Stories, Choices, and an Apology

I have two favorite stories that I like to tell when people ask me how to become a marine biologist, and specifically a dolphin biologist. I've already told one of these stories in a previous post, but I'm going to summarize it again here (read the previous post, it's better).

Who do I love? YOU!

How I became a Whale Biologist™

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Puget Sound, I studied sea stars. I really loved echinoderms (echinoderm means "spiny skin" and it is the phylum that sea stars belong to), and I really wanted to be an echinoderm biologist. So I applied to take a class on invertebrates at the Bamfield Marine Science Center. But I didn't get in! Bamfield told me I could take the Marine Birds class instead, so (reluctantly) said OK. By the time I there was an opening in the invertebrate class, I was having too much fun in the seabirds class to switch.

 One very early morning, a friend and I were out on a boat looking for birds. Our engine died and we had to call the coast guard. When we got back to the dock, a very nice man named Brian was just leaving to go look for whales. He asked if we would like to come, and gave us some great project ideas. My project led into an internship, a published paper, and grad school working with marine mammal acoustics.

I tell this story over and over because I think it's a good illustration of how your life can turn out much differently than you think. Eight years ago, I thought I was going to be a sea star biologist. Seven years ago I thought I was going to be a sea bird biologist. Who knows what will happen next?  You never really know where you're going to end up.  The reason that I tell this story to students is that even if they really love sharks, or penguins, or dolphins (or sea stars!), I want them to keep an open mind to other organisms that they are learning about in class. There is SO much cool biology out there.

The reason that I bring this up at all is that last week, when I was talking to a class about this story, I think I was careless with it. One of the things I said was something like "If you love dolphins now, you may not end up working with them in the future" and then joked, "Dolphins are a big pain in the butt anyway." Which is kind of true - you can't stick a dolphin in a vial or breed 500 of them in a lab. They're challenging, but that also makes them exciting. 


I didn't mean to discourage this person, if their dream was to work with dolphins - what I mean is that you may find something equally as cool as dolphins, and you should be open to that possibility.  Here is a short list of things that are as cool as dolphins (not all-inclusive):

Coral: it's an animal and a plant at the same time. WTF? 

Snapping shrimp: they make imploding bubbles with their FISTS! 

Albatross: they use less energy flying than sitting down!  

Copepods: can jump at speeds of 500 body lengths per second! 

Nudibranchs: defend themselves with deadly poison!

With all these options, who can predict what amazing thing may catch your eye!?

My second story is kind of an antidote to my jerkish discouraging comments last week.

You Can't Be A Whale Biologist, It's Too Hard 

During the year after I graduated from UPS, I moved to California. Not for any GOOD reason. I had applied to a grad school, got rejected, and decided to move because I didn't really know what else to do.  During this year, I worked in a clothing department (Do NOT ask me if your outfit looks good. I have no style sense) and continued to volunteer with the company I had interned for the previous year. One of the things I did as part of that internship was go out on a whale watch to take photo-ID pictures of whales. During one of these whale-watches, I was talking with the biologist on the boat. This is what she told me. 

"You shouldn't even try to be a marine mammal biologist. It's too hard. You'll never find a job. I've been trying to find a job as a marine mammal biologist in my city and there aren't any." 

Then, I found this pretty discouraging. Now, I think it's a good lesson.  Regardless of what you want, here will be people who say discouraging things to you.  Much of the time, the discouraging things they say will be reflections of their own frustrations. 

Which road should I choose?

Often, you have to make really tough choices; do I want to live near my family, or do I want to study dolphins? Do I want to stay out of debt, or do I want go to grad school? (Note: not all choices are black and white - there are also compromises & middle ground). These are tough choices, but they ARE choices. The lady who discouraged me from studying marine mammals decided that living in a certain area was more important than being a whale biologist.  There is nothing wrong with this, but it doesn't give her the right to discourage someone else. If she had said something like, "If you want to be a marine mammal biologist, you need to be prepared to get paid nothing for a long time and move wherever the jobs are," that would have been fine. This would have been a realistic conversation of the choices you may have to make as a marine biologist, rather than a flat judgement that it couldn't be done.  

