Author: Amy Freitag

Day 3 at sea: first day in one place

Posted on By Amy Freitag 2 Comments on Day 3 at sea: first day in one place
Science

After 6 long hours processing the phytoplankton profile from last night’s CTD, we decided to stay on this station for the remainder of our trip. The profile showed a distinct (and stable) maximum of phytoplankton. Interestingly, this maximum isn’t at the top as you might expect for sun-loving organisms.

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Hatteras to Sargasso

Posted on By Amy Freitag 2 Comments on Hatteras to Sargasso
Science

the R/V Cape Hatteras leaving port

I have absolutely no reason to be at sea. I don’t do oceanographic research, don’t work in any way, shape, or form with phytoplankton, and I barely have the time to set up my own research trips let alone take two weeks to help on someone else’s. Yet here I am, my first day aboard the R/V Cape Hatteras on a cruise to the Sargasso to study phytoplankton energetics.

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Oil Spill vs. Hypoxic Zone

Posted on By Amy Freitag 4 Comments on Oil Spill vs. Hypoxic Zone
Conservation

There’s an elephant in the room as summer arrives on the Gulf Coast: hypoxia season.

This year, it’s a different Gulf, one covered in the largest oil slick in our country’s history.  No one is quite sure what the interaction between the oil and hypoxia will be.  Best guess is that both stresses will mean the end for most organisms living in the area and that hypoxia will exacerbate problems associated with the spill and hinder recovery by limiting oxygen availability for detoxifying bacteria.  However, step back for a minute and speculate on other possibilities: could the oil spill actually be helpful if it prevents or slows the eutrophication process? Could the damages associated with the oil spill be less than those associated with a large hypoxic zone?

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Are humans a keystone species?

Posted on By Amy Freitag 12 Comments on Are humans a keystone species?
Conservation, Science

“Humans are just a fossil-fueled outbreak that will go away”, stated one of my professors yesterday.

In the world investigating the human dimensions of natural resource management there’s two schools of thought as to how humans fit in: a) as just another particularly troublesome species in the ecosystem or b) a special kind of species with the ability to predict and change the future.  This latter formulation hinges on humans as a species with “motivation” and “intent”, according to C.S. Holling.

Otherwise, however, humans should be able to fit into the ecological definitions and models we all learned in intro biology.  At an extreme case, it means we’re the next trilobite or dinosaur, living in our 15 minutes of fame now but soon to disappear.  In the process, we will pave the way for a new species to become dominant.

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Social Science to the Rescue

Posted on By Amy Freitag 5 Comments on Social Science to the Rescue
Science

The cultural driver of shark killing - from topnews.in

Can social science save the sharks? A recent article in Progress in Oceanography by Peter Jacques seems to think so, calling for a “social oceanography”. In other circles, this could be known as the human dimensions of a marine ecosystem or the social side of a socioecological system. Either way, the field exists already.  However, it’s small and generally not recognized outside of purely academic circles. It may be time for us to step outside of our comfort zone.

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Geography of Fishes

Posted on By Amy Freitag
Science

The discipline of geography is one that most people likely dismiss as mapmaking.  Gone is the stodgy cartographer and here is the GIS tech wizard. But outside of very particular applications, do most people really give geography a second thought?  I hope to show through a famous fishery example that the world should give geography more attention – the Peruvian anchovy fishery.

First a bit of context.  Geography is a diverse discipline, spanning applications from environment to physics to cultural anthropology.  At the core of the discipline is the importance of place – something very simple yet very often forgotten.

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