report on findings. Some will be better than others, and some will mis-quote. But having a free press is better than trying to impose control over them. We could have had a civil discussion, but Luke Latham, CEO stuffed it up from the very first subject line. Sorry Luke, im not going to engage with you.]
Luke
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There you go. This whole thing really annoyed me and had me seething for days. Nice to be able to right this up now without feeling my blood boiling though.
In 2010 I graduated from the Department of Zoology in Trinity College Dublin. I spent the next year travelling and completing any wildlife related internship or voluntary position I could get my hands on. I soon faced a dilemma; should I follow in the footsteps of my friends in academia and find a PhD or should I keep searching for a conservation job? I really didn’t know if academia was for me but I knew it would be a great advantage if I wanted to make any kind of an impact in the conservation world. I didn’t really want to do a taught Masters, I had enough of exams and I felt I needed to get a bigger more meaningful project under my belt. A Research Masters proved to be exactly what I was looking for. I could sample postgraduate life without having to commit for four years but at the same time I knew I would have enough time to do something of consequence. I shopped around and eventually the idea of doing a Masters in Nottingham started to appeal to me (aided in no small way by the fact my girlfriend had decided to do a Masters there!).
I decided to meet up with my potential supervisors in Nottingham to see what sort of projects they had in mind. They had a plethora of ideas and were determined to find a project that suited my interests and abilities. All their conservation work takes place in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and the University of Nottingham has a long established research history with the Sinai. Francis Gilbert (one of my potential supervisors) has fallen in love with the Sinai and has spent over 25 years researching there. His obvious passion and enthusiasm for Sinai was one of the major reasons I eventually chose this Masters. We talked through a variety of ideas but it eventually boiled down to one exciting project. It was proposed that I could carry out the first ever study of an extremely rare endemic butterfly found only around the mountains of the Saint Katherine Protectorate – the Sinai Hairstreak Satyrium jebelia. The butterfly was discovered in 1974 and other than a basic description there was next to nothing known about it. YES PLEASE. Ultimately the chance to carry out some old fashioned, pioneering Zoological research was too juicy to pass up! It also appealed to my dormant inner Lepidopterist (I kept butterfly record books with grid references when I was 11 years old) so that made the decision that little bit easier!
I accepted the Masters and started work in Nottingham in January. We had a vague idea of the flight season of the butterfly and to err on the side of caution (and to spend more time in Egypt!) we booked flights for a whopper four month field season in Egypt. I was insistent that I was there before the butterfly emerged right up to the bitter end. I was given a desk and a laptop and lumped in with other Masters and PhD students, which was great. There was no real differentiation between Masters and PhD students and it gave me a real taste for PhD life. My flight out was not until mid-April so I had considerable amount of time to do some preliminary research. This was a little frustrating because we had no idea what to expect and what I would be doing (a difficulty many field researchers and undergraduate dissertation students know too well). I had to be prepared for any eventuality and the thought occurred to me that this species could be extinct! My priority was to fully map its distribution and get the first ever population estimate for the species, absolutely essential information in wildlife conservation. It would also be impossible not to pick up some other useful information on the way. I researched everything from phylogeny to the best kinds of butterfly nets. The genus this butterfly belongs to is typically found in temperate regions of Europe and North America so why is it found in Egypt much further south than its cousins? The Sinai Peninsula and Egypt were once much cooler and had a much more European climate. Sinai Hairstreaks were probably much more widespread in the past but as the region became warmer the species started to die out. Butterflies are reliant on the distribution of their larval foodplant (what their caterpillars feed on) and it is likely that the Sinai Hairstreaks larval foodplant – Sinai Buckthorn Rhamnus dispermus – could not survive the extreme heat. The only way they could survive was to either move north to cooler climates or to move up in altitude where the environment is much cooler. The Saint Katherine Protectorate boasts the highest mountains in Egypt and has the coolest temperatures, making it a biodiversity hotspot and the last remaining home of the Sinai Hairstreak. I continued to work hard but it did become tedious (I did sneak off more than once to birdwatch in Nottingham…..they have Woodpeckers!) and spent a lot of time reading a PhD thesis by Mike James. He carried out the first ever study of another Sinai endemic butterfly – the Sinai Baton Blue. His thesis was the bible as far as I was concerned and a real inspiration. In one field season he carried out a 97 consecutive day Mark-Release Recapture experiment, legendary!
