As the semester flies by, the EcoEvo annual Photo Competition draws ever closer!
The 2022/2023 showcasing will be the sixth instalment in the series and if previous years are anything to go by, the judges will have an extremely tough time choosing a winner. Year on year, the bar seems to have risen ever higher so we’re excited to see what you have in store for us!
For those of you in the dark, the EcoEvo Photo Competition is one of the most highly anticipated events of the year for Botany and Zoology, with the winner receiving prestige and respect from the Trinity Natural Sciences cohort. If that isn’t enough for you, the photo that claims first prize also gets to be shown off for year, becoming the new cover photo for the EcoEvo Blog and profile image on all social media pages. This competition gives us all a chance to present the amazing and strange snippets of our research that often miss out on the opportunity to be shared, so send us on whatever you’ve got!
Katrin Schertenleib captured a beautiful moment between two adult Puffins (Fratercula arctic) off the coast of Wexford on the Great Saltee island last year. Currently the poster image for the EcoEvo blog, is it soon to be succeeded by the 2022/23 winner! Clickhere to see the other entries from last year’s Photo Competition
To enter into the competition, all you have to do is send your photo along with a short caption and/or story to the EcoEvo email account (ecoevoblog@gmail.com). Following on from the successful system of previous years, the entries will be anonymized and sent to an unbiased third party to be judged, ensuring that an equal and fair opportunity is given to each and every participant.
Winners From Earlier Competitions
The five previous exhibitions have each produced a fantastic array of photos. With snapshots coming from the corners of Southeast Sulawesi to the Galapagos Islands and even up to high latitudes of the Arctic. Members of Botany and Zoology have brought us to some of the most amazing and beautiful landscapes on Earth.
To see the 2017 Photo Competition entries, clickhere
The winner of the inaugural Photo Competition back in 2017 stole the show with a wandering Alpine Salamander (Salamandra atra). This little guy was captured by Alain Finn high up in the Swiss Alps.
To see the 2018 Photo competition entries, click here
Dr Laura Russo was next to snatch first prize in 2018, with the winning snapshot being taken closer to home. This chocolate mining bee (Andrena scotica) found a comfy spot on Laura in the Trinity Botanic Gardens at Darty.
To see the 2019 Photo competition entries, click here
Jenny Bortoluzzi claimed the 2019 win with an incredible photo from her expedition to the high Arctic where she and her team had the once in a lifetime opportunity to see a female polar bear (Ursus maritimus) in her natural environment. While stunningly beautiful, this image also strikes a chord – a daunting reminder of the uncertain future of the polar regions.
To see the 2020 Photo competition entries, click here
A male Rufous-tailed hummingbird (Amazilia tzacatl) snatched the win in the 2020 showcasing of the Photo Competition, and rightfully so! These tiny birds are notoriously difficult to photograph but Floriane O’Keeffe managed to capture one mid-flight, an impressive feat.
We hope that seeing some of the past winners and runners up strikes ambition within you to photograph everything in the natural world around you. With all that said and done we eagerly await your submissions! Please send them in before the end of December. Winner to be announced in the New Year.
We wish you all the best of luck in the sixth annual EcoEvo Photo Competition!
An interview with basking shark researcher Haley Dolton
The basking shark, Cetorhinus maximus, is the second largest shark in the world and is regularly seen swimming off the coast of Ireland. But how much do we really know about these ocean giants? In this installment of the EcoEvo blog our co-editor, Lucy Harding sat down with PhD candidate and basking shark researcher, Haley Dolton to find out what it’s like studying these enormous sharks.
Lucy: So Haley, what was it about sharks that first got you interested in them?
Haley: I remember first being interested in sharks when I was reading an encyclopedia of animals and I read that sharks were fish! And that kind of blew my mind because of what I knew about sharks, they were more like mammals in my head; really powerful, can birth live young, can be social. So yeah, that really intrigued me. And when I started reading about them (because this was before the Internet!), and learnt more, like that they have these amazing senses, electrical senses, and they’re capable of doing amazing behavioural things, I think that really sparked my interest in sharks.
Three basking sharks swimming together in Irish waters (photo captured by Haley Dolton).
Lucy: What sets basking sharks apart from other large-bodied sharks, for you? Why study them over white sharks for example?
