Grad school growing pains

Clara Bird, PhD Candidate, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

“What if I’m wrong? What if I make a mistake?” When I began my career after completing my undergraduate degree, these questions echoed constantly in my head as the stakes were raised and my work was taken more seriously. Of course, this anxiety was not new. As a student, my worst fear had been poor performance in class. Post-undergrad, I was facing the possibility of making a mistake that could impact larger research projects and publications. 

Gaining greater responsibility and consequences is a fact of life and an intrinsic part of growing up. As I wrap up my third year of graduate school, I’ve been reflecting on how learning to take on this responsibility as a scientist has been a crucial part of my journey thus far.  

A scientist’s job is to ask, and try to answer, questions that no one knows the answer to – which is both terrifying and exciting. It feels a bit like realizing that grown-ups don’t have all the answers as a kid. Becoming comfortable with the fact that my work often involves making decisions that no one definitively can say are wrong or right has been one of my biggest challenges of grad school. The important thing to remember, I’ve learned, is that I’m not making wild guesses – I’m being trained to make the best, most informed decisions possible. And, hopefully, with more experience will come greater confidence. 

Through grad school I have learned to take on this responsibility both in the field and the lab, although each brings different experiences. In the field, the stakes can feel higher because the decisions we make affect not just the quality of the data, but the safety of the team (which is always the top priority). I felt this most acutely throughout my first summer as a drone pilot. As a pilot, I am responsible for the safety of the team, the drone, and the quality of the data. As a new pilot, I intensely felt this pressure and would come home feeling more exhausted than usual. Now, in my second field season in this role, I’ve become more comfortable and am slowly building confidence in my abilities as I gain more and more experience. 

Video 1 – Two gray whales foraging together off Newport, Oregon, USA. I recorded this footage during my first season as a pilot – a flight I’ll never forget! NOAA/NMFS permit #21678.

I have also had a similar experience in the lab. Once it’s time to work on the analysis of a project, I choose how to clean, analyze, and interpret the data. As a young scientist, every step of the process involves learning new skills and making decisions that I don’t feel entirely qualified to make.  When I started analysis for my first PhD chapter, I felt overwhelmed by deciding how to standardize my data, what kind of analysis to perform, and what indices to calculate. And, since it’s my first chapter, I felt further overwhelmed by the worry that any decision I made would become a later regret in a future part of my PhD. 

Recently, the most daunting decision has been how to standardize my data. For my first chapter, I am investigating individual specialization of gray whale foraging behavior. The results of this question are not only important for conservation, but for my subsequent work (check out these previous blogs from January 2021and April 2022 for more on this research question). While there is a wealth of literature to draw analysis inspiration from, most of these studies use discrete prey capture data, while I am working with continuous behavior data. So, to make my data points comparable to one another, I need to standardize the behavior observation time of each drone flight to account for the potential bias introduced by recording one individual for more time than another. After experiencing an internal roller coaster of having an idea, thinking it through, deciding it was terrible and restarting the cycle, I was reminded that turning to lab mates and collaborators is the best way to work through a problem.

Image 1 – Comic from phdcomics.com, source: https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2008

So, I had as many conversations as I could with my advisor, committee members, and peers. My thinking clarified with every conversation, and I gained confidence in the justification behind my decision. I cannot fully express the comfort that comes from hearing a trusted advisor say, “that makes ecological sense to me”. These conversations have also helped me remember that I am not alone in my worry and that I am not failing because I have these doubts.  While I may never be 100% convinced that I’ve made the right decision, I feel much better knowing that I’ve talked it through with the brilliant group of scientists around me. And as I enter an analysis-intensive phase of my PhD, I am extremely grateful to have this community around to challenge, advise, and support me. 

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Taking a breather

Allison Dawn, new GEMM Lab Master’s student, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

While standing at the Stone Shelter at the Saint Perpetua Overlook in 2016, I took in the beauty of one of the many scenic gems along the Pacific Coast Highway. Despite being an East Coast native, I felt an unmistakable draw to Oregon. Everything I saw during that morning’s hike, from the misty fog that enshrouded evergreens and the ocean with mystery, to the giant banana slugs, felt at once foreign and a place I could call home. Out of all the places I visited along that Pacific Coast road trip, Oregon left the biggest impression on me.

Figure 1. View from the Stone Shelter at the Cape Perpetua Overlook, Yachats, OR. June 2016.

For my undergraduate thesis, which I recently defended in May 2021, I researched blue whale surface interval behavior. Surface interval events for oxygen replenishment and rest are a vital part of baleen whale feeding ecology, as it provides a recovery period before they perform their next foraging dive (Hazen et al., 2015; Roos et al., 2016). Despite spending so much time studying the importance of resting periods for mammals, that 2016 road trip was my last true extended resting period/vacation until, several years later in 2021, I took another road trip. This time it was across the country to move to the place that had enraptured me.

Now that I am settled in Corvallis, I have reflected on my journey to grad school and my recent road trip; both prepared me for a challenging and exciting new chapter as an incoming MSc student within the Marine Mammal Institute (MMI).

Part 1: Journey to Grad School

When I took that photo at the Cape Perpetua Overlook in 2016, I had just finished the first two semesters of my undergraduate degree at UNC Chapel Hill. As a first-generation, non-traditional student those were intense semesters as I made the transition from a working professional to full-time undergrad.

By the end of my freshman year I was debating exactly what to declare as my major, when one of my marine science TA’s, Colleen, (who is now Dr. Bove!), advised that I “collect experiences, not degrees.” I wrote this advice down in my day planner and have never forgotten it. Of course, obtaining a degree is important, but it is the experiences you have that help lead you in the right direction.

That advice was one of the many reasons I decided to participate in the Morehead City Field Site program, where UNC undergraduates spend a semester at the coast, living on the Duke Marine Lab’s campus in Beaufort, NC. During that semester, students take classes to fulfill a marine science minor while participating in hands-on research, including an honors thesis project. The experience of designing, carrying out, and defending my own project affirmed that graduate school in the marine sciences was right for me. As I move into my first graduate TA position this fall, I hope to pay forward that encouragement to other undergraduates who are making decisions about their own future path.

Figure 2. Final slide from my honors thesis defense. UNC undergraduates, and now fellow alumni, who participated in the Morehead City Field Site program in Fall 2018.

Part 2: Taking a Breather

Like the GEMM Lab’s other new master’s student Miranda, my road trip covered approximately 2,900 miles. I was solo for much of the drive, which meant there was no one to argue when I decided to binge listen to podcasts. My new favorite is How To Save A Planet, hosted by marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg. At the end of each episode they provide a call to action & resources for listeners – I highly recommend this show to anyone interested in what you can do right now about climate change.