Eventually the time came where I had to fly to Sinai and I didn’t feel so prepared then! Being a pale Irish person with a ginger beard I was a little nervous about the hot Egyptian sun; a gallon of Factor 50 was packed. I flew to Sharm El-Sheikh airport at the southern tip of Sinai (a popular resort town for sun seekers) and was told a Bedouin from St Katherine was going to pick me up. The word Bedouin is generally used to describe Arabic tribes of a nomadic lifestyle that live throughout North Africa and the Middle East. However, the Bedouin in St Katherine live a more settled lifestyle as they take advantage of the tourism to Mount Sinai (where Moses is said to have read the Ten Commandments) and the Monastery of Saint Katherine. They belong to the Jebelia tribe and the Sinai Hairstreak is named after them – Satyrium jebelia. Eventually my driver showed up and, after a detour or two, (he turned a three hour drive into a six hour drive) we arrived at Fox Camp, lying at the foot of Mount Sinai. I was greeted by some familiar faces because there was a team of different Nottingham researchers there looking at everything from hyenas and wolves to the birds and bees (literally). I was invited to join my fellow researchers and some locals by the fire in the Bedouin tent. This would become a daily routine, talking to my Nottingham friends, the locals and strange tourists over Bedouin tea (ingredients: a small amount of water and black tea with a kilo of sugar).
The first week or so was the acclimatisation period, getting used to the sun and helping some of the other researchers (catching Black-crowned Wheatears with Luke and setting up camera traps for carnivores with Lisa). The first thing I wanted to do was to map all the hostplants, Sinai Buckthorn (a rare and endemic species in its own right) before the butterfly was due to emerge. If I could find the hostplants I could find the butterflies. This proved a little more difficult than I originally thought. I had to rely on local knowledge to find these plants and the Sinai Buckthorn has no real value to the Bedouin so many people don’t know what it is. They often confused it with the similar looking (and more common) Sinai Hawthorn. This lead to being sent on more than one wild goose chase. It is illegal to walk the mountains in the Sinai without taking a local guide with you. This also proved a bit of a nightmare at the start as the first guide I was given was 14 years old and didn’t speak English. I didn’t care too much that he didn’t speak English (it’s his country) but he just didn’t understand what he was supposed to be doing, through no real fault of his own. He would take me to the top of mountain and treated me like a tourist and not a scientist…..so I paid him and sacked him! Eventually I settled on my guide – Suileman Abusada- who spoke English. Unfortunately he didn’t really know anything about the plant but pretended he did. He was so eager to secure my services that he gave me rugs and gifts after our first walk. While he didn’t know much about the hostplant he did know the area very well, was a good cook and was willing to spend days on end in the mountains with me while I looked for the plants. I used a GPS to mark the location of the Buckthorn and started the mapping process. Luckily there was one Bedouin who knew exactly what I was looking for – Nasr Mansour. Nasr exuded coolness (his name means eagle and he has a motorbike) and knew everything there is to know about the flora and fauna of St Katherine. He was already a guide for someone else but I did manage to get him to bring me to some locations and educate Suleiman about what I was looking for.
