Tag Archives: communication

Ray-dar

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I don’t know about y’all but underwater sound communication from mere fish was not something I would’ve thought is a thing. Sure, we have some species (such as dolphins or whales) that use echolocation, or sharks that use their tingly shark-y senses to navigate their underwater world, but it turns out stingrays are out there making actual sounds! Goofy cute stingrays having gossip circles – what’s not to love??

Read more: Evidence of sound production in wild stingrays

Stingrays (much like their close cousins sharks) are known to respond to sounds in their environment, such as by moving away from a potential foe or moving towards struggling prey. But there has been no evidence that they actively produce sound in the wild – until now. To be clear, this isn’t just sounds associated with tummy rumbles or eating noises but seem to be intentional noises in the form of clicks. Although it isn’t super clear (yet) what the stingrays are communication it might be related to alerting their buddies of potential threats lurking about.

This of course begs the bigger question: what does the stingray say?

*Okay having just written this I realise this is complete whale (and the other 990 species of bony fish) erasure but like still!

Tanya Strydom is a PhD candidate at the Université de Montréal, mostly focusing on how we can use machine learning and artificial intelligence in ecology. Current research interests include (but are not limited to) predicting ecological networks, the role species traits and scale in ecological networks, general computer (and maths) geekiness, and a (seemingly) ever growing list of side projects. Tweets (sometimes related to actual science) can be found @TanyaS_08.

Through The Lens Of A Biologist: A Wildlife Photographer Shares His Story

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Over the last two years, I had the chance to spend over 100 days at sea on board the German research vessel Sonne, transversing the Atlantic and examining all sorts of fascinating deep-sea animals. On these trips, the scientists were joined by someone whose goal it is to bring the science to the people: Solvin Zankl, who has been a professional wildlife photographer for over 20 years.

When the deep-sea nets reach the surface, the biologists start stressing, frantically ensuring the catch is properly documented and preserved. This is when Solvin’s smorgasbord starts, as he calmly looks through the catch and picks out the more interesting specimens, some of which he knows and some of which he has never seen before. Then he slowly maneuvers his small canisters of cold water into the cold room to spend the next hours meticulously portraying each animal.

Since I believe his job is an absolute dream job for many biologists, I asked him a few questions on how he got into this profession and what some of the challenges are.

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Don’t Look Up Isn’t A Perfect Climate Change Film. The Lord of the Rings Is.

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Come on Frodo, drop those fossil fuel subsidies (Image Credit: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, New Line Cinema, 2003)

Regardless of your opinions on it, Don’t Look Up got people talking. The latest in a line of apocalyptic climate movies, will this be the one to effect change? I think we need more climate movies, but ones that are powerful, that stick with you after the Twitter hashtags vanish, films that embed themselves in our cultural consciousness. Maybe one like…

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Of Course Climate Change Is A Threat To Global Ecosystems

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Last week, prominent Australian conservation scientist Professor Hugh Possingham caused quite a stir when he stated that “personally [he is] not convinced that climate change is a huge threat to many species”. This naturally sparked heated debates among ecologists the world over, with varying levels of vitriol. As Dr. Charlie Gardner put it, it “is an extraordinary thing to hear from a leading conservation scientist”.

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Forecasting the Fate of an Ecosystem: The Double-Edged Sword of Predictive Modelling

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Image Credit: Amy-Jo, Pixabay licence, Image Cropped

Let’s get the humblebragging out of the way – this week a paper that I wrote was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. It was a paper that I genuinely enjoyed writing, and it gives a tangible outcome – the forecasting of the establishment of invasive species within a region. The applications are obvious. Knowing where an invasive species is likely to pop up lets us detect it early and take action quickly.

Yet that very tangibility of the outcome has resulted in it being the paper of which I most fear the consequences. So in an exorcism of my general nerves (and as a soft disclaimer), I wanted to talk about why forecasting or predicting anything can be such a complicated undertaking for an ecologist.

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“Wait, What Am I Even Saying?” Communicating Statistics To A Wide Audience

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If we write about our statistical methods behind our ecology work, and none of our readers understand it, have we really communicated at all?

This month I’m getting meta. It’s been about a year and a half since I started writing the Stats Corner for this blog with the goal of demystifying some of the statistical methods that are used by ecologists every day. At the same time, I’ve been writing a book with Deborah Nolan called “Communicating with Data: The Art of Writing for Data Science.” The book was released this spring, so it seemed like a good time to reflect on writing about statistics accessibly. 

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Analysing The Impact of Blackfish on SeaWorld’s Orca Program

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Nature documentaries as catalysts for change: Mapping out the ‘Blackfish Effect’ (2021) Boissat et al., People and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10221

The Crux

Wildlife documentaries generally have the best of intentions, but our ability to determine their actual impact is limited at best. There have been attempts to analyse a documentary’s content or impact before, but they’re few and far between (outside of financial success).

Blackfish is a 2013 documentary which brought to light the poor treatment of orcas at SeaWorld, in particular the whale Tilikum, who killed three people while in captivity. Blackfish received widespread publicity, and in the years following its release, SeaWorld saw an enormous drop in attendance. They also saw a huge drop in stock price, redesigned their orca show to focus on conservation, and ceased their orca breeding program.

Today’s researchers wanted to investigate how closely the release of Blackfish was linked to the negative impacts and subsequent revamp that SeaWorld’s orca program underwent.

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Crossing the River Between Fishers and Fish Science

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"We need the next generation of scientists to be at the coalface, communicating good scientific information."

This article was first published in late 2018 (Image Credit: Mallee Catchment Management Authority, CC BY-SA 4.0, Image Cropped)

When a food source provides almost half a planet with protein, you can expect the people who deliver that food source to play an important role in society. Fishing is no exception. Any country that has a marine or freshwater ecosystem in close proximity will have a fishing community, and that community can play a variety of roles, from something as simple as putting food on people’s tables to campaigning heavily to keep your country from joining the EU.

So it makes sense that fishers should have access to good fish science, at every level. If you’re a multi-million-dollar corporation, you need to know how fish stocks will respond to certain catch levels over a sustained period. If you’re a local or specialised fishing community, you need to know how available your catch will be in five years given temperature increases. And if you’re one person on a boat in a river, you might want to know how best to treat an over- or under-sized fish to ensure it survives being released.

It follows, then, that there should be open communication between fish scientists and fishers. At this year’s Australian Society of Fish Biology conference, I asked a variety of delegates a simple question: Is there open communication?

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