When your body tells you: you should perhaps slow down a little

This past week has been relatively hectic - spring is a funny time. The weather is seemingly all over the place: last Friday it snowed, yesterday it was balmy, only to be overcast and quite cool today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. For some reason my body is quite sensitive to those changes and not only does my skin feel particularly dry and my hair all static-ey, but all I feel like doing is sleeping!!! This is accompanied by series of weird dreams - my subconscious quite seriously puzzles me sometimes!
I think part of why I feel quite exhausted is not only the amount of work I am coping with at the moment, but also the fact that I sprained both my ankle and my wrist - after 2 weeks of pretending it was no big deal, I finally gave in to the fact that ok! ok! I am no youngster anymore, I take a little longer to heal, and in this particular instance perhaps I should go see a professional ‘healer’! I am glad I did - I was advised to rest ;o) It's OK to do so when the doctor says so right?
Joke aside - I've postponed climbing and am taking it easy --- my body, I think, is thanking me for it, yet my mind feels restless.

I am tackling chapter 4 still these days - have derived most of my basic estimates. Am thus now working on developing a diet matrix. A tricky component of the modelling process. It takes time to compile, and I feel like I need to devote quite a bit of attention to it. Yet it also is the first place you go to when attempting to balance the model. Hence difficult to determine ahead of time just how many hours you should spend on figuring out the intricacies of diets in the first place! It makes sense though that it would be one of the most flexible pieces of the puzzle as it were - what a bird eats in the winter versus the summer for example varies, so the average throughout the year for a group of them may be hard to determine as it will be based on the (temporal) nature of the sampling regimes and how thorough those were. Not only that, but for some of the species I am looking at, I have no data for Hawaii proper so I am importing data from Malaysia, Japan, yet in all likelihood my beasties in my park don't eat those same things in the same proportions, if at all. Ahhh the joys of modelling - it feels at times like it is such an inexact science. Yet I guess part of the trick (and learning experience) is to gain sufficient confidence in it all to be able to determine just what parameters can easily be tweaked without compromising the "real-ness" of the model. Ultimately, it also helps to pinpoint gaps in current understanding, help refine existing datasets so as to get a more focused, integrated view of the whole ecosystem.
I like it - it just takes time and the learning curve is steep!
I just need to keep at it, attempt to keep the weather anomalies in the background, and ride the waves peacefully :o)

I was just reading through the BBC websites - one article that caught my eye was the following: Species loss 'bad for our health'. I believe this is an important headline - it is only when people truly feel that their personal dimension is at risk that they spring to action. I venture to say that people are more likely to reduce their consumption of tuna because eating too much tuna leads to potentially unsafe mercury levels in our bodies - than because stocks are crashing, dolphins are potentially killed or any other suite of 'natural' disasters caused by overfishing.

Talking of selfishness of characters – go see the movie “There will be blood” if you haven’t yet. The character development in that movie is remarkable; Daniel Day Lewis’ performance extraordinary. His role gave me shivers, and not of the good kind – frightens me to think what people will be driven to when fighting over dwindling resources (rather than in the rush to wealth because of apparent overabundance in the early days of discovery).

the trouble with biofuels ... and the thesis that isn't writing itself

It's time for an update - seems like the last ten days have gone by in a flash... yet it also seems as though I just wrote an update yesterday!!! Definitely feel in some sort of time warp these days.

Let's deal with the thesis end of things first! I am happy to report that I've been working hard AND making progress... yes AND as it often feels that I am working hard but 'running to stand still' or actually move backwards even! Progress is slow - isn't it always when we're talking of a thesis?! - but we're moving in the right direction. My main challenges in the past 10 days have been to try to ascertain the biomass, productivity and consumption rate of coral (yep, they do eat, small floating plankton), a whole variety of urchins and crown of thorn starfish. Doesn't sound all that dramatic, but believe you me it has involved quite the intense literature trawls - to come up with not always very satisfying bits of info. It has certainly involved LOTS no LOOOOOOOTTTSSS of conversions -- for example from wet weights of urchins to joules!!!, I frowned and looked at the equations three times: who on earth thinks of weight in joules!!?
So after much fact checking and paper reading I think I need to be ok with my values (or mad ranges of values) and move on. This is all only to give me starting points anyways - the real tricky stuff starts once I have to 'balance' my model, i.e., make sure that the system as I define it can sustain itself.
What's next on the agenda - algae, all the little critters that live in the benthos, zooplankton, and phytoplankton. I need to be done with these this week, otherwise I am going to start lagging behind my scheduled outline for the year ... and we don't want to go there.