A Sinai Buckthorn in Wadi Ahmar
The next few weeks followed the same pattern, long day trips to Wadis (valleys) around the protectorate looking for this shrub and enjoying the spectacular scenery of the region. The Sinai Buckthorn has a nasty habit of being found in remote areas and along steep rocky slopes. On the 10th of May the project really took off, I was climbing up the side of a particularly tedious hill to check out what I expected were two Sinai Buckthorn. The Buckthorn was usually found in relatively high numbers so one or two trees were hardly anything to write home about. I was wrong; I saw the butterfly for the first time (several weeks before they were due to emerge). It was such a relief to the see the species I had been studying for the past four months for the first time. First off I photographed the butterfly (probably the 3rd known photograph for this species!) and I then proceeded to watch them, trying to get familiar with their behaviour. I knew I had an awkward species on my hands as they were quick and would often disappear out of sight chasing after other species of butterfly or just vanishing altogether. Many arid species (such as the Sinai Baton Blue) rarely move more than a few metres but it was immediately clear that the Sinai Hairstreak was a strong flier. I started to practice catching them which was made all the more awkward because the Sinai Buckthorn is covered in thorns, fixing my net was a weekly occurrence. By that time I was fairly satisfied that I had mapped all the hostplants in the region and I knew that it was time to start to try and estimate the population. I found six large sites containing Sinai Buckthorn and a couple of sites with one or two hostplants. I was confident the butterfly would be present in the larger sites despite that it had only been known to occur in two locations. My assumptions were correct and each of the six sites were teaming with butterflies! Hunting season was open!
I wanted to have a reasonably good population estimate so I decided to visit each site for five consecutive days to carry out a Mark-Recapture-Release experiment. I would spend eight hours each day (8:00 – 16:00) for five days catching butterflies. This sounds easy but this was (obviously) the hottest part of the day and the trees could be scattered along various different steep slopes. More often than not I was also competing against a dodgy stomach, watch out for the salad! Even the local Bedouin don’t like being out in the heat of the day, Suleiman rarely helped and spent most days sleeping in the shade! He was good craic and cooked so no problems there. The sites were quite remote so I would camp for the five days with Suleiman. We would bring a camel, Abdul, with us to carry our food and water. Each butterfly captured was given an individual mark with a felt-tip pen through the net and released as quickly as possible. The location, behaviour and time were recorded for each capture or subsequent recapture. By looking at the proportion of marked and unmarked individuals we can estimate the population size using Eberhardt’s geometric model. Maps were created using Google Earth showing the movements of captured Sinai Hairstreaks, the distribution of Sinai Buckthorn and the Sinai Hairstreak. I used this method on all the sites except for one (the Wadi Ahmar region) because of the apparent high population of Sinai Hairstreaks there. For this site I visited once marking as many butterflies as I could and then returned five days later to count the proportion of marked and unmarked individuals. The population size was estimated using the Lincoln index. Carrying out population estimates at each site took a good chunk of time and I was afraid the flight season would end while I was still doing it. As I result I worked non-stop during this time which was pretty intense but very exciting. I took notes on everything I could from predators to foodplants while I was catching the butterflies. I also decided to assess the habitat and larval foodplant requirements by recording 11 different features from the height and width to the slope and aspect of every single Sinai Buckthorn, 553 in total. This was much less enjoyable and much more labour intensive than catching butterflies!
Suleiman and Abdul
It wasn’t long until August came around and the butterflies were completely gone by the time I left. The heat in August was blistering and I was ready to leave after four long months. I returned to Nottingham with a mountain of data and a decent tan. I effectively became a hermit (tan receded quickly) for the next couple of months writing as much as I could without the distraction of exams or lab work. I estimated the total world population of Sinai Hairstreaks to be 1,010 individuals (less than Snow Leopard and Giant Panda). This is very low but unlike many endangered species the Sinai Hairstreak has a naturally small population size. As I mentioned before the Sinai Hairstreak is a relict species that has become isolated on a mountain-top island to avoid the higher temperatures of lowland Egypt. The good news is the Sinai Hairstreak is not under direct threat from people; the foodplant is not used by the locals (they harvest the foodplant of the Sinai Baton Blue) or grazed heavily and the habitat is not being destroyed by human development. I was also keen to establish what population structure the Sinai Hairstreak has. Basing a conservation strategy on the wrong population structure has proved costly in the past. We can do this by looking at the proximity of sites and the dispersal ability of the butterfly. This definitely needs more research but we now know the Sinai Hairstreak is a good flier (I had one beast fly a kilometre in a day). The Sinai Hairstreak may exist as a metapopulation or a panmictic population. It certainly appears to be in a better position than the Sinai Baton Blue. If the Sinai Baton Blue becomes locally extinct in one patch of suitable habitat it is likely that patch will never be recolonized again due to its extremely poor dispersal ability. I also found an individual Sinai Hairstreak that was 25 days old (very good for a butterfly) which is another indication of how robust it can be. The bad news; the only serious threat that the Sinai Hairstreak is under is global warming, if current climate-change predictions are correct the habitat may become unsuitable and there may be no way for the Sinai Hairstreak to survive. They have already reached the top of Egypt’s highest mountain and have literally nowhere left to go to escape the heat.