Haley: I know this sounds almost like a throw-away answer but I actually kind of fell into basking shark research, and then I grew to love them! It was the first opportunity that I was given to work in shark research in the Isle of Man, working with Manx Basking Shark Watch, and I just remember the first time I saw one I was like, “Oh my God, what is that?!” and it came right up to the boat, and I remember being shocked by the size of it! Any shark documentaries I’d seen, the only sharks really that were featured years ago were great whites because they’re the most *air quotes* “exciting” shark, but then I saw this basking shark, with the way it swims and what it looks like and I thought “Oh that looks like a great white but it’s massive!”. I think that that really sparked my interest in them.
I learned more about them from being in the field and reading about them, I was trying to figure them out because they didn’t make a lot of sense to me. For example, they feed on zooplankton (so they’re filter feeders) and they’re the second largest shark species capable of undertaking powerful behaviours, but they feed on microscopic prey, all of this got me thinking “How are they doing this?!”. So I got obsessed with how weird they are! Like how are they behaving like they do?! As another example, they aggregate in large numbers, and we don’t really know why!
(Haley scans the water hoping to spot a shark fin. Photo captured by Dr Nicholas Payne).
We think it’s maybe related to mating or for saving energy, as they swim close to each other, but you know seeing that in the wild, for yourself, it really sparks the ideas in the mind and that set me on the path to studying basking sharks over any other shark species. That’s not to say that I’m not interested in other shark species of course, but more that it was just circumstance which led me to basking shark research in the first place, and then I fell in love with how weird they were!
Lucy: Well, that’s a good point you make in that, for research, you don’t always have to follow a particular species or a particular project. If you more follow opportunities, you never know where they’ll lead you to, and it could lead you into something that interests you more than you realised!
Haley: Yeah, that’s it! When I went to the Isle of Man, I learned loads about research and what areas of research there were. So, for instance, we were doing satellite tagging and collecting DNA samples and this is what I actually wanted to go into at the time, I wanted to use DNA to carry out genetic research of shark species and look at the evolution of traits. And so, I originally started off being interested in that question and then when I saw that they were doing this amazing satellite tagging work, with behavioral and social studies, whether that’s on the human side, so looking at the impact of anthropogenic activity on basking sharks, or whether that’s the social side of the fish themselves, studying how they gather in large numbers! So, that’s where I first got introduced into loads of different scientific areas of research which focused on this one species.
“without knowing enough about your study species, you can’t effectively conserve them”
Lucy: So, are basking sharks an endangered species?
Haley: Yes, basking sharks are an endangered species. They’re endangered globally which means that they’re of ‘conservation concern’. The reason that we’re researching them, particularly in the Payne lab at the minute, is because we don’t really know a lot about what makes them tick.
Aerial view of basking shark feeding off the West coast of Ireland. The gills can be seen fanned open as the animal filter feeds (photo captured by Haley Dolton).
We’re trying to learn more about them because without knowing enough about your study species, you can’t effectively conserve them. To give an example, imagine if someone was trying to conserve me and they saw one day – let’s pick a really bad day – where I’ve gone to the pub for hours, then eaten a pizza, and I haven’t really moved a lot. It might make people think, that’s all I do so let’s give her that all the time! Well, I wouldn’t last very long! I’d have a great time, but I wouldn’t be very healthy.
And that’s why we study these animals, to get as much information as possible to really affect conservation policy and change because these are vulnerable species.
There were massive fishing industries for them, including in Irish waters, and although we no longer have those fisheries, they’re still very vulnerable to being accidentally caught in things like pot lines or in other fisheries related equipment. They are a vulnerable species to lots of kinds of anthropogenic activity, making conservation efforts even more important.
Two basking sharks swim underwater, off the West coast of Ireland (photo captured by Haley Dolton).
Lucy: And you said they are filter feeders and very large, so does that make them a difficult species to study?
Haley: Basking sharks are an unusual study species for sharks, in that we can’t fish for them or attract them to the boat, so we can’t research them in the ways we would with other species where you can do that. So, we’re very dependent on where and when they turn up and whether there’s a good weather window for us to get out and study them, which off the Irish coast is quite rare! So, everything needs to come together to allow us to go out and study them and in reality, I only have around six days to get my tags deployed, which just highlights how difficult they are to study.
Lucy: What does your current research on basking sharks focus on?