Along my trip I took a stop in Utah to visit my parents. I had never been to a desert basin before and engaged in many desert-related activities: visiting Zion National Park, hiking in 116-degree heat, and facing my fear of heights via cliff jumping.

Figure 3. Sandstone Rocks at Sand Hollow National Park, Hurricane, Utah. June 2021.

 My parents wanted to help me settle into my new home, as parents do, so we drove the rest of the way to Oregon together. As this would be their first visit to the state, we strategically planned a trip to Crater Lake as our final scenic stop before heading into Corvallis.

Figure 4. Wizard Island in Crater Lake National Park, Klamath County, OR. June 2021.

This time off was filled with adventure, yet was restorative, and reminded me the importance of taking a break. I feel ready and refreshed for an intense summer of field work.

Part 3: Rested and Ready

Despite accumulating skills to do research in the field over the years, I have yet to do marine mammal field work (or even see a whale in person for that matter.) My mammal research experience included analyzing drone imagery, behind a computer, that had already been captured. As you can imagine, I am extremely excited to join the Port Orford team as part of the TOPAZ/JASPER projects this summer, collecting ecological data on gray whales and their prey. I will be learning the ropes from Lisa Hildebrand and soaking up as much information as possible as I will be taking over as lead for this project next year.

It will take some time before my master’s thesis is fully developed, but it will likely focus on assessing the environmental factors that influence gray whale zooplankton prey availability, and the subsequent impacts on whale movements and health. For five years, the Port Orford project has conducted GoPro drops at 12 sampling stations to collect data on zooplankton relative abundance.

Figures 5 & 6. GEMM GoPro drop stick assembly and footage demonstrating mysid data collection. July 2021.

Paired with this GoPro is a Time-Depth Recorder (TDR) that provides temperature and depth data. The 2021 addition to this GoPro system is a new dissolved oxygen (DO) sensor the GEMM Lab has just acquired. This new piece of equipment will add to the set of parameters we can analyze to describe what and how oceanographic factors drive prey variability and gray whale presence in our study site.My first task as a GEMM Lab student is to get to know this DO sensor, figure out how it works, set it up, test it, attach it to the GoPro device, and prepare it for data collection during the upcoming Port Orford project starting in 1 week!

Figure 7. The GEMM lab’s new RBR solo3 getting ready for Port Orford. July 2021.

Dissolved oxygen plays a vital role in the ocean; however, climate change and increased nutrient loading has caused the ocean to undergo deoxygenation. According to the IUCN’s 2019 Issues Brief, these factors have resulted in an oxygen decline of 2% since the middle of the 20th century, with most of this loss occurring within the first 1000 meters of the ocean. Two percent may not seem like much, but many species have a narrow oxygen threshold and, like pH changes in coral reef systems, even slight changes in DO can have an impact. Additionally, the first 1000 meters of the ocean contains the greatest amount of species richness and biodiversity.

Previous research done in a variety of systems (i.e., estuarine, marine, and freshwater lakes) shows that dissolved oxygen concentrations can have an impact on predator-prey interactions, where low dissolved oxygen results in decreased predation (Abrahams et al., 2007; Breitburg et al., 1997; Domenici et al., 2007; Kramer et al., 1987); and changes in DO also change prey vertical distributions (Decker et al., 2004). In Port Orford, we are interested in understanding the interplay of factors driving zooplankton community distribution and abundance while investigating the trophic interaction between gray whales and their prey.

I have spent some time with our new DO sensor and am looking forward to its first deployments in Port Orford! Stay tuned for updates from the field!

References

Abrahams, M. V., Mangel, M., & Hedges, K. (2007). Predator–prey interactions and changing environments: who benefits?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1487), 2095-2104.

Breitburg, D. L., Loher, T., Pacey, C. A., & Gerstein, A. (1997). Varying effects of low dissolved oxygen on trophic interactions in an estuarine food web. Ecological Monographs, 67(4), 489-507.

​​Decker, M. B., Breitburg, D. L., & Purcell, J. E. (2004). Effects of low dissolved oxygen on zooplankton predation by the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 280, 163-172.

Domenici, P., Claireaux, G., & McKenzie, D. J. (2007). Environmental constraints upon locomotion and predator–prey interactions in aquatic organisms: an introduction.

Hazen, E. L., Friedlaender, A. S., & Goldbogen, J. A. (2015). Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) optimize foraging efficiency by balancing oxygen use and energy gain as a function of prey density. Science Advances, 1(9), e1500469.

Kramer, D. L. (1987). Dissolved oxygen and fish behavior. Environmental biology of fishes, 18(2), 81-92.

Roos, M. M., Wu, G. M., & Miller, P. J. (2016). The significance of respiration timing in the energetics estimates of free-ranging killer whales (Orcinus orca). Journal of Experimental Biology, 219(13), 2066-2077.

The learning curve never stops as the GRANITE project begins its seventh field season

Clara Bird, PhD Student, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

When I thought about what doing fieldwork would be like, before having done it myself, I imagined that it would be a challenging, but rewarding and fun experience (which it is). However, I underestimated both ends of the spectrum. I simultaneously did not expect just how hard it would be and could not imagine the thrill of working so close to whales in a beautiful place. One part that I really did not consider was the pre-season phase. Before we actually get out on the boats, we spend months preparing for the work. This prep work involves buying gear, revising and developing protocols, hiring new people, equipment maintenance and testing, and training new skills. Regardless of how many successful seasons came before a project, there are always new tasks and challenges in the preparation phase.

For example, as the GEMM Lab GRANITE project team geared up for its seventh field season, we had a few new components to prepare for. Just to remind you, the GRANITE (Gray whale Response to Ambient Noise Informed by Technology and Ecology) project’s field season typically takes place from June to mid-October of each year. Throughout this time period the field team goes out on a small RHIB (rigid hull inflatable boat), whenever the weather is good enough, to collect photo-ID data, fecal samples, and drone imagery of the Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) gray whales foraging near Newport, OR, USA. We use the data to assess the health, ecology and population dynamics of these whales, with our ultimate goal being to understand the effect of ambient noise on the population. As previous blogs have described, a typical field day involves long hours on the water looking for whales and collecting data. This year, one of our exciting new updates is that we are going out on two boats for the first part of the field season and starting our season 10 days early (our first day was May 20th). These updates are happening because a National Science Foundation funded seismic survey is being conducted within our study area starting in June. The aim of this survey is to assess geophysical structures but provides us with an opportunity to assess the effect of seismic noise on our study group by collecting data before, during, and after the survey. So, we started our season early in order to capture the “before seismic survey” data and we are using a two-boat approach to maximize our data collection ability.