The morals of these two stories are these:


1) Go for your goals, but remember that you may have to make tough choices along the way.
2) Don't be closed off to other options; there is a lot of cool stuff out there.


Are these two things the opposite? I don't think so. It's all about choices. 


So, I'm really sorry for being such a jerk, wannabe dolphin researcher. I just want you to know that the road you're starting on is going to have some really rough stretches, and to warn you to look around once in a while to make sure you're not missing a totally awesome scenic byway.

If you drove I-5 all the time, you'd completely miss Route 1,

Personally, I think I'm on an unpaved section of the road, with a leak in one of my tires and no air conditioning. A milkshake would be good right about now.

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Wishful Thinking & Whale Sex

In the last 6 months or so, I've gotten really interested in the history of whale science, especially from last 50 years. So I was very excited this weekend to find a copy of a fun old cetacean species identification book from 1981. It was selling for $3 at the Friends of the Library of Hawaii booksale. I wasn't going to buy it, because I have enough great marine mammal ID books. But then I saw this:

"Pair of humpbacks in mating posture"

Courtship is playful and splashy... sometimes the confusion ends in a single pair rising, with their flippers interlaces. belly-to-belly above the surface and holding that position for 30 seconds or more until they shudder and subside again.

People really identify with whales, and that can lead to a lot of assumptions and anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism occurs when humans project human characteristics onto animals.  Humans also tend to make a lot of assumptions about animal behavior based on how they would behave. For example, humans think it's really rude when dogs sniff their crotch.  But for a dog, this is normal, polite behavior - just part of saying hello. When analyzing animal behavior,  it's really important for biologists to use logic and evidence, rather than assumptions (it's also good to document the behavior with video or photographs). In this post, I wanted to share some of the imaginative illustrations from my new book. The motivations behind animal behavior are really difficult to determine. When reading about animal behavior, it's a good idea to ask yourself these questions:

1) What is the evidence that this behavior occurred?

Do I actually see whale sex, or do I just see two whales touching? What would I actually need to see to prove it's whale sex?

2) What is the evidence that this behavior is occurring for this purpose?

How do we know that dogs pee on things to mark territory, and not because they're nervous?

3) How might the wishes/prejudices of the observer be influencing what they are reporting?

OK, so back to the image above. Up until last week, there had been no documented sightings of humpback whale mating (and to be honest, I'm not 100% convinced by the photos released online so far - I'm waiting for the XXX rated pics). In 2012, we're just (maybe) getting our first glimpse of humpback mating. So the 1981 depiction of two 30+ ton humpback whales levitating out of the water for 30 seconds is... wishful thinking? A very active imagination? 

Here are some other gems from the book (if anyone has ever seen these behaviors, please let me know):

"Only one male is involved in the actual mating. He can usually be identified by the single flipper which is held up motionless above the surface of the water, presumably as a signal... During all this time the other male remains in close attendance , taking up a n upright position on the far side of the female and apparently forming a prop or wedge."

Raise your flipper if you need a wingman!

There was no illustration for this next bit of text, but I felt like it deserved one, so I did one myself.

"There is one report of a female fighting off several Great Killer Whales while holding her calf out of harm's way by lifting it clear of the water on her flipper."

Not overly implausible, but included because
you people seem to love dolphin sex.

Wonder if the dolphins also know the fireman's lift?

"Three Amazon River Dolphins supporting an injured animal and carrying it to the surface."
Totally realistic.

This illustration actually a great idea - I often wish that I could see multiple

species of cetaceans in the same place to get a comparison. Anyway, can 

you imagine seeing this many species of dolphin off your bow at the same time? 

*Swoon*

Being realistic about the animals that we love and want to conserve is important. Although imagination can be fun, real understanding of the biology and behavior of organisms is essential for their conservation. The facts can even be more amazing than our imaginations.