So now on to what's happening in the world at large. The word definitely seems to be a rather troubled sphere... Two topics caught my eye this week: biofuels and the fact that seas may rise much more than has been predicted so far. I've been reading a few articles about the food riots that have been taking place in Haiti and the Philippines for e.g.; very distressing.... to think we're diverting food to fuel cars?? That's right very disturbing, madness.... as George Monbiot suggests: one step forward is to eat less meat (and travel less). In the same vein, but as a friend of mine pointed out, perhaps more 'grounded' is an article by Paul Krugman. He points to the Chinese eating meat, rising fuel prices and biofuels as the culprits for rising food prices.
... and to add insult to injury, some of the nations that already suffer among the highest poverty rates (e.g. Bangladesh) are now threatened with increased loss of land due to rising seas of up to 1.5m!!!!

All certainly puts the pains of thesis writing in perspective .... that and the news that a friend of mine who holds a very special place in my heart recently had a car accident that very nearly killed him.
Life *is* short:

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb

Digesta retention times and spring

weird sort of title eh? Well those are very much the two things that are on my mind these days. It's honestly time for spring - i need, want warmth, and sunshine.... and we *did* have a week of absolute gorgeous blue skies! after getting CRAZY hail last weekend... followed by madness rain, mixed with hail this weekend. At least we're helping to fill the water reservoirs I suppose...

As for digesta retention times (DRTs) - well i needed to know those, so I could calculate the consumption rates of my green turtles scooting around in my National park in Hawaii. It became quite the crazy affair, as I did find a paper that gave me intake rates, however to make it relevant in the context of my model, I needed to have individual turtles' weights from which the DRTs were derived... which weren't listed... so I sought out to calculate those... 'nyways, needless to say, proves to show, when you think something is going to take you about 1 day, it often ends up being about 2! Then again, I did get info for my reef fish groups relatively easily, so let's hope that when I now move on to invertebrates (e.g., urchins and crustaceans) it won't be too much of a nightmare. Fingers crossed. I am dreading having to think about how to convert algal cover into estimates of biomass, especially given how different algae can be: short and stout, long and spindly, long and tufty; like hair really!...

...but it's good, my head is into work these days. Thought a lot about comments my supervisor gave me on my second chapter, and that's pretty much wrapped up for good now :o) - at least 'til I hear back from the journal.

The highlight of my past two weeks were performances at the Vancouver Symphony as part of the Beethoven festival. On the 28th I went to see Lang Lang - it was incredible. Even more so because I was accompanied by my lovely friend Leigh, and we truly had a wonderful time.
Then this past Friday I had the incredible fortune of experiencing a performance by the great Anne Sophie Mutter - there are hardly words to describe what it felt like to see her play: transporting, raw, touching your soul in soft yet powerful ways. She just is absolutely formidable - playing some notes so quietly, yet so distinctly; other parts with such incredible vigour. All infused with so much passion and grace. Unforgettable.
...hmm, still dreaming!

On and upwards ... to Hawai'i

So chapter 2 is pretty much done - yes, I am excited (understatement!). It's in my supervisor's hands right now, so I am waiting to hear back from him to make the final adjustments and tweaking required before I can send it off to be published. No doubt there'll be more iterations to go through after that (when does it ever end!!!), but for now I can move on to the next items on the ever so long to do list!! ... and that would be tackling my ecopath model for Kaloko Honokohau National park in Hawai'i. I tell you it's not an easy feat to try to find what may be the biomass of critters living in the park's marine mud and sand. Or what about how much of what a monk seal eats per year? A spinner dolphin? or what would you say the growth of different urchin species are? Gets you delving deep into the literature and the web searches always somehow take longer than you expect... and the questions to which someone must for sure have already found an answer... keep you guessing. You come across some pretty weird and interesting research along the way though, such as measuring the sinking rates of differently sized phytoplankton - we're talking MINUSCULE things here! Whoever does this over and over to calculate everything with reliable statistics is armed with far more patience than I could ever dream of harbouring!!
I want to be able to get my model going and start balancing things (i.e. get a draft model) within the next 10 days. That would mean that I could get a draft report for around mid April, with my ultimate goal being to have this next chapter done by the end of April. All this timing is pretty hecticly tight - but I really want to make it happen; and I think I can as long as I stick to a pretty healthy work ethic... mixed up with exercise of course so I don't lose the plot entirely!

Otherwise, my friend Barry has been visiting. He's on his way 'home' to Barbados from Australia, via the Solomons, Tanzania and Europe where he'll be leading his 12th turtle season. He's been keeping me entertained with his stories of turtle monitoring activities and diving in some of the most remote and at times mesmerising parts of this world. Makes me miss being in the field like crazy!!!

not quite there .... yet!!

Right - so I've not quite managed to achieve the goal I had set for myself this week :o| Lots of unexpected tasks threw themselves at me this week, and I ended up 'having to' attend a number of seminars I only heard about at the last minute.
Somewhat frustrating - but on the upside, I am close to the end of the chapter, and I got to listen to some interesting people speak about their research.
The first speaker was Dr Ron Tanasichuk who spoke about the "Variation in euphausiid productivity along the West Coast of Vancouver Island and its implications for herring and salmon production"; in other words how variations in plankton production, an important little critter in the diet of many fishes, affects two important (ecologically and economically speaking) predators. Dr. Tanasichuk has been working with the pacific biological Station in Nanaimo since 1982 and as such has incredible first hand experience of the changes that this area has witnessed and a pretty unique data set stretching multiple years to document these changes.