While this is a cool opportunistic project, implementing the two-boat approach came with a new set of challenges. We had to find a second boat to use, buy a new set of gear for the second boat, figure out the best way to set up our gear on a boat we had not used before, and update our data processing protocols to include data collected from two boats on the same day. Using two boats also means that everyone on the core field team works every day. This core team includes Leigh (lab director/fearless leader), Todd (research assistant), Lisa (PhD student), Ale (new post-doc), and me (Clara, PhD student). Leigh and Todd are our experts in boat driving and working with whales, Todd is our experienced drone pilot, I am our newly certified drone pilot, and Lisa, Ale, and myself are boat drivers. Something I am particularly excited about this season is that Lisa, Ale, and I all have at least one field season under our belts, which means that we get to become more involved in the process. We are learning how to trailer and drive the boats, fly the drones, and handling more of the post-field work data processing. We are becoming more involved in every step of a field day from start to finish, and while it means taking on more responsibility, it feels really exciting. Throughout most of graduate school, we grow as researchers as we develop our analytical and writing skills. But it’s just as valuable to build our skillset for field work. The ocean conditions were not ideal on the first day of the field season, so we spent our first day practicing our field skills.

For our “dry run” of a field day, we went through the process of a typical day, which mostly involved a lot of learning from Leigh and Todd. Lisa practiced her trailering and launching of the boat (figure 1), Ale and Lisa practiced driving the boat, and I practiced flying the drone (figure 2). Even though we never left the bay or saw any whales, I thoroughly enjoyed our dry run. It was useful to run through our routine, without rushing, to get all the kinks out, and it also felt wonderful to be learning in a supportive environment. Practicing new skills is stressful to say the least, especially when there is expensive equipment involved, and no one wants to mess up when they’re being watched. But our group was full of support and appreciation for the challenges of learning. We cheered for successful boat launchings and dockings, and drone landings. I left that day feeling good about practicing and improving my drone piloting skills, full of gratitude for our team and excited for the season ahead.

Figure 1. Lisa (driving the truck) launching the boat.
Figure 2. Clara (seated, wearing a black jacket) landing the drone in Ale’s hands.

All the diligent prep work paid off on Saturday with a great first day (figure 3). We conducted five GoPro drops (figure 4), collected seven fecal samples from four different whales (figure 5), and flew four drone flights over three individuals including our star from last season, Sole. Combined, we collected two trifectas (photo-ID images, fecal samples, and drone footage)! Our goal is to get as many trifectas as possible because we use them to study the relationship between the drone data (body condition and behavior) and the fecal sample data (hormones). We were all exhausted after 10 hours on the water, but we were all very excited to kick-start our field season with a great day.

Figure 3. Lisa on the bow pulpit during our first sighting of the day.
Figure 4. Lisa doing a GoPro drop, she’s lowering the GoPro into the water using the line in her hands.
Figure 5. Clara and Ale collecting a fecal sample.

On Sunday, just one boat went out to collect more data from Sole after a rainy morning and I successfully flew over her from launching to landing! We have a long season ahead, but I am excited to learn and see what data we collect. Stay tuned for more updates from team GRANITE as our season progresses!

The Road to Oregon

By Imogen Lucciano, incoming graduate student, OSU Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

There are moments in our individual lifetimes that we can define as noteworthy and right now, as I prepare to start my graduate career within the Marine Mammal Institute (MMI) at OSU, I would say this is it for me. As I sit down to write this blog and document how surreal my future adventure is, I simultaneously feel this path is felicitous. After a year of being cooped up due to COVID, time presently seems to be going by at rocket speed. I am moving constantly in through my day to continue running my current life, while simultaneously arranging all that will encompass my new life. And while I answer questions to my 10-year-old daughter who is doing geometry homework in the living room, while hollering “That is not yours!” to the kitchen where the recently adopted feral dog is sticking his entire head under the trash can lid, while arranging our books in a cardboard box at the packing station I set up on the dining room table, I cannot deny a sense of serenity. This moment in my life, becoming a part of the GEMM Lab and MMI, and relocating to Corvallis is great.

This moment’s noteworthiness is emphasized by embarking on probably the most variable-heavy road trip I have planned to date. Since the age of 19, when I left my small mountain town on the Appalachian trail in Pennsylvania, I have transferred locations ~20 times. Due to extensive travel while serving in the Army (various Army trainings and overseas mission deployments), I have bounced around the US and to other countries often. Over time, one becomes acclimated to the hectic nature of this sort of lifestyle, and yet this new adventure holds significance. 

So here are the details of the adventure trip that lies ahead: I will drive my 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee across the country; from Charlottesville, Virginia to Corvallis, Oregon. My projected route will extend 2,822 miles and take ~43 driving hours total. The route will fall within the boundaries of 11 states (see Figure 1.)

 Figure 1. Blue Line indicates route from Charlottesville to Corvallis (Google Maps)

Attached to the hitch of the Jeep will be a 6×12 rented cargo trailer containing our treasured books, furniture and things. Inside the Jeep will be three living variables: Mia (the 10-year-old), Angus (hyperactive border collie/ pit bull mix) and Mr. Gibbs (feral pirate dog); all three will need to be closely monitored for potential hiccups in the plan.

If we are going to make it to our destination hotel/Airbnb each night of the trip, I must be organized and calculate road time each day while factoring in breaks to the loo and fueling up. These calculations need to be precise, with little margin for error. I cannot play it too safely either, or it will take us too long to get across the country (I must start my graduate work after all). On the other hand, I cannot realistically expect too many road hours in a day. I think at this point I have got it worked out (Table 1.)

Table 1. Driving Hours and Miles Per Day

When I look back on my career, I had no idea that my not-so-smooth road would lead me to my dream goal of studying marine mammals. I took the Army placement tests at the age of 19, which led me to the field of “information operations” where I earned a great knowledge base in data analysis and encountered fantastic leaders whom I might not have known otherwise. I learned immensely on this path and it set me up very well for moving forward into research and collaboration in the sciences. I am so grateful that my life took this journey because working in the military provided me with the utmost respect for my opportunities and greater empathy for others. This route had many extreme obstacles and was intensely intimidating at times, but I am all the better for it. And I was never able to shake the dream of where I wanted to be (see Figures 2 & 3.) Timing is everything.

Figure 2 & 3. Two of the images of the Pacific coast I have hung up in my house. Keeping my eye on the prize, so to speak. 

It will feel great to cross over the Oregon state line. I cannot wait to meet GEMM Lab in-person and all the other wonderful researchers and staff at MMI and Hatfield Marine Science Center. I am eager to step onto the RV Pacific Storm and begin my thesis research on the magnificent cetaceans off the Oregon coast, and hopefully do some good in the end. As I evaluate the logistics of my trip from Charlottesville to Corvallis, I feel relieved rather than overwhelmed. We could attribute this relief to my not-so-smooth road to get to where I am. Looking ahead, of course, I see a road that will require focus, attention, passion, care, and lots of fuel. Even if this road is not completely smooth, I will have my hands on 10 and 2, and feel so grateful and ready to be on it.