Map showing movements of selected Sinai Hairstreaks within a site
My work in Sinai was recently published in the journal of Insect Conservation. After I finished my Masters I was invited to attend an IUCN Red List Assessment Workshop on Mediterranean Butterflies in Malaga as an expert in Egyptian butterflies (a very generous statement!) and I was involved directly in the creation of a new regional Red List for Mediterranean butterflies. The information I collected was used to have the Sinai Hairstreak red listed for the first time as Vulnerable. Getting a species on the Red List is a necessary first step in highlighting the conservation concern of a species and I was delighted to get the ball rolling for the Sinai Hairstreak. To sum things up I was thrilled to be able to shed some light on an unstudied species and even more delighted that my research could actually prove useful! It’s hard to believe that it all happened in a single year.
More photos of the wildlife and scenery of the Sinai can be found here.
A marked Sinai Hairstreak with a Sinai Buckthorn in the background
So, it’s that time of year again; as the cold, damp, dark, weather sets in we look to warmer climes for escape and entertainment. So; Take 26 people, from all walks of life, throw them together in a tropical paradise to camp with bugs, beasts and cold-water showers for 10 days and watch the dynamics and lessons unfold….
Ok so we’re not exactly celebrities, we didn’t skydive into the savanna, or have Ant and Dec provide a narration to our every move, or eat blended kangaroo testicles (though incidentally on the same trip last year I did try ox testicles!), but we were a mixed group, many of whom were experiencing the tropics for the first time, and out of the luxury of their usual lives, forced to live together in tents for 10 days.
On our field course of Tropical Ecology in Kenya with our final year undergraduate students, I was struck once again by the sense of camaraderie and togetherness that the experience brought to us all. Nothing like scanning each other for ticks to build trust! There is no comparison to learning through experience and that is exactly what we spent the week doing; from buffalo management and human wildlife conflict, to climate change and community development projects. I think that we are lucky in the field of ecology for these sorts of opportunities to present themselves that many other fields may not have; the chance to go out and live and experience our science. I think it is really important for humanizing the science too- being able to interact and see how others problem solve under pressure or with limited resources; hard to gain in a one hour lecture twice a week or the odd practical.
We did have a few “Bushtucker” trials of our own though:
Sk-Hipp to the Loo
Dodge the giant grazing hippos in the dark to reach the bathroom without scaring them into crushing your campmate
The Hike of Hell
Walk for 3 hours in the grueling heat of the Equatorial midday sun with no shade and an Irish complexion, the trail littered with dead flamingoes.
Mystery Meat Curry
Might be goat, might be donkey; If you don’t think about it it’s fine!
Gorge-ous day for a climb
Creep along the perilous algal covered gorge slopes to reach the other side without falling to your death (or at least a lot of bruises)
What’s that bite?
It went from red bubble to blackish- green triangle: Hospital or Savlon?
Pothole Perils
Steer your overloaded minivan at high speed around the giant potholes without ending up in a ditch.
Prickly Plant Polka
Rash or puncture? Only one way to find out; walk through the forest in shorts and count the war wounds… And don’t lick the prickly pear en route
TenAnt trials
Try to pack a tent at 6am without disturbing the ants nest underneath
Pitch Perfect
The most frightening of all; stand up in front of your campmates to present an original research project idea for funding…
At least I can say that the public wasn’t voting people off the trip!
We have finally decided on the winner of the Still Life photography competition. The theme was ‘Changing Seasons’ and first place goes to the ‘flooded forest’ which is our featured image today. As the entries were anonymous we don’t know who submitted the image so please make yourself known and gather up the plaudits you so richly deserve.
Update: Our winner has come forward (see the comments). Congratulations to Aoibheann Gaughran of the TCD zoology department!