"I want my world to be a true one. I have faith in the scientific endeavor to the degree that I believe that the more we know, the more we care."
                                                                                                           Kenneth Norris

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High School Math Teachers Learn About Dolphins: The Recap

Googling "math whale"
is just as dangerous.

I tried to do a recap of last week's workshop for high school math teachers in my last post, but was easily distracted by a misconception-full image I found while googling "math dolphin" images. I'm going to try debriefing on the workshop again today.  I was invited to the workshop on the basis of my post about using whales and dolphin science to teach high school math.

At the start of the workshop, Michelle (a professor from the math department and fellow GWIS member) did an overview on trigonometry.  I followed with a quick talk about whales and dolphins, adapted from the talk I give to the university of Hawaii Marine Biology Class and to some of the high school classes I've visited.  I start by going through all the different cetacean families, to give people some idea of the diversity of these animals, and for background in case I happen to mention a more obscure species later on.

Ganges river dolphins and Amazon river dolphins are
in totally different families than bottlenose dolphins,
 From Nikaido et al (2000). 

Then I talked a little bit about why whales and dolphins make sound underwater (communication and foraging).  Some species spend SO much time underwater that they are actually easier to find by listening for them than by looking for them at the surface.  Beaked whales are a great example of an animal that can be easier to find using sound.  Here is some tagging data from a Cuvier's beaked whale.  You can see that the whale spends most of its time underwater, only very briefly appearing at the surface. Some of the gaps between surface intervals are as long as 80 minutes.

 In the open ocean, it's easy to lose something you haven't seen for an hour.  The ocean is big, and if you are not looking where the whale is when it pops back up again, you've missed it.  This is why stellar beaked whale researchers like Robin Baird will have 4+ people scanning the water 360 degrees around the boat.  Another way keep track of whales is by following the sounds they make underwater (places where the whale was making sounds are shown in yellow above).

At this point, we stopped talking about whales and Michelle  handed out review worksheets with practice problems on Trigonometry.  While the teachers worked on them, Michelle told me about how much she loves working with math teachers: "They're the best group - they love figuring out problems, and if one of them understands and someone else doesn't, they teach each other!"

After the teachers were done with their worksheets, we took a quick break.  There were snacks,

After the break, we gave the teachers three pieces of information:

1) The speed of sound underwater (1500 m/s)
2) The arrangement of the hydrophone array:

3) The difference in time between when the whale sounds arrived at hydrophone 1 and 2 (0.06), and between hydrophone 1 and 3 (0.07).

That's all we gave them.  With this information, some trigonometry, and a little critical thinking, it is possible to find the location of the whale.

How did it go?

At first, there were a lot of questions about how the time difference between H1 and H2 could have been 5x larger than the time difference between H1 and H3.  Although interesting, this question is only marginally relevant to solving the problem.  The answer is that it depends on the location of the whale and thus shape of the triangles we are using to find its location:

At some point, one of the math teachers came up with the idea of starting with first principles and the Pythagorean theorum to find the location of the whale.

x distance to the whale^2 +y distance to the whale^2 = distance to the whale^2

We don't know x or y, but we do know that

Distance to the Whale = Time for the Sound to Travel from Whale to Hydrophone * 1500 m/s

so

x^2 +y^2 = time*speed^2

After these ideas, the math teachers whizzed along until we ran out of time, and Michelle went through the answer to the problem.  Then we asked for comments.  Here is some of what I remember. It's been a week, so I've forgotten a lot, and I also may be remembering things I didn't actually say at the time, but thought of later.  But you get the gist.

"That was really hard!"

Michelle: "Last year a lot of the comments that you guys gave me about the workshop were that you wanted more real-world examples of math. This is a great example of why we often DON'T use real-world examples of math - because applied math can be really complicated! When we're teaching math, we often try to use simplified examples to easily express concepts." (Me: Hmm, so maybe my idea about teaching about dolphins in high school math isn't so good).

"I'm not sure how this helps me.  I teach remedial middle-school math - this math is way beyond what my class knows."

"That may be true, but I think it is still important to have examples of how math is used in the real world.  One of the complaints that many students have is that they will never really use math.  This is an example of how math is used to study something lots of people are interested in - whales!  You can also edit the math we used today to fit your student's level of expertise - we started at a high level of math because we knew you are good at it."

"Want to come talk to my high school students?"

YES!!!

In summary, I had a really great time talking to the math teachers.  They were a lot of fun, and they asked great questions. Outreach = da bomb.

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What You Know* About the Difference in Dolphins and Porpoises is Wrong**

*Mostly  **Some of the time

Last weekend I was lucky enough to speak at a math workshop for high school teachers put on by some of the University of Hawaii Match Department faculty.  And let me just start out by saying that it was AWESOME.  As anyone who has ever read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" knows, one of the best ways to get people to like you is to ask them questions about themselves.  For scientists, this extends to talking about our research. Beware asking a scientist good, intelligent questions about their work: you may be there for hours!

So, talking to the math teachers was an incredible treat.  They asked great questions, including one of my favorites, "What's the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise?"  Porpoises are from the cetacean family Phocoenidae, while dolphins are in the family Delphinidae.  I love this question, because there are so many misconceptions about what makes a porpoise.  This cartoon does a great job of showcasing those misconceptions:

Let's get the easiest misconception out of the way first: size.  I'll admit the average weight of porpoises is less than the average weight of dolphins.  However, there are many examples in which this just isn't true.  For example:

Dall's Porpoise (up to 200 lbs)

Hector's dolphin (up to 125 lbs)

So size of the animal isn't exactly the best diagnostic to use when deciding whether something is a dolphin or a whale.  How about rostrum (head) shape?

  Risso's Dolphin by Greg Boreham                             Finless Porpoise

Hmm, one of those is a dolphin and one is a porpoise, but they seem to actually have very similarly shaped heads.

OK, FINE! But if it has a bottlenose like Flipper, we DEFINITELY know it's a dolphin, RIGHT?

Northern bottlenose whale  (Hyperoodon ampullatus, in Family Ziphidae)

ARGHHHH!  It must be the fins, then. Dolphins HAVE to have pointy dorsal fins (the one on their back), and porpoises have rounded fins!

Chilean dolphin (rounded)                                                      Dall's Porpoise (pointy)

No dorsal fin at all (Southern Right Whale Dolphin).
The finless porpoise also has no dorsal fin, as the name implies.

OK, I give up, there must be SOMETHING I can use to figure out whether this random cetacean I got in the mail is a dolphin or a porpoise - but what????

TEETH!

Bottlenose dolphin                                |                             Harbor Porpoise

Dolphins have cone-shaped teeth throughout their mouth, while porpoises have what are known as spade-shaped teeth.  Here's a comparison, with A being the porpoise tooth and B being the dolphin tooth.

Dichotomous keys are tools that scientists use to figure out what species they are looking at.  These keys are kind of like those "build your own story" books that you had when you were a kid. You are asked a series of questions, and the questions lead to an ending.  It's also a lot like 20 questions, with each question further narrowing down the possibilities of which species you could have.  In fact, if you were using a dichotomous key to determine the species of a cetacean, the tooth question is what separates the porpoises from everything else.  

Try keying out whale, dolphin, and porpoise species
at the Marine Species Identification Portal!

In general, can you use these rules to distinguish between a dolphin and a porpoise?  Sure you can. But it's important to be aware of the many exceptions. Let's be honest, the likelihood of encountering Dall's Porpoise (found on the US west coast) and Hector's Dolphins (found in New Zealand) on the same day is infinitely small.  Even smaller is the likelihood that they'll give you a good look at their teeth. The best plan is to be knowledgeable about the species you are likely to encounter in your area.

Thanks for the great questions, Math Teachers of Hawaii.  If you'll notice, I haven't actually given much space to the actual workshop.  I'll get to that later. See what happens when you ask a scientist about something that interests them?!

If you ask a scientist a question...
they'll want a cookie.

Who am I kidding, I always want cookies.

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