>> Right, our developing collaboration between
the Smithsonian Institution and San Francisco
State and the Tiburon Center, I think it's
very exciting and we'll talk a little bit
about that momentarily.
So I'd like to start though by stepping back
a little bit, way back out into the universe
to start where we are and show you--just remind
you how unique of a place this is.
Not Tiburon which is also very unique, but
planet earth in general.
So if we were to some, you know, thousands
of light years out in space, this is what
it would look like if we were looking at planet
earth.
You all know this from seeing the original
cosmos not the one now, but the old Carl Sagan
one.
And as we get closer this is what we see.
And it is so far is something unique in the
known universe which is this blue planet.
This is of course the view from the moon that
first came out in the late 1960s when astronauts
first walk on the moon.
And this was an incredible image I think that
just caught everyone's breath, to really see
how unique and isolated really, the earth
looks in space.
And it gives us a sense, also I think--I think
I can say of how precious it is.
And that's really why we're here today.
So it looks blue, this is the thing, the blue
planet.
This is what is the most striking feature
of the earth from space.
But--And that's because of this very, very
thin film of blue water on the surface of
the ocean.
But of course as we come closer, and from
our vantage point where we stand on the surface
of the earth, it's not just the film, it's
a swirling three-dimensional amazing ecosystem
of all kinds of marine organisms.
This is obviously a coral reef, we don't have
this in San Francisco Bay but there are equally
amazing systems all over the place and different
kinds of habitats.
And I was just told that that dolphins who've
come back to San Francisco Bay for the first
time a few years ago in a long time.
So, what a fantastic success story.
So, I fell in love with the ocean long ago
as a result of these amazing organisms, and
decided that that's what I wanted to do for
my life.
I couldn't actually believe that you could
get paid to go to these places.
But of course that the picture is dark in
somewhat as we've come through time and found
out how threatened so many of these systems
are.
But let me first give you an introduction
to this concept that I'll talk about throughout
the talk of biological diversities.
So this is a sort of a science geek term for
the variety of life, simply put.
And there are different ways of thinking about
it.
We can think about it in a so-called taxonomic
way, that is the way you classify life.
There is a variety of genes within populations
as you can tell from looking around you.
That the genetic constitution of one species
is, our species.
These systems have many--we think of diversity
in terms of the number of species present,
families, phyla and so on as we go up the
taxonomic hierarchy.
But--And that's basically talking about who
is there?
And how many there are.
But we can also think of diversity, you know,
in a functional way that is in terms of what
all of these animals and plants are doing.
And this is I think really the frontier for
modern biodiversity science, and that's what
I'd like to talk about today.
So for example, we know that ecosystems or
these large systems like coral reefs with
all of the organisms in their environment
consist of species.
But some of those species are doing similar
things.
They can be called functional groups.
Those are all together in a community of fishes,
some eat planktons, some eat algae on the
bottom and so on.
So there are various levels of classifying
biological diversity.
We don't need to get too much into the details
now, but the important point is that, is this
ecological or functional aspect to it.
So, again, the challenge is that these beautiful
natural systems that we all know and love
are very much threatened now by a variety
of different pressures and challenges over
fishing, nutrient pollution, invasive species
something that you know a lot about here in
San Francisco Bay.
And so, one of the really pressing issues
in biodiversity science nowadays is not simply
describing who is there but finding out what
they're doing, why they're important to us.
And so, in other words there are many ways
that--there're many reasons why biodiversity
or natural diversity is important.
Aesthetic reasons, even spiritual reasons.
But one of the most important that we're thinking
of nowadays is the functional consequences
that loss of biodiversity has for what we
depend on nature for the so-called services
or the production and stability of shorelines
and so on that we rely on in nature.
So, the functional consequences.
So just to give you a few examples of the
importance of what I would might call living
infrastructure or natural infrastructure,
we got a little bit of that a rude awakening
to this with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when
we obviously had a very large hurricane that
inundated a large part of the city.
There was a tremendous misery and loss as
a result of that.
There are many reasons for this, some--there's
some indication that it might be the changing
climate.
We know that the climate is changing, whether
any individual event is because of that or
not is a little bit uncertain.
But we can be reasonably certain that more
of this rising sea level is on the way.
And part of the reason for that has been the
loss of these natural infrastructures.
So I was amazed to find out that over the
course of the last 70 years, the state of
Louisiana lost an area the size of Delaware,
most of it in wetlands or salt marshes.
And the reason that's important of course
is because this is the coastal buffer that
protects New Orleans and Louisiana from the
bad weather coming in off of the gulf.
So this is an example--we hear a lot from
time to time about the crumbling infrastructure
that we have and bridges that need to be repaired
and so on.
But there's also natural infrastructure that
we depend on.
And this is one of the examples.
In fact, there have been some quantitative
studies of the economic damage that has been
caused by hurricanes in the United States,
and how that was ameliorated by wetlands.