Every now and then you stumble on a paper that changes everything for you. Typically something of a personal zeitgeist moment, it opens your eyes to a whole new world of potential and can spin your own research out in new directions, or encourage a complete re-orientation of your goals. In this new series, we are going to profile some of our favourite papers and maybe share the inspiration a little wider.
I don’t get out from behind my computer much, but when I do, my favourite engagement with real animals is to watch swirling flocks of starlings or trails of ants in search of food.
During my PhD I was working on the evolution of behaviours in social groups when I stumbled on a paper as I was searching through my supervisor Prof Graeme Ruxton’s publications. This was one of the first collective behaviour papers I read, and it was a huge eye-opener for me, pandering to both my love of biology and computers. Collective memory and spatial sorting in animal groups by Couzin, Krause, James & Ruxton brought home for the link between individual behaviour, self organisiation, emergent behaviour, complex biological pattern formation and how evolution could exploit this system and shortcut adaptive strategies without the need for invoking complex cognitive processes.
The concept itself wasn’t new: Craig Reynolds in 1986 demonstrated that interacting individual computer animals, which he termed boids, following three basic rules of separation, alignment and cohesion could generate a variety of complex group level patterns akin to biological swarming, shoaling and flocking. This simple computer simulation showed how the interactions themselves could create coordinated group-level behaviour without a need for centralized control, or for agents to possess any knowledge of their surroundings beyond their nearest neighbours. Instead, the patterns are an emergent property of the system of interacting agents that arise through a process of self-organisation. Craig Reynolds went further, and showed that information could be transmitted through the group so that obstacles (or predators) could be avoided by individuals responding to their neigbours avoidance, without having to actual see the obstacle or threat for themselves. Such characteristics have clear selection benefits in an evolutionary sense whereby there are cheap, effective ways to gain benefits of living in large collective groups.
What Couzin et al did was to show in even more detail the ecological and evolutionary relevance of these systems. They described in detail how subtle changes to individuals’ behaviours, manifested in adjustments to the radii that define whether they avoid, align or cohere with their neighbours, could arise in abrupt changes to the group-level pattern. A system dominated by attraction and avoidance tends to produce swarming behaviour around a relatively stationary point whereas one dominated by alignment produces shoals that move in a rather rigid, elongated diamond-like formation. In between there exists an intermediate state in which the group spontaneously starts to rotate in a torus (ring-doughnut) structure. The key point here is that no-one in these groups knows what a torus is, never mind how to achieve it, and nor is there a leader telling them to swim in a circle – rather, it is an inevitable consequence of the aggregation of the interactions between individuals with a mid-range tendency for alignment. An extra quirk to the system is that though the individuals are completely bereft of any brain or memory, the system shows evidence of memory – or hysteresis as physicists would refer to it. Individuals starting in a swarming pattern and increasing alignment will move through the rotating torus and on to the rigid diamond-like structure with individuals locked into a particular place in the group. However, if you start with the rigid structure, and reduce individuals’ tendency for alignment, they skip the torus structure and revert straight to swarming. In this manner, the group has memory of what it was doing in previous states, even though the individuals have no such memory. This is surely a rather cheap way for interacting ants, fish, birds, or maybe even the neurons of our brain to encode a sense of memory or history without having to explicitly encode and record the details of past states.
Perhaps most relevant from a behavioural ecology perspective, Couzin et al went further and explored how changes to an individuals behaviour relative to the group could alter its location. Increasing speed, decreasing turning rate or increasing one’s tendency for alignment would see an individual end up towards the front of the group. Reducing ones tendency for avoidance would see an individual move to the centre of the group. This is beautifully simple. Without any knowledge of the group structure, or where one is in the group, simple behavioural rules linked to internal state can now allow an individual to navigate the group. For example, if hungry, simply speed up and you will be at the front with first access to food. Once sated, you can seek out the relative safety of the middle by reducing your how much ‘personal space’ you require.