Haley: My current research really focuses on getting back to basics of what we know about the general biology of these animals. For example, looking at their anatomy, whether that’s the larger structures or microscopic features. I’m looking at how their anatomy can explain their behavior. So, as I said there’s so much we don’t know about basking sharks.
At the minute, off the Irish coasts, we’re getting hundreds of them in the spring and then later on throughout the summer, and they’re displaying this amazing behavior where they all gather and swirl around each other, which we think might lead to mating, but ultimately we don’t really know why they display this behaviour! So, my research is really focused on trying to explain these behaviors by looking at their anatomy and physiology and what we as scientists, the general public, or policymakers, can do to effectively conserve this species in Irish waters.
“it’s a really exciting time to be part of basking shark research in Irish waters”
This is all going on at an exciting time for basking sharks in Irish waters! Recently it was announced that they’ll hopefully gain protection under the Irish Wildlife Act and there’s been incredible public support for this in Ireland so it’s a really exciting time to be part of basking shark research in Irish waters and to hopefully make a positive change within their conservation.
Lucy: And when you’re out in the field, how do you actually study these animals?
Haley: Well, firstly we work closely with other researchers and the general public who very kindly tell us where and when they see the sharks; we’ve had loads of great sightings (and skippering of boats!) from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) and individuals from different tour operators off the Irish coast like West Cork Charters (Dave Edwards) and Nick Masset (also part of IWDG), whose based near the Blaskets in Dingle, and of course, social media, which tells us where and when sharks have been seen. Then, we’ll scramble to get all our field kit ready and head over to the West Coast!
Normally with shark research we go out to a place where people are already fishing for sharks (for catch and release) or where we’re fishing for them for scientific research and this normally involves attracting them to the boat (with bait) but because we can’t do that with basking sharks, we basically drive the boat up and down the coast slowly, surveying with binoculars to try and spot that characteristic fin sticking out of the water.
The dorsal fin of a basking shark breaking the surface. Three other sharks can be seen finning behind also (photo captured by Haley Dolton).
Lucy: And so, when you do spot a fin, what happens next?
Haley: In basking shark research we actually deploy the biologgers without touching the shark at all (apart from the actual deployment itself). We carefully approach the shark in the boat, deploy the tag, and then we’re off again! This all takes a matter of seconds, so that we’re actually only beside the animal for a couple seconds as we deploy the biologger. Some sharks don’t even react at all, they just carry on swimming or feeding at the surface, which is a good indication they haven’t been disturbed.
I should point out that any research we do on sharks is conducted under license from the HPRA (Health Products Regulatory Authority) ethics board for animal studies, as to not cause stress to the animals.
Haley uses a radio antenna to listen for the radio tag they have attached to a basking shark (photo captured by Scott DeGraw).
Lucy: How is your research going so far? What are your plans going forward for the research?
Haley: The research that is focused on basking shark biology, ecology and behavior has gone really well so far and we’ve found out some really, really interesting things which I’m dying to talk about but I can’t at the moment, but watch this space! There’s lots of cool stuff coming soon!
My research interest has grown from my supervisors, Nick Payne, Andrew Jackson and Jonathan Houghton, supporting my curiosity for this species and a collaboration I made when I first started shark research all those years ago (Jackie and Graham Hall who ran Manx Basking Shark Watch). Now this project is growing and we’ve established new collaborations with some incredible researchers from Oregon State University (Big Fish Lab) and Stanford University, who came over this year for fieldwork. Together, we’re trying to collect and analyse even more data about what the sharks are doing and how they’re behaving. There’s been lots of steep learning curves with doing this research as well, but overall, it’s gone really well and we found out some really cool stuff, which will hopefully come out soon!
“if you do see something, take lots of pictures”
Lucy: That’s great, I can’t wait to see what you’ve found out! Well, for my last question, as a lot of our readers may not necessarily be in the scientific field, is there any way they could get involved in conservation efforts or research to help these threatened sharks?
Haley: Yes! People can get involved by reporting their sightings of any sharks to groups such as the Irish Basking Shark Group and Irish Whale and Dolphin Group and these can feed into scientific research. Also, if you do see something, take lots of pictures because then it’s possible to identify individuals by nicks and cuts on their dorsal fin and this is a great example of a non-invasive way of looking at social behavior or whether sharks are returning year on year to an area, indicating it might be an important area for feeding or breeding or pupping.