And in fact, this one study that was done
on something like 30 hurricanes in the United
States found that the economic damage from
hurricanes was lowest in areas with abandoned
wetlands as we would've expect.
And in fact, estimated the value of that wetland
protection against storms as 23 billion dollars
a year in the United States.
So these are significant numbers to talk about.
Protecting the coastline is not the only natural
infrastructure that we have.
A large part of our protein comes from fisheries.
This is a video that came from the millennium
ecosystem several years ago, that shows basically
the wave of fishing fleets going throughout
the ocean over the course of the last 50 years
or so.
So it begins in the 1950s and the red that
we're seeing is the area of highest catch
that has occurred during history.
You can see that it's always on the leading
edge of where these fleets are moving.
And behind them is reduced catch.
Between 1950s and approximately 2000, the
entire ocean had been covered.
That doesn't mean we're not catching fish
there anymore, we are.
Some of these areas are very productive.
But what it does mean is that the largest
fish and the highest catch rates were almost
invariably immediately when they started fishing
there.
So there's a big, a big effect of humans on
the fishes not just close by and in the Chesapeake
Bay, but throughout the world oceans and remote
places.
Interestingly, there are aspects of biodiversity
that appear to stabilize the fish catch for
us.
So this is from an analysis that a number
of colleagues and I did some years ago where
we basically look at the fishery production
for each of the worlds 64 large marine ecosystems.
So each of these colored areas is a place
that's considered for some purposes a large
marine ecosystem.
There are data on fish catches from those
areas.
And we also have data on the number of species
of fishes that live in those areas.
And what we find is, if you look across the
world at these patterns, there--the average
catch of fishes increases as the number of
species in that system increases.
So in other words, where you have this, this
high diversity, a diversified portfolio if
you will, of fish stocks, you have a high
return rate.
And what's even more important in some ways
is that in areas where you have abundant fish
species richness simply means the number of
species there.
This is on the log scales of 100, 1,000, 10,000
fish species where you have more fish species,
you have fewer collapsed tax [phonetic], that
is fewer occasions when the fishery out-fish--out-harvest
these species and there's nothing left.
So, in other words, the diversity of these
fishes provides food security in these areas.
The reason that this happens is that the ecosystem
including the natural diversity that lives
there of organisms, plants, and animals has
a complex network sort of structure that is
able to adapt to changes.
So we can think of the thinking of a seagrass
bed, for example, which is the one of the
types of habitats that I work on and which
you have here in--sorry, the other bay, the
San Francisco Bay.
I won't let that happen again.
In the seagrass beds, we have these food webs
that consist of seagrass obviously and algae
and various kinds of small bugs that eat them,
small invertebrates.
And then obviously on top, we have the things
that we like to eat.
And I should put a human up on top of here
because of course we have a big impact on
the crabs and the striped bass and other fishes.
But we can think of that web of interacting
species as a sort of natural infrastructure
that is producing products that are useful
and valuable to us, natural services or ecosystem
services.
And I've already mentioned a few of these.
Sustainable seafood is obviously one of this.
This is happening for the most part wild capture
fisheries happen with relatively little management
in some places more than others.
But out on the high seas for example, we don't
farm them, we don't fertilize them and so
on, this just comes from the natural ecosystem.
In addition to the seafood, these natural
systems clarify water, stabilize the shorelines,
and so on.
So, the question that has really arisen to
be sort of a frontier question in marine science
and in science generally over recent years
is asking about how these two things are connected.
How does that the change in biodiversity that
we're seeing, the loss of species that we're
seeing as natural habitats are converted,
how does that relate to the resilience and
the ability of ecosystem to continue to provide
these services and products that we need in
a stable fashion.
So this is the question that I've been interested
in for some years.
And that I believe we're beginning to tackle
with this collaboration that we're beginning
here at Smithsonian with San Francisco State
and others.
So, how do we get out this question?
It's a big bold problem.
I should say it's a big problem, a big challenge
that requires a bold ambitious program.
And so the Smithsonian, before I arrived six
months ago, had been planning and thinking
about how to do this for some time.
And part of the approach for understanding
how biodiversity influences resilience in
marine systems comes from the model of what
was done on land.
And this is from what began as the Smithsonian
Center for Tropical Forest Studies, it's now
known as Smithsonian's Forest GEO, Global
Earth Observatory.
And basically this stated with a couple of
Smithsonian scientists about 30 years ago,
puzzling over the question of, why our tropical
forest is so diverse?
So you've all seen the nature programs, perhaps
you've been to some of the tropical environments
and seen some of these tropical rainforest
that are really sort of an archetype for biological
diversity.
Lots of--thousands of species of trees, all
kinds of interesting animals living there
and so on.
Why is this?
Why are they so much more diverse than they
are in Canada for example, where you've got
a few species of trees?
So this is a deceptively simple question.
But it's fond a huge research effort that
was coordinated by the Smithsonian and has
gone on for over 30 years, ultimately resulting
in something like 50 plots.