Prof Iain Couzin has gone on to show myriad intricacies of collective groups in terms of how they can make decisions as a group, and how locust swarms are driven by similar properties. During my PhD I had the pleasure to meet with Iain Couzin, study under the tutelage of Graeme Ruxton, share code with Richard James, and collaborate with Jens Krause (I didn’t get to meet the last author Nigel Franks, but now that I’m back on the conference tour there is still hope!)
So for various reasons, one of which was being unsure of whether a PhD was for me, I found myself asking to work as an Intern with the good people in the Zoology Department at TCD. To give you a bit of background, I am a Zoology graduate with an MSc in Marine Biology, so not just some random bloke who happens to like animals and fancied chancing his arm. Anyway, I approached Dr. Ian Donohue whose research group interested me and thus began a 9 month Internship as a Research Assistant.
With a little trepidation and a great deal of excitement I began my stint as a minion with a site inspection for a proposed project looking at community structure in a rocky shore ecosystem. (Note to anyone who is interested in rocky shore ecology, I would advise not severely spraining your ankle the day before, it’s incredibly frustrating trying to navigate a boulder field while being unable to walk). Over the following weeks, I assisted in the field work required to set the project up. I thoroughly enjoy being outdoors so this suited me perfectly, although I must admit how lucky we were weather wise, it rained on only one day of 9 or 10 days we had out there so perhaps my love of the outdoors will diminish as soon as I’ve encountered some proper Irish weather!! Since then I have been involved in a range of projects from pilot studies on coevolution and trophic complexity of bacterial communities to feeding and respiration rates in Mysid shrimp, encompassing a range of laboratory and field techniques.
The learning doesn’t stop at the practical side of science either, merely by being involved in a working department I have learned more in the last 7 or 8 months about the ways of forging a career in science than I have done in my entire career to date. Our weekly journal club, NERD club was a bit of a revelation if I’m honest. Seeing how a collective of brilliant minds can come together and interact to assist with, develop and fine tune current and future work was an eye opener. It’s also an extremely beneficial way of encompassing different working groups/departments. The sharing of ideas, new techniques and sometimes just a different perspective can lead to a well-rounded project and/or person and is something I would definitely recommend in any institution.
I’ve also begun to build a network, something crucial to succeeding in science (and any workplace I guess!), and definitely not one of my strongest attributes. I was fortunate enough to attend the BES Macroecology conference in Nottingham in July and to display our work to the public during the Discover Research event in September, both of which were thoroughly enjoyable and valuable to furthering my development. I am an avid supporter of outreach programmes so to participate in what was an extremely successful night was most rewarding.
To anyone who is in a similar position to the one I was I would highly recommend contacting a Professor or otherwise and asking is there a job you can do for them. If like me, you are willing to do it for nothing other than your own benefit then there is no reason why they would not accept the offer. I have learned so much during my time here, added considerably to my skill set and most of all I now know that a) I would like to continue to work in an academic environment and b) that I am fully capable of doing a PhD. Whether I do or not depends on a number of factors, but that is for another day.
We’ve just returned from our annual Tropical Ecology Field Course in Kenya with our final year undergraduates. Our trip took us on a journey through the rift valley to the theme of biodiversity, conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Here are some of the sights of the trip:
Visit to Lake Nakuru National Park where water levels have been on the rise creating these eerie tree graveyards!A Grey Crowned Crane on the shores of Lake Baringo where we were camping.A hike along the soda lake of Bogoria
Maribou stork looks onLittle fruit bats keeping a close eye on us!An olive baboon and her baby eyeing us suspiciously!The gorge at Hell’s Gate National Park, Naivasha- look out Simba!
Moderation is the art of “avoidance of extremes in one’s actions, beliefs, or habits”, according to dictionaries. In academic meetings chances are to find a colorful mix of extremes ranging from big mouths to shy introverts, and making everyone’s voice heard can be quite challenging. In worst-case scenarios, even hearing one’s own voice can become problematic.
In order to make a group discussion productive, smooth and -why not? – fun, participants designate or invite a moderator to fill in the conductor’s role. He or she will have excellent people skills and professional knowledge, will know how to puck the right strings and will seek to achieve group consensus in the most timely and efficient manner. One step ahead of everyone in the group, the moderator will be able to lead the discussion to fertile grounds where every participant is given the opportunity to produce its best.