You can also get involved with any campaigns that you see going on for the protection of these animals. Support from the public, alongside the work and support from Minister Noonan and TD Jennifer Whitmore is actually what was instrumental in the recent campaign to have the basking shark added to the Irish Wildlife Act; it was a great campaign led by the Irish Basking Shark Group to get basking sharks protection in Irish waters and part of that was a petition that was signed by the general public. It gained incredible support from the public, with I think over 20,000 signatures, which is amazing and hopefully they’ll be protected under Irish law soon.
Haley is a PhD student in Zoology at Trinity College Dublin, and you can find her on Twitter @haleydolton. Haley’s work has been funded by the Irish Research Council, with support from the Fisheries Society of the British Isles. Nick Payne is funded by Science Foundation Ireland.
At the start of each year we ask the EcoEvo contributors to share their favourite scientific publications from the past year and why they found them interesting, inspiring, or otherwise worthy of inclusion in the Hall of Fame. Keeping with tradition, here are the EcoEvo Hall of Fame entries for 2020! And if you enjoy reading about our favourite papers from 2020, remember you can also check out our favourites from 2017, 2018 and 2019, too!
I really enjoyed this paper because it tackles a really difficult topic at the intersection of poverty, human rights, development, conservation, and sustainability. It is important to remember that conservation will never meet its objectives without considering how people depend on nature for their needs and livelihoods. The areas of richest biological diversity (and therefore conservation potential) are usually in developing countries with communities experiencing poverty. This paper collects responses from conservation practitioners to examine their viewpoints on poverty in the context of their work.
They found some areas of agreement such as the poorest people should not be expected to shoulder the costs of preserving a global public good (the conservation of biodiversity). However, they also identify differences between responses: Is the focus placed on meeting the needs of people or more closely aligned with the “do no harm” principle? Is poverty a driver of nature’s decline, or is it the over-consumption that drives environmental degradation? This paper was a great opportunity to question my own views on these very complex ideas and to appreciate the wide diversity of thought going on across the world of conservation.
Fisher, J.A., Dhungana, H., Duffy, J., He, J., Inturias, M., Lehmann, I., Martin, A., Mwayafu, D.M., Rodríguez, I. and Schneider, H. (2020). Conservationists’ perspectives on poverty: An empirical study. People and Nature, 2 (3), pp.678-692.
This paper is based on a truly colossal undertaking: to collect their data on dispersal ability, Sheard et al. measured the wings of 10,338 bird species, i.e. 99% of all bird species on Earth. They used the Hand-Wing Index, a measure that correlates with aspect ratio and basically tells you how long and pointed the bird’s wing is. The higher this number (i.e. the pointier the wing), the better the bird will be at dispersing and flying long distances.
This is important for evolution, as the more birds that are able to fly between distant populations the more gene flow there will be and the less likely the populations are to diverge. Sheard et al. found important links between dispersal ability and geography and ecology, as tropical and territorial birds, had lower Hand-Wing Indices and migratory species had higher ones. It’s fascinating to see how these traits affect the ability of a species to move around, which in turn dictates where that species will be found in the world. The authors have made this incredible dataset freely available and it is sure to inform new insights into bird ecology and evolution for years to come.
Sheard C., Neate-Clegg M. H. C., Alioravainen N., Jones S. E. I., Vincent C., MacGregor H. E. A., Bregman T. P., Claramunt S. & Tobias J. A. (2020) Ecological drivers of global gradients in avian dispersal inferred from wing morphology. Nature Communications, 11 (2463).
The COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely challenging for many, so it was great to see some excellent science coming from the ‘natural experiment’ offered by COVID-19 movement restrictions. The authors show that during the COVID-19 restrictions anthropogenic noise (from vehicles etc.) in the San Francisco Bay Area reached a 70-year low, characteristic of the mid-1950s. They use a long-term dataset of White-Crowned Sparrow recordings to show that during the COVID-19 lockdown, when human noise pollution was minimal, Sparrows exploited the emptied acoustic space (usually occupied by human-related noise) by producing higher-performance songs at lower amplitudes, to maximise song distance. The authors highlight the rapidity with which behavioural traits (song characteristics) adapted to changes in human activity, suggesting incredible plasticity and potential resilience to pervasive anthropogenic pressures like noise pollution. To me, this study is a perfect example of nature’s resilience, and also on finding opportunity from tragedy (research made possible by a global pandemic).
Derryberry E.P., Phillips J.N., Derryberry G.E., Blum M.J., Luther D. (2020). Singing in a silent spring: Birds respond to a half-century soundscape reversion during the COVID-19 shutdown. Science, 370, 575-579.
This paper looked at the human behavioural responses to a blanket ban on thresher shark fisheries in Sri Lanka and fisher’s perceptions of different aspects of the ban. A blanket ban means a complete prohibition on exploitation of a species, and Thresher sharks are considered to be the most vulnerable species of pelagic sharks. A blanket ban might therefore seem like a straightforward and easy conservation measure to protect them. But this study looked at the human impact behind such a drastic policy decision. A ban like this has consequences for the livelihoods of fishers – particularly smaller fishermen who rely highly on thresher shark landings to provide for their families. The study clearly shows the disparity in the impact this conservation policy has had between fishers who rely on these catches to survive and those for whom they are not the primary catch.
The biggest message I took from this paper is how important it is that human lives are taken into account when making conservation decisions; and more importantly that scientists and policymakers need to involve communities early on in the process, communicate better and work together, not against each other if we want conservation to be effective – and supported. This is a message I think more scientists need to hear and integrate into their work and one I hope to take forward in my future career.
Collins C., Letessier T. B., Broderick A., Wijesundara I., Nuno A. (2020). Using perceptions to examine human responses to blanket bans: The case of the thresher shark landing-ban in Sri Lanka. Marine Policy, 121 (104198).
What started as a good excuse to take a break from thesis writing (while still being productive), ended up being two of the best days I’ve ever had in college – the 2020 Zoology/Botany Postgrad Symposium.
The audience settles in for the second day of presentations.
For two days we were treated to the most incredible talks on a wide range of topics, covering theoretical, lab-based, and field work. It was incredible to see the wide range of research being done in the department. It’s difficult to keep up with everything that’s going on, but these talks gave a great insight into some of the incredible work being done.
This summer was my first attempt at a field experiment. As a typically desk-bound researcher, fieldwork presented some unique challenges. If you, like me, try out field research for the first time, you may find that your experience aligns quite well with the extended Kübler-Ross model of grief. So, here I present a satirical journey through the seven stages of fieldwork grief:
Stage 1: Shock & Denial
First, you may be shocked that your project was funded in the first place. How did the grant reviewers miss the underdeveloped methodology and glaringly obvious underestimation of how expensive your experiment will be to run? You tell yourself, ‘of course they’ll come to their senses and the funding body will realise what a mistake they’ve made.’ Don’t worry you’ll never have to actually do the research. This denial will likely leave you scrambling to pack a few days (or hours) before your bus/train/flight.
The header image by Jamie Grant-Fraser shows White-faced Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna viduata) responding to the appearance of a Madagascar Harrier-hawk (Polyboroides radiatus).
The species-area relationship is considered one of the only ‘rules’ in ecology. We have observed more species on larger ‘islands’ (whether true islands or simply some habitat patch of interest) in studies of different plants and animals all around the world. When MacArthur and Wilson (1967) proposed this pattern and the pioneering biogeographical principles which underpin it, they acknowledged that a piece of the puzzle was missing: species identity.
During my first week in Dublin, Ireland, I was more shocked by the countless sunny-rainy shifts within one single day than its natural beauty, although I had been warned of its fickle weather in advance. That was something totally new to me. Born and raised in a small inland town in North China, I had grown accustomed to taking for granted that a whole sunny day could be prophesised by bright morning sunlight through the window. Then I started to imagine that, if fitting a curve to the weather, the curve of my birth village would surely be much smoother than Dublin, even though the former has four much more distinct seasons. But, at that moment, I had neither realized that this thought actually reflected the difference in the temporal autocorrelation of environmental conditions in the two places nor how this could be linked to the dynamics and stability of ecosystems.
As we launch into another year of research, we thought it would be interesting to look back on some of the work that came out in 2018, so we asked the School of Natural Sciences what papers they would like to induct into our second annual Hall of Fame. Read on for the papers we thought were fascinating, notable, or just cool. When you’re finished, you can check out 2017’s Hall of Fame here.
As scientists, our currency is ideas. We’re judged on the quality of our science through the papers we produce and the ideas we share. No matter your thoughts on the current state of academic publishing, this is the way it is for now. Continue reading “The Death of an Idea”