Boundaries in the dynamic ocean

By Dawn Barlow, PhD student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

The ocean is vast, ever-changing, and at first glance, seemingly featureless. Yet, we know that the warm, blue tropics differ from icy polar waters, and that temperate kelp forests are different from coral reefs. In the connected fluid environment of the global oceans, how do such different habitats exist, and what separates them? On a smaller scale, you may observe a current mixing line at the ocean surface, or dive down from the surface and feel the temperature drop sharply. In a featureless ocean, what boundaries exist, and how can we delineate between different environments?

These questions have been on my mind recently as I study for my PhD Qualifying Exams, an academic milestone that involves written and oral exams prepared by each committee member for the student. The subject matter spans many different areas, including ecological theory, underwater acoustics, oceanography, zooplankton dynamics, climate change and marine heatwaves, and protected area design. Yet, in my recent studying, I was struck by a realization: since when did my PhD involve so much physics? Atmospheric pressure differences generate wind, which drive global ocean circulation patterns. Density properties of seawater create structure in the ocean, and these physical features influence productivity and aggregate prey for predators such as whales. Sound propagates through the fluid ocean as a pressure wave, and its transmission is influenced by physical characteristics of the sound and the medium it moves through. Many of these examples can be distilled and described with equations rooted in physics. Physics doesn’t behave, it simply… is. In considering the vast and dynamic ocean, there is something quite satisfying in that simple notion. 

Circling back to boundaries in the ocean, there are changes in physical properties of the oceans that create boundaries, some stark and some nuanced. These physical features structure and partition the marine environment through differences in properties such as temperature, salinity, density, and pressure. Geographic partitions can occur in both horizontal and vertical dimensions of the water column, and on scales ranging from less than a kilometer to thousands of kilometers [1,2].

In the horizontal dimension, currents, fronts, and eddies mark transition zones between environments. In the time of industrial whaling, observations of temperature and salinity were made at the surface from factory whaling ships and examined to understand where the most whales were available for hunting. These early measurements identified temperature contour lines, or isotherms, and led to observations that whales were found in areas of stark temperature change and places where isotherms bent into “tongues” of interacting water masses [3,4] (Fig. 1). These areas where water masses of different properties meet are often areas of high productivity. Today, we understand that shelf break fronts, river plumes, tidal fronts, and eddies are important horizontal structures that drive elevated nutrient availability, phytoplankton production, and prey availability for mobile marine predators, including whales.

Figure 1. Surface temperature and salinity contour lines from measurements taken aboard a factory whaling ship in the Antarctic, reproduced from Nasu (1959).

In the vertical dimension, the water column is also structured into distinct layers. Surface waters are warmed by the sunlight and are often lower in salinity due to freshwater input from rain and runoff. Below this distinct surface portion of the water column, the temperature drops sharply in a layer known as the thermocline, and below which pressure and density increase with depth. The surface layer is subject to mixing from wind input, which can draw nutrients from below up into the photic zone and spur productivity. The alternation between stratification—a water column with distinctive layers—and mixing drives optimal conditions for entire food webs to thrive [1,2].

While I began this blog post by writing about boundaries that partition different ocean environments, I have continued to learn that those boundary zones are often critically important in their own right. I started by thinking about boundaries in terms of their importance for separation, but now understand that the leaky points between them actually spur ocean productivity. Features such as fronts, currents, mixed layers, and eddies separate water masses of different properties. However, they are not truly complete and rigid boundaries, and precisely for that reason they are uniquely important in promoting productive marine ecosystems.

Figure 2. Left: Some of the materials I am studying for my qualifying exams. Right: A blue whale surfaces in New Zealand’s South Taranaki Bight, the subject of my PhD and the lens through which I consider the concepts I am reading about (photo by L. Torres).

Many thanks to my PhD Committee members who continue to guide me through this degree and who I am lucky to learn from. In particular, the contents of this blog post were inspired by materials recommended by, and discussions with, Dr. Daniel Palacios.

References:

1.          Mann, K.H., and Lazier, J.R.N. (2006). Dynamics of Marine Ecosystems 3rd ed. (Blackwell Publishing).

2.          Longhurst, A.R. (2007). Ecological Geography of the Sea 2nd ed. (Academic Press).

3.          Nasu, K. (1959). Surface water conditions in the Antarctic whaling pacific area in 1956-57.

4.          Machida, S. (1974). Surface temperature fields in the Crozet and Kerguelen whaling grounds. Sci. Reports Whales Res. Inst. 26, 271–287.

Milling around in definitions

Clara Bird, Masters Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

A big part of graduate school involves extensive reading to learn about the previous research conducted in the field you are joining and the embedded foundational theories. A firm understanding of this background literature is needed in order to establish where your research fits. Science is a constructive process; to advance our disciplines we must recognize and build upon previous work. Hence, I’ve been reading up on the central topic of my thesis: behavioral ecology. It is equally important to study the methods used in these studies as to understand the findings. As discussed in a previous blog, ethograms are a central component of the methodology for studying behavior. Ethograms are lists of defined behaviors that help us properly and consistently collect data in a standardized approach. It is especially important in a project that spans years to know that the data collected at the beginning was collected in the same way as the data collected at the end of the project.

While ethograms and standardized methods are commonly used within a study, I’ve noticed from reading through studies on cetaceans, a lack of standardization across studies. Not all behaviors that are named the same way have matching definitions, and not all behaviors with similar definitions have matching names. Of all the behaviors, “milling” may be the least standardized.

While milling is not in our ethogram (Leigh believes this term is a “cheat” for when behavior is actually “unknown”), we occasionally use “milling” in the field to describe when the gray whales are swimming around in an area, not foraging, but not in any other primary behavior state (travel, social, or rest). Sometimes we use when we think the whale may be searching, but we aren’t 100% sure yet. A recent conversation during a lab meeting on the confusing nature of the term “milling” inspired me to dig into the literature for this blog. I searched through the papers I’ve saved for my literature review and found 18 papers that used the term milling. It was fascinating to read how variably the term has been defined and used.

When milling was defined in these papers, it was most commonly described as numerous directional changes in movement within a restricted area 1–8. Milling often co-occurred with other behavior states. Five of these eight studies described milling as co-occurring with foraging behavior 3–6,8. In one case, milling was associated with foraging and slow movement 8. While another study described milling as passive, slow, nondirectional movement 9.

Eight studies used the term milling without defining the behavior 10–17. Of these, five described milling as being associated with other behavior states. Three studies described milling as co-occurring with foraging 10,14,16, one said that it co-occurred with social behavior 13, and another described milling as being associated with resting/slow movement 12.

In addition to this variety of definitions and behavior associations, there were also inconsistencies with the placement of “milling” within ethograms. In nine studies, milling was listed as a primary state 1,2,4,7–9,15,17,18. But, in two studies that mentioned milling and used an ethogram, milling was not included in the ethogram 6,14.

Diving into the associations between milling and foraging reveal how varied the use of milling has been within the cetacean literature. For example, two studies simply described milling as occurring near foraging in time 10,16. While another two studies explained that milling was applied in situations where there was evidence of feeding without feeding being directly observed 8,14. Bobkov et al. (2019) described milling as occurring between feeding cycles along with breathing. Lastly, two studies describe milling as a behavior within the foraging primary state 3,5, while another study described feeding as a behavior within milling 4.

It’s all rather confusing, huh? Across these studies, milling has been defined, mentioned without being defined, included in ethograms as a primary state, included in ethograms as a sub-behavior, and excluded from ethograms. Milling has also been associated with multiple primary behavior states (foraging, resting, and socializing). It has been described as both passive 9 and slow 12, and strong 16 and active 5.

It appears that milling is often used to describe behaviors that the observer cannot distinctly classify or describe its function. I have also struggled to define these times when a whale is in between behavior states; I often end up calling it “just being a whale”, which includes time spent breathing at the surface, or just swimming around.

As I’ve said above, Leigh thinks that this term is a “cheat” for when a behavior is actually “unknown”. I think we have trouble equating “milling” with “unknown” because it seems like “unknown” should refer to a behavior where we can’t quite tell what the whale is doing. However, during milling, we can see that the whale is swimming at the surface. But here’s the thing, while we can see what the whale is doing, the function of the behavior is still unknown. Instead of using an indistinct term, we should use a term that better describes the behavior.  If it’s swimming at the surface, name the behavior “swimming at the surface”. If we can’t tell what the whale is doing because we can’t quite see what it’s doing, then name the behavior “unknown-partially visible”. Instead of using vague terminology, we should use clear names for behaviors and embrace using the term “unknown”.

I am most certainly not criticizing these studies as they all provided valuable contributions and interesting results. The studies that asked questions about behavioral ecology defined milling. The term was mentioned without being defined in studies focused on other topics. So, defining behaviors mentioned was less important.

With this exploration into the use of “milling” in studies, I am not implying that all behavioral ecologists need to agree on the use of the same behavior terms. However, I have learned clear definitions are critical. This lesson is also important outside of behavioral ecology. Different labs, and different people, use different terms for the same things. As I dig into my thesis, I am keeping a list of terminology I use and how I define those terms, because as I learn more, my terminology evolves and changes. For example, at the beginning of my thesis I used “sub-behavior” to refer to behaviors within the primary state categories. But, now after chatting with Leigh and learning more, I’ve decided to use the term “tactic” instead as these are often processes or events that contribute to the broader behavior state. My running list of terminology helps me remember what I meant when I used a certain word, so that when I read my notes from three months ago, I can know what I meant.  Digging into the literature for this blog reminded me of the importance of clearly defining all terminology and never assuming that everyone uses the same term in the same way.

Check out these videos to see some of the behaviors we observe:

References

1.        Mallonee, J. S. Behaviour of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) summering off the northern California coast, from Patrick’s Point to Crescent City. Can. J. Zool. 69, 681–690 (1991).

2.        Clarke, J. T., Moore, S. E. & Ljungblad, D. K. Observations on gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) utilization patterns in the northeastern Chukchi Sea. Can. J. Zool 67, (1988).

3.        Ingram, S. N., Walshe, L., Johnston, D. & Rogan, E. Habitat partitioning and the influence of benthic topography and oceanography on the distribution of fin and minke whales in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc. United Kingdom 87, 149–156 (2007).

4.        Lomac-MacNair, K. & Smultea, M. A. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus) Behavior and Group Dynamics as Observed from an Aircraft off Southern California. Anim. Behav. Cogn. 3, 1–21 (2016).

5.        Lusseau, D., Bain, D. E., Williams, R. & Smith, J. C. Vessel traffic disrupts the foraging behavior of southern resident killer whales Orcinus orca. Endanger. Species Res. 6, 211–221 (2009).

6.        Bobkov, A. V., Vladimirov, V. A. & Vertyankin, V. V. Some features of the bottom activity of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) off the northeastern coast of Sakhalin Island. 1, 46–58 (2019).

7.        Howe, M. et al. Beluga, Delphinapterus leucas, ethogram: A tool for cook inlet beluga conservation? Mar. Fish. Rev. 77, 32–40 (2015).

8.        Clarke, J. T., Christman, C. L., Brower, A. A. & Ferguson, M. C. Distribution and Relative Abundance of Marine Mammals in the northeastern Chukchi and western Beaufort Seas, 2012. Annu. Report, OCS Study BOEM 117, 96349–98115 (2013).

9.        Barendse, J. & Best, P. B. Shore-based observations of seasonality, movements, and group behavior of southern right whales in a nonnursery area on the South African west coast. Mar. Mammal Sci. 30, 1358–1382 (2014).

10.      Le Boeuf, B. J., M., H. P.-C., R., J. U. & U., B. R. M. and F. O. High gray whale mortality and low recruitment in 1999: Potential causes and implications. (Eschrichtius robustus). J. Cetacean Res. Manag. 2, 85–99 (2000).

11.      Calambokidis, J. et al. Abundance, range and movements of a feeding aggregation of gray whales (Eschrictius robustus) from California to southeastern Alaska in 1998. J. Cetacean Res. Manag. 4, 267–276 (2002).

12.      Harvey, J. T. & Mate, B. R. Dive Characteristics and Movements of Radio-Tagged Gray Whales in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja California Sur, Mexico. in The Gray Whale: Eschrichtius Robustus (eds. Jones, M. Lou, Folkens, P. A., Leatherwood, S. & Swartz, S. L.) 561–575 (Academic Press, 1984).

13.      Lagerquist, B. A. et al. Feeding home ranges of pacific coast feeding group gray whales. J. Wildl. Manage. 83, 925–937 (2019).

14.      Barrett-Lennard, L. G., Matkin, C. O., Durban, J. W., Saulitis, E. L. & Ellifrit, D. Predation on gray whales and prolonged feeding on submerged carcasses by transient killer whales at Unimak Island, Alaska. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 421, 229–241 (2011).

15.      Luksenburg, J. A. Prevalence of External Injuries in Small Cetaceans in Aruban Waters, Southern Caribbean. PLoS One 9, e88988 (2014).

16.      Findlay, K. P. et al. Humpback whale “super-groups” – A novel low-latitude feeding behaviour of Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Benguela Upwelling System. PLoS One 12, e0172002 (2017).

17.      Villegas-Amtmann, S., Schwarz, L. K., Gailey, G., Sychenko, O. & Costa, D. P. East or west: The energetic cost of being a gray whale and the consequence of losing energy to disturbance. Endanger. Species Res. 34, 167–183 (2017).

18.      Brower, A. A., Ferguson, M. C., Schonberg, S. V., Jewett, S. C. & Clarke, J. T. Gray whale distribution relative to benthic invertebrate biomass and abundance: Northeastern Chukchi Sea 2009–2012. Deep. Res. Part II Top. Stud. Oceanogr. 144, 156–174 (2017).

Is there life after graduate school?

By Amanda Holdman, MS, GEMM Lab Alumni 2016

I graduated in March 2017 from the GEMM lab at Oregon State, with a Master’s of Science in Wildlife Management. Graduate school was finally over! No more constant coffee refills, popcorn dinners and overnight library stays; I had submitted my final thesis and I was done! Graduate school was no walk in the park for me, and finishing a master’s or a doctorate degree for anyone is no easy feat! It takes years of hard work, commitment, long hours, and a dedication to learning. I remember feeling both excited and a bit disoriented to be done with this phase of much stress and growth. After submitting my thesis, I took a much-needed month off to unknot the muscles in my back and get myself reacquainted with sunlight. The breath of fresh air was exactly what I needed to recover, but it took no time at all for a new type of challenge to emerge: the arduous task of finding a job.

I did what most job seekers do, I sat behind my computer applying for opportunities, hit as many roles as I could, and hoped for the best. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. I was getting desperate, I resorted to applying for a whole spectrum of roles – consulting, project management, administration, youth team leader – hoping that something would land. Soon enough, almost 3 months had passed and I was still in the same spot as before. I was ready to throw in the towel.

In theory, landing a job after graduation sounds like it should be technically easy because more education should mean you are more qualified for the job, but anyone who has been out of grad school for more than an hour can tell you that landing a job after graduate school can be a long and frustrating process. I did not enter this field and its job prospects blindly – that is, I had a working idea of what type of research career I wanted when I completed my education and how much education I would need to get there. I was aware that navigating the job market in a competitive field could be tricky and time-consuming, especially as a green-job seeker. I knew it would be an added difficulty to land a position near the ocean but also close enough to family (I’m from the Midwest). Or at least, I thought I knew how hard it would be to secure a job. The process turned out to be much harder. Mental preparation alone was not enough and months and months of rejection and feeling stuck within the hamster wheel of the job search cycle was becoming my normal.

So, when I was stuck in the depths of a seemingly fruitless job search, and trying as hard as I possibly could, it was hard for me to do anything but roll my eyes, sigh, and give up. But I had to find a way to work through an apparently endless string of rejection by figuring out some way to accept, address and navigate my emotions. I needed to take charge of my own personal development. I started reflecting on what areas of my work on my master’s thesis that I found most difficult and wanted to improve, and would be  an important component of the job I wanted. Identifying my own “knowledge gaps” led me to seek out courses, workshops, job-shadowing and online courses that could fill those holes.

The first thing at the top of my list was to be more efficient at coding. Every job description that made me excited to apply had some description of a coding program: R, Python, MATLAB.  I was lucky enough to attend courses and workshops during my time at the GEMM lab that provided me much of the code I would need to create my habitat models with minimal tweaking. On top of that I was surrounded by supervisors and a lab full of coding geniuses that had an almost, if not completely, open door policy. When I was stuck and a deadline was quickly approaching, it was great to have an army of people to help me get through my obstacles. However, I knew if I wanted to be successful, I needed to become like them: experts and not a beginner. I purchased a subscription to DataCamp, and started searching out courses that could help keep my skills fresh and learn new things. I was over the moon to discover the course “Where are the Fishes?”. It checked all my boxes: geospatial analysis, R, marine related, acoustics…. perfect. Within this course, there were plenty of DataCamp prerequisites, like working with data in the tidyverse and working with dates and times in R, so I had plenty to keep me busy.

I also started looking for in-person, hands-on courses I could enroll in. Since the majority of my marine experience took place on the west coast but I was searching for jobs on the east coast, I enrolled in the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Observer Certification Course for the US Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Oceans in order to learn a little more about identifying species I did not commonly see in nearshore, northern Pacific waters. In this course, I learned about regulations surrounding protected species monitoring, proper camera settings for photographing marine life, and gained the certification needed to work as an observer during seismic surveys for Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in coordination with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Most of these topics were familiar to me, other than identifying new species, but it was nice to have the refresher and the renewed certification. Heads up this course is coming to Newport in October and I highly recommend it! During this observer course in Charleston, I was able to network with others in the field taking the course, the Charleston aquarium, and the South Carolina DNR. By introducing myself and providing a little bit of my background, I was invited by the South Carolina DNR to watch a satellite tag and release of a sea turtle that the aquarium had been rehabilitating. From the sea turtle release I learned of the International Sea Turtle Symposium that would take place in February in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina and was invited to attend and network by one of the conference chairs, which lead me to my current position. See below…

I tried everything I could to keep myself attached to the field. I attended the Biannual Marine Mammal Conference, enrolled in a bioacoustics short course, watched webinars every Friday, read recent journal articles, looked for voluntary work. I even dropped in on offices like NOAA or Universities of towns I was driving through or visiting to see what they were researching, and if they were looking for researchers. Continuous learning and developing took a lot of time, money, and energy but being conscientious about my personal development kept me motivated and engaged. Graduate school prepared me for all of this. My GEMM lab experience taught me to be open to learning, to be flexible and adaptable, to accept, overcome and learn from failures and find solutions. In fact, graduate school provided me a variety of skills that have been transferable to almost everything I have done since graduation.

In December of 2017, I began volunteering at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, under the supervision of Dr. Thane Wibbels, and I began to use those skills I learned from graduate school more than ever. Flash forward and I am now part of a team, called the Kemp’s Ridley Working Group, which is made up of researchers from state, federal and international agencies working together on conservation strategies and programs for Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles. Specifically, we are hoping to identify the cues Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are using to control arribadas (synchronized, large-scale nesting behaviors) in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. We have a long-term dataset on the number of nests and weather conditions during arribadas from 2007 to 2019 collected using a variety of methods that we are trying to standardize and analyze. Historically, the number of nests has been counted by hand, but over the last few years Dr. Wibbels and his lab have worked to create a protocol for using drones to track the number of sea turtle nests, which has been highly successful. In 2018, the drone recorded the largest sea turtle arribada in 30 years, which consisted of about 4,000 Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle nests within 900 meters of beach.

June 2018 Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle Arribada, Rancho Nuevo, Mexico

It’s ironic how incredibly similar my current project is to my master’s thesis I am gathering environmental data from weather stations and remote sensing to analyze tides, currents, wind speed, wind direction, water temperature, air temperature, salinity, etc. in relation to these large arribadas. I am arguably much faster at this process than I was before due to my GEMM lab experience.  I am quickly able to recognize when something isn’t right, and am able to debug where I went wrong. I feel comfortable contributing new ideas and approaches of how to standardize data from old and new technology, how close to fly drones to the animals to capture the data we need without animal disturbance, and at what scales to look for temporal and spatial patterns within our data. The GEMM lab allowed me to gain knowledge through my own work and by association of my lab mates projects, trials and tribulations that have directly transferred into what I am doing now. I am still grant-writing, presenting, collaborating, managing time, and mentoring – all of which I learned in graduate school. I am also still coding, and I have joined a local coding group in Birmingham, Bham Quants, and have been asked to give a series of lectures called “Introduction to R”. The GEMM lab and my own drawn-out job-hunting process allowed me to end up in the position that I am in today, and the struggles and cycle of no’s I heard along the way led me to these opportunities that I am so grateful that I took.

Building on the foundation of my GEMM lab experience, adding my personal development and a couple of years of post-graduate work experience, I no longer feel disoriented. I feel like I have an identity and I know how I want to market myself in the future. I have always considered myself a spatial ecologist, as this is the GEMM labs specializes in, but now I know I’m more of a generalist in terms of species, methods, models and analysis and I want to continue learning and growing in this field to become a jack-of-all-trades. I’ve always had a love for the marine environment, but I also know I have the skills and confidence to transition into terrestrial if I need to. I have fallen in love with geospatial ecology and it isn’t a field that would have even been on my radar, if I had not met Leigh almost 5 years ago *gasp*. Working and studying in the GEMM lab opened up doors for me that I will appreciate for the rest of my life. My advice for anyone studying and working in this field is to stay alert with your eye always on the next step, poised for the next opportunity, whatever it is: to present a paper, attend a conference, meet a scholar in your field, forge a connection, gain a professional skill. There are tons of opportunities (and jobs) that are never posted online, which you will only find out about if you talk to people in your personal network or start knocking on doors. You never know where these doors might lead.

A Weekend of Inspiration in Marine Science: NWSSMM and Dr. Sylvia Earle!

By Karen Lohman, Masters Student in Wildlife Science, Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Lab, Oregon State University

My name is Karen Lohman, and I’m a first-year student in Dr. Scott Baker’s Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Lab at OSU. Dr. Leigh Torres is serving on my committee and has asked me to contribute to the GEMM lab blog from time to time. For my master’s project, I’ll be applying population genetics and genomics techniques to better understand the degree of population mixing and breeding ground assignment of feeding humpback whales in the eastern North Pacific. In other words, I’ll be trying to determine where the humpback whales off the U.S. West Coast are migrating from, and at what frequency.

Earlier this month I joined the GEMM lab members in attending the Northwest Student Society of Marine Mammalogy Conference in Seattle. The GEMM lab members and I made the trip up to the University of Washington to present our work to our peers from across the Pacific Northwest. All five GEMM lab graduate students, plus GEMM lab intern Acacia Pepper, and myself gave talks presenting our research to our peers. I was able to present preliminary results on the population structure of feeding humpback whales across shared feeding habitat by multiple breeding groups in the eastern North Pacific using mitochondria DNA haplotype frequencies. In the end GEMM lab’s Dawn Barlow took home the “Best Oral Presentation” prize. Way to go Dawn!

A few of the GEMM lab members and me presenting our research at the NWSSMM conference in May 2019 at the University of Washington.

While conferences have a strong networking component, this one feels unique.  It is a chance to network with our peers, who are working through the same challenges in graduate school and will hopefully be our future research collaborators in marine mammal research when we finish our degrees. It’s also one of the few groups of people that understand the challenges of studying marine mammals. Not every day is full of dolphins and rainbows; for me, it’s mostly labwork or writing code to overcome small and/or patchy sample size problems.

All of the CCGL and GEMM Lab members excited to hear Dr. Sylvia Earle’s presentation at Portland State University in May 2019 (from L to R: Karen L., Lisa H., Alexa K., Leila L., Dawn B., and Dom K.) . Photo Source: Alexa Kownacki

On the way back from Seattle we stopped to hear the one and only Dr. Sylvia Earle, talk in Portland. With 27 honorary doctorates and over 200 publications, Dr. Sylvia Earle is a legend in marine science. Hearing a distinguished marine researcher talk about her journey in research and to present such an inspiring message of ocean advocacy was a great way to end our weekend away from normal grad school responsibilities. While the entirety of her talk was moving, one of her final comments really stood out. Near the end of her talk she called the audience to action by saying “Look at your abilities and have confidence that you can and must make a difference. Do whatever you’ve got.” As a first-year graduate student trying to figure out my path forward in research and conservation, I couldn’t think of better advice to end the weekend on.

 

Why Feeling Stupid is Great: How stupidity fuels scientific progress and discovery

By Alexa Kownacki, Ph.D. Student, OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab

It all started with a paper. On Halloween, I sat at my desk, searching for papers that could answer my questions about bottlenose dolphin metabolism and realized I had forgotten to check my email earlier. In my inbox, there was a new message with an attachment from Dr. Leigh Torres to the GEMM Lab members, saying this was a “must-read” article. The suggested paper was Martin A. Schwartz’s 2008 essay, “The importance of stupidity in scientific research”, published in the Journal of Cell Science, highlighted universal themes across science. In a single, powerful page, Schwartz captured my feelings—and those of many scientists: the feeling of being stupid.

For the next few minutes, I stood at the printer and absorbed the article, while commenting out loud, “YES!”, “So true!”, and “This person can see into my soul”. Meanwhile, colleagues entered my office to see me, dressed in my Halloween costume—as “Amazon’s Alexa”, talking aloud to myself. Coincidently, I was feeling pretty stupid at that moment after just returning from a weekly meeting, where everyone asked me questions that I clearly did not have the answers to (all because of my costume). This paper seemed too relevant; the timing was uncanny. In the past few weeks, I have been writing my PhD research proposal —a requirement for our department— and my goodness, have I felt stupid. The proposal outlines my dissertation objectives, puts my work into context, and provides background research on common bottlenose dolphin health. There is so much to know that I don’t know!

Alexa dressed as “Amazon Alexa” on Halloween at her office in San Diego, CA.

When I read Schwartz’s 2008 paper, there were a few takeaway messages that stood out:

  1. People take different paths. One path is not necessarily right nor wrong. Simply, different. I compared that to how I split my time between OSU and San Diego, CA. Spending half of the year away from my lab and my department is incredibly challenging; I constantly feel behind and I miss the support that physically being with other students provides. However, I recognize the opportunities I have in San Diego where I work directly with collaborators who teach and challenge me in new ways that bring new skills and perspective.

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    (Image source: St. Albert’s Place)
  2. Feeling stupid is not bad. It can be a good feeling—or at least we should treat it as being a positive thing. It shows we have more to learn. It means that we have not reached our maximum potential for learning (who ever does?). While writing my proposal I realized just how little I know about ecotoxicology, chemistry, and statistics. I re-read papers that are critical to understanding my own research, like “Nontargeted biomonitoring of halogenated organic compounds in two ecotypes of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from the Southern California bight” (2014) by Shaul et al. and “Bottlenose dolphins as indicators of persistent organic pollutants in the western north Atlantic ocean and northern gulf of Mexico” (2011) by Kucklick et al. These articles took me down what I thought were wormholes that ended up being important rivers of information. Because I recognized my knowledge gap, I can now articulate the purpose and methods of analysis for specific compounds that I will conduct using blubber samples of common bottlenose dolphins

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    Image source: memegenerator.net
  3. Drawing upon experts—albeit intimidating—is beneficial for scientific consulting as well as for our mental health; no one person knows everything. That statement can bring us together because when people work together, everyone benefits. I am also reminded that we are our own harshest critics; sometimes our colleagues are the best champions of our own successes. It is also why historical articles are foundational. In the hunt for the newest technology and the latest and greatest in research, it is important to acknowledge the basis for discoveries. My data begins in 1981, when the first of many researchers began surveying the California coastline for common bottlenose dolphins. Geographic information systems (GIS) were different back then. The data requires conversions and investigative work. I had to learn how the data were collected and how to interpret that information. Therefore, it should be no surprise that I cite literature from the 1970s, such as “Results of attempts to tag Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins, (Tursiops truncatus)” by Irvine and Wells. Although published in 1972, the questions the authors tried to answer are very similar to what I am looking at now: how are site fidelity and home ranges impacted by natural and anthropogenic processes. While Irvine and Wells used large bolt tags to identify individuals, my project utilizes much less invasive techniques (photo-identification and blubber biopsies) to track animals, their health, and their exposures to contaminants.

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    (Image source: imgflip.com)
  4. Struggling is part of the solution. Science is about discovery and without the feeling of stupidity, discovery would not be possible. Feeling stupid is the first step in the discovery process: the spark that fuels wanting to explore the unknown. Feeling stupid can lead to the feeling of accomplishment when we find answers to those very questions that made us feel stupid. Part of being a student and a scientist is identifying those weaknesses and not letting them stop me. Pausing, reflecting, course correcting, and researching are all productive in the end, but stopping is not. Coursework is the easy part of a PhD. The hard part is constantly diving deeper into the great unknown that is research. The great unknown is simultaneously alluring and frightening. Still, it must be faced head on. Schwartz describes “productive stupidity [as] being ignorant by choice.” I picture this as essentially blindly walking into the future with confidence. Although a bit of an oxymoron, it resonates the importance of perseverance and conviction in the midst of uncertainty.

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    (Image source: Redbubble)

Now I think back to my childhood when stupid was one of the forbidden “s-words” and I question whether society had it all wrong. Maybe we should teach children to acknowledge ignorance and pursue the unknown. Stupid is a feeling, not a character flaw. Stupidity is important in science and in life. Fascination and emotional desires to discover new things are healthy. Next time you feel stupid, try running with it, because more often than not, you will learn something.

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Alexa teaching about marine mammals to students ages 2-6 and learning from educators about new ways to engage young students. San Diego, CA in 2016. (Photo source: Lori Lowder)

Collaboration – it’s where it’s at.

By Dominique Kone, Masters Student in Marine Resource Management

As I finish my first year of graduate school, I’ve been reflecting on what has helped me develop as a young scientist over the past year. Some of these lessons are somewhat expected: making time for myself outside of academia, reading the literature, and effectively managing my time. Yet, I’ve also learned that working with my peers, other scientists, and experts outside my scientific field can be extremely rewarding.

For my thesis, I will be looking at the potential to reintroduce sea otters to the Oregon coast by identifying suitable habitat and investigating their potential ecological impacts. During this first year, I’ve spent much time getting to know various stakeholder groups, their experiences with this issue, and any advice they may have to inform my work. Through these interactions, I’ve benefitted in ways that would not have been possible if I tried tackling this project on my own.

Source: Seapoint Center for Collaborative Leadership.

When I first started my graduate studies, I was eager to jump head first into my research. However, as someone who had never lived in Oregon before, I didn’t yet have a full grasp of the complexities and context behind my project and was completely unfamiliar with the history of sea otters in Oregon. By engaging with managers, scientists, and advocates, I quickly realized that there was a wealth of knowledge that wasn’t covered in the literature. Information from people who were involved in the initial reintroduction; theories behind the cause of the first failed reintroduction; and most importantly, the various political, social, and culture implications of a potential reintroduction. This information was crucial in developing and honing my research questions, which I would have missed if I had solely relied on the literature.

As my first year in graduate school progressed, I also quickly realized that most people familiar with this issue also had strong opinions and views about how I should conduct my study, whether and how managers should bring sea otters back, and if such an effort will succeed. This input was incredibly helpful in getting to know the issue, and also fostered my development as a scientist as I had to quickly improve my listening and critically-thinking skills to consider my research from different perspectives. One of the benefits of collaboration – particularly with experts outside the marine ecology or sea otter community – is that everyone looks at an issue in a different way. Through my graduate program, I’ve worked with students and faculty in the earth, oceanic, and atmospheric sciences, whom have challenged me to consider other sources of data, other analyses, or different ways of placing my research within various contexts.

Most graduate students when they first start graduate school. Source: Know Your Meme.

One of the major advantages of being a graduate student is that most researchers – including professors, faculty, managers, and fellow graduate students – are more than happy to analyze and discuss my research approach. I’ve obtained advice on statistical analyses, availability and access to data, as well as contacts to other experts. As a graduate student, it’s important for me to consult with more-experienced researchers who can not only explain complex theories or concepts, but who can also validate the appropriateness of my research design and methods. Collaborating with senior researchers is a great way to become established and recognized within the scientific community. Because of this project, I’ve started to become adopted into the marine mammal and sea otter research communities, which is obviously beneficial for my thesis work, but also allows me to start building strong relationships for a career in marine conservation.

Source: Oregon State University.

Looking ahead to my second year of graduate school, I’m eager to make a big push toward completing my thesis, writing manuscripts for journal submission, and communicating my research to various audiences. Throughout this process, it’s still important for me to continue to reach out and collaborate with others within and outside my field as they may help me reach my personal goals. In my opinion, this is exactly what graduate students should be doing. While graduate students may have the ability and some experience to work independently, we are still students, and we are here to learn from and make lasting connections with other researchers and fellow graduate students through these collaborations.

If there’s any advice I would give to an incoming graduate student, it’s this: Collaborate, and collaborate often. Don’t be afraid to work with others because you never know whether you’ll come away with a new perspective, learn something new, come across new research or professional opportunities, or even help others with their research.