But there is something more about moderation. A group discussion also resembles a cogwheel: each piece, big and small, make the big machine move. The interesting part however is never the individual piece, no matter how big or small (mouth he or she is), but the whole machine: the final, shiny product ready to roll. These are group synergies produced by the group’s dynamic, which are the most important outcomes of an academic gathering. The essence of moderation therefore revolves around catching and following the group dynamic.
Importantly, just like a good conductor, the moderator should never try playing and conducting in the same time. Even saying it sounds confusing. The moderator has a far more important active job to do than playing. At the end of the meeting, there are one, two or three work objectives that have to be successfully, and thoroughly, met.
Scary as it may sound at first, you might have already pictured yourself in the moderator’s shoes. Question is: are you a natural born moderator? Maybe you already know the answer is yes. Alternatively, perhaps you just need a little more practice, like I do. You don’t know the moderator hiding in yourself until you haven’t tried it.
My supervisor asked me to moderate an Ignite Session discussion at the Ecology Society of America 2014 meeting in California. Cautiously, she also suggested I should practice before, by moderating a group discussion about … moderation at a NERD club meeting at TCD. We gathered our ideas about what lies behind a successful moderation and what defines a successful moderator. I listed our thoughts in a cheat sheet below, where I contrast do’s and do not’s of moderation. Having it at hand can help you a great deal preparing for your first, second… however many moderation sessions you will lead.
At the Ignite Session in California, we had a houseful of people, and I only had to use about 5% of my moderator skills. We had questions flowing in for 45 minutes, after which we had to free the room and we moved the discussion closer to a couple of beers. Success! Phew, what an experience! I’m looking forward to the next one.
CLARITY DOs
State the topic, scope, objectives, expectations, rules at the very beginning
Speak up!
Make sure you repeat the audience’s questions so that everyone can hear.
Dig out your best communication skills
Be organized (have introduction, have end summary)
Be rigorous (keep people on track)
Keep it Simple! (simplify, reformulate, translate if necessary)
CLARITY DON’Ts
Ask long questions
Make confusing statements
Get confused and loose track
Get intimidated
PREPARATION DO’S
Have “conversation starters”, a list of questions
Have a global vision of the topic under discussion
Know your audience in advance
Get a hold of the logistics (microphone? assistants? co-moderator? recorder?)
But always be prepared for surprises, good and bad
Practice! Moderate a work group about … moderation!
PREPARATION DON’T’S
Be superficial, unprofessional
Not have a clue about your audience
COMMUNICATION DO’S
Build on previous questions
Ask clarifying questions
Get out of the “rabbit holes” (self-explanatory topics)
Yes, do interrupt “silverbacks” and “prima donnas” (speakers who like hearing themselves)
Have supportive attitude
Calm down spirits
Maneuver spotlights wisely
Make conscious effort to involve each participant to make individual decisions and take independent actions.
Be inspiring
Employ strategies such as group work, “Think, Pair, Share” or “Speed Dating” to engage audience
Redirect people to e.g. Twitter to ask additional clarifying questions
COMMUNICATION DONT’S
Ask closed questions (e.g., to which the answer is obvious)
Shut down speakers
Be cynical
Ask controversial questions that may take days to solve
Have judgmental attitude
Embarrass & Humiliate
Put people on the spot
Force consensus
NEUTRALITY DO’S
Be neutral, make others debate
Treat everyone equally, make voices be heard
Be respectful
Pay attention to the gender balance
Keep the arguments balanced
NEUTRALITY DONT’S
Take sides
Engage in debates
Answer to provocative questions, argue
Express opinions
Participate in discussions
Share own views
EFFICIENCY DO’S
Be exact & short
Ask the right questions
Focus on the process no matter what
Have an excellent time management
Tackle not more than 3 broad topics
Persevere
Keep discussion alive
Use beeper if necessary to stop a speaker or close a topic and get to the next
EFFICIENCY DONT’S
Chit-chat
Ask meaningless questions
Make the discussion an endless story or soap opera
Ask “pressure mine” questions (put discussion on sidetrack)
Overstuff schedule
FOCUSED DO’S
Pay the highest level of attention
Practice the ability to think two things at the same time (current discussion & next questions)
Be quick witted
Hear everything
Keep track of the discussion
FOCUSED DONT’S
Get distracted, loose track
Get lost in details
Get lost in “rabbit holes” (shallow discussions)
ORGANISATION DO’S
To be able to synthesize, take notes along
Summarize periodically (at least provide a mid-summary)
Provide end summary
ORGANISATION DONT’S
Let the discussion flow endlessly
Loose audience
Loose end and scope
PERSONALITY DO’S
Be dynamic (follow the group dynamic)
Be flexible (do not stick to your pre-prepared questions)
Be creative!