The second speaker was Dr Alain Vezina, coordinator of the Ecosystem Modeling Group at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Dartmouth, N.S.). His talk focused on numerical modeling of variability and change in marine ecosystems in Eastern Canada. Central to his presentation was a discussion about the differences in the physical and biological properties of ocean systems and how to then link those in a model that would then accurately reproduce changes in both physical and biological properties when the whole system undergoes a number of perturbations. It was particularly neat for me as elements of their research progression mirrored some of the evolution that Ecopath and Ecosim has undergone (the modeling software I am using for my research).

Last but not least, Dr Jane Lubchenco came to the Fisheries Centre to give a presentation on ocean and society and the role of climate change. She only accepts two talks a year, and as such I feel quite fortunate to have been able to attend her presentation - not only that, but I also got to have 20 min of her time, just for me!!! But first about Dr. Lubchenco - she is a distinguished Professor at Oregon State University and currently heads PISCO (Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans), an interdisciplinary team of scientists who study the marine ecosystem off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. She is a former president of the International Council for Science, AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), the Ecological Society of America and was appointed by former president Bill Clinton to two terms on the National Science Board. She also founded or co-founded three organisations devoted to communicating science to policy makers and the public including the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program. Dr Lubchenco is considered as on of the most highly cited ecologists in the world and has been wildly recognised for her major contributions to science.
In other words she's achieved more than many of us can dream to achieve in two lifetimes!
Her talk was really interesting - the first part of it focused on the role (well mandate really) scientists have in informing society, and doing so properly. The second part of her talk detailed the disastrous events that she has been witnessing along the Oregon coast over the last 6 years: periods of low oxygen waters that result in massive kills of crab and other invertebrates. The pictures she showed from beaches as well as the sea floor were truly horrific, just littered with dead sea life. The first of these events occurred in 2002 with the most severe recorded in 2006. Analysis of oceanographic data for this area of the coast over the last 50 years have confirmed that prior to 2002 these events were indeed unprecedented. Dr Lubchenco further explained that these events are likely to be due to changing wind patterns which in turn affect the ocean conditions - typically the Oregon coast is characterised by periods of upwelling and downwelling, now they only observe periods of strong upwelling alternating with weeks of weak upwelling.

During my 20 minute meeting with her I had a chance to enquire about the outreach activities her research group has engaged in as a result of these events - as you can imagine the public has expressed serious concern and various groups have been keen to get detailed information as to what is happening. I suggested to her that she should write a sort of lessons learned paper of these interactions, detailing what activities have been particular useful/successful, so as to provide guidance as it were, to scientists when interacting with the press, as well as the public at large in such times of environmental crisis. I also got to briefly introduce her to my research, and ask her about the skills she'd recommend young scientists hone to make themselves more palatable!

Right -- well I better get on with that second chapter, it's getting late in the day
:o)

wave powered boats

in the age of energy efficient cars -- how 'bout this for a feat in the 'vehicle' industry? a boat powered by nothing else that the waves it is sailing on!
"The Mermaid propulsion mechanism is mounted under the bow and not the stern, and it is designed to pull the boat, rather than push it forward, regardless of weather, wave height or direction."
This is really neat ... and makes for some good news in the usual doom and gloom of environmental news.

This week is a big one for me - I want to finish my second chapter, so that I can with assurance turn the page as it were and get to the data analysis of my fourth chapter: an ecopath model for Hawaii.
Fun and games :o)

Of bionic turtles and more

It's time i kept up with my blog more regularly - always lots of thoughts and things to share, so will make a more conscious effort to log them here :o)
In Seattle right now - sitting in my friend savas' home office, in front of a 24in screen -- I tell you my Ecosim trajectories look a lot better on this!!!
The change of setting has been good - managed to finish a draft of my Caribbean model report. Hopefully the final final version is not very far away; then i get to write it up as a paper. First though I think I'll have to rejig a few things around - like disaggregate my fish groups and re aggregate them so that these species truly either resident in seagrass beds or dependent on seagrass are their stand alone functional groups. I also want to draw up a table with information on epiphytic algae and who consumes it. Potentially also look at what fisheries in the Caribbean in the 80s looked like so that I can at least come up with some reasonable projections.
So - enough to keep me busy on that front for a while!!!

Before I came out here, we had a really interesting lecture + workshop with Nancy Baron, the Ocean Science Outreach Director for SeaWeb and COMPASS (Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea). Trained as a scientist she now works with environmental scientists to help them communicate their research more effectively to journalists, policymakers and the public. Key to doing so effectively: keep your message clear and simple and answer the question "so what?"!

...and to end with a surprising story - how about this for strange things that happen in the turtle wold: caregivers seek prosthetic flipper for injured turtle. A little extreme if you ask me....