And these plots are modeled on the first one
that happened in Panama with the Center for
Tropical Forest studies 50 hectares, in which
every single tree was mapped and identified
and followed through time.
50 hectares is a large area and that is a
lot of trees.
That has now been done and something like
50 plots in over 20 countries worldwide, 4.5
million trees that have been censused, and
many, many partner institutions.
It's been an extremely successful program,
there have been over 500 publications that
have come out of this that have revolutionized
the way a tropical forest science is done
and what we know about it.
The reason I bring it up is in part to show
that it is possible to do this.
This is a--this was a big effort aimed at
originally at one as I say seemingly simple
question, that actually branched out into
a very large number of related questions as
a platform for other kinds of research.
So what we're interested in doing now is extending
that model to the ocean.
So through the MarineGeo, beginning with Tennenbaum
Marine Observatories Network, this is a network
of sites at the Smithsonian, and the coordination
of the Smithsonian will have for the network
which was funded by a generous gift by Michael
and Suzanne Tennenbaum of the Smithsonian's
National Board.
And what we're interested in is another deceptively
simple question which is, what makes some
marine ecosystems resilient and others very
vulnerable to environmental change?
And we think that the answer to this question
has a lot to do with changing biodiversity
as we are talking about earlier.
So, we are beginning this program and I'll
tell you brief--momentarily about what we
are doing and what we plan do to at the Smithsonian's
set of field stations in several sites in
the Eastern Atlantic and the Pacific.
The Smithsonian has a world class--a world
class institution at the Smithsonian Environmental
Research Center in Maryland.
Tuck Hines and Greg Ruiz are here from SERC
today as many of you know.
SERC has a number of staff working here at
Tiburon, and has for some years, primarily
on invasive species but other issues as well.
So, we have facilities at SERC, at the Smithsonian's
Marine Station in Fort Pierce Florida, Carrie
Bow Cay, Belize, and on both coast of the
Isthmus of Panama.
So we're beginning using these sites as sort
of a laboratory for working out the methods
that will be used in a long term, global scale
study of how environment, and biodiversity,
and ecosystem processes work together.
As you will see, I have also put our two premier
sites outside the Smithsonian that we're just
beginning to develop now, San Francisco State
University, Tiburon Center here.
We're also working at the University of Hawaii
on a very similar kind of partnership.
We have signed a memo of understanding with
both San Francisco State and with the University
of Hawaii more recently.
And so we're looking at these sites as really
served the pioneers where we figure out how
we're going to do it everywhere else.
Then there are very large number of other
places where we could expand the network and
I've just put a few of them on here.
Most of these are sites where we have had
conversations with institutions or individuals
there that are interested in joining the network.
None of them are certain yet, but the reason
I bring this up is to show that there is quite
a bit of interest throughout the world in
joining this network.
And that at San Francisco State and Tiburon
begin this process, this will ultimately--we
feel quite confident ultimately come to a
very large network of sites which will be
very powerful in answering some of these questions
that we can't do at individual sites.
So, what will we do?
The vision, if you will, of MarineGeo might
be summarized as a science partnership taking
the pulse of the living ocean to keep it healthy.
So, let me explain what I mean here.
So, first of all--I need to get back, yes.
It is about science that is--the purpose of
this effort and the network is to collect
rigorous science that we can use to determine
what--how marine ecosystems are responding
to environmental change to conduct experiments
to understand why that's happening.
And to be able to have comparable standardized
data across all the sites that might give
us a much more powerful picture of how and
why things are changing than we have had before.
So it's about science.
It's obviously about partnership.
No institution in world including the Smithsonian
would be able to do this alone.
Although I will say that one of the reasons
why I took this job is I'm convinced that
at Smithsonian is the only organization in
the world that would be able to coordinate
this across such a large scale and large group
of diverse partners.
And we can talk more about that later if you
wish.
So, a science partnership taking the pulse
of the living ocean.
By taking the pulse, we mean keeping track
of the vital science, so to speak.
Measuring the state of the environment and
the state of the organisms that are living
there so that we have early warning signals
of any potential changes.
And then finally, well, and I should say also,
the living ocean is key here as--and I'll
come back to this in a few moments.
And this is because as many of you know, there
are a number of sophisticated ocean observing
systems that have spread around the world
in recent years.
But I think it's fair to say that the vast
majority of those are really focusing on the
physical movement of water and tracing chemicals
through the water and so on.
And they're surprisingly little systematic
effort to understand the living part of the
ocean, the biodiversity of the organisms that
are living there in a standardized way.
So, and finally, all of that science is ultimately,
we hope directed towards the goal of keeping
the system healthy, of understanding how it
works so [inaudible] can inform policy.
So, what does that mean specially, some of
the very general questions that we need to
answer and this will be surprising to some
that we don't know the answers to this yet,
are what do we have?
What biodiversity is out there?
So we know this for some places that are very
well studied, such as San Francisco Bay.
We don't know it for many other sides.
And in order to really understand on a global
scale how environment is influencing diversity,