Use your sense of humor
Be confident!
Be engaging!
PERSONALITY DONT’S
Be melancholic and sad
Be tired and depressed
Be bored
Be narrow-minded
Be rigid
Remember:
Moderation is an art, you need to use both people skills and professional knowledge.
The success of a discussion depends on how well prepared and competent you as a moderator are.
It is a very good idea to follow the group dynamic and obtain group synergies.
“Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence.” Daniel Burnham
The viva or thesis defence is a daunting obstacle. It’s built up so much that you feel as if your previous three years of work hinge on how you perform for one morning/afternoon. Despite all the reassurances I was offered I was hugely nervous before it. That said, some of the advice I received meant I wasn’t flying blind and could anticipate some of the questions.
It really is a help to have had some of your chapters published. It means two or three other academics have evaluated your ideas and thought them good enough for publication. This is not to say your examiners will ignore these parts, but remember they’re making sure you could perform as an academic and this is strong proof that you could.
Before the day, make a copy of the thesis you submitted and bring it with you to the viva. Have the pages with your figures on it highlighted. These sections are typically big discussion points because they capture the essence of your results. Read over it a couple of days beforehand too, but not the day before, keep that as a buffer to relax.
In terms of structure, the viva panel consists of an external examiner, an internal examiner and the chair. The extern is someone in your field but outside of your university. It is typically stipulated that they cannot have published with you or your supervisor so as to avoid bias. The intern comes from your department and has some knowledge of your field and again has not published with you. The extern takes the lead in asking the questions. The chair is there to make sure everyone keeps a civil tongue in their mouths and the whole event comes to a close after a reasonable time. A typical viva will last three hours.
The aim of the viva is to ensure you are capable of functioning as an academic, I’ve heard it being described as the ‘gateway into the scholarly community’. The expectation is firstly, that the work is mostly your own and secondly, that you have an appreciation of where your thesis fits in with the field at large. This means the questions you’re asked come at two levels, the specific and the general. You are the author so you’re best placed to know the specifics. If you have been helped with some aspect, such as the statistics, make sure you’ve an understanding of why it was done. The general questions are posed to test that you’re widely read in the area. So one question I had was ‘If I could ask God any question about vulture biology what would it be?’The tone of the viva should one of a scholarly discussion. Your examiners are not there to chew you up and spit you out again.
Recognise that your thesis is not the final word on the subject, admit to its shortcomings, and realise it could be improved upon. You can engage in civil debate if there’s a point of difference but don’t get argumentative. You may be asked, in hindsight what would you have done differently?
A good thesis supervisor will know that your work is good enough to get you through a viva with relative ease. Any significant problems will likely have been flagged well in advance. So despite all of your fears coming up to it, you’ll know you’re good enough to walk through those scholarly gates.
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This post drew on my own experience and the advice offered by the presenters of the BES Webinar ‘Surviving the viva’.
So, it’s that time of year again; as the cold, damp, dark, weather sets in we look to warmer climes for escape and entertainment. So; Take 26 people, from all walks of life, throw them together in a tropical paradise to camp with bugs, beasts and cold-water showers for 10 days and watch the dynamics and lessons unfold….
We’ve just returned from our annual Tropical Ecology Field Course in Kenya with our final year undergraduates. Our trip took us on a journey through the rift valley to the theme of biodiversity, conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Here are some of the sights of the trip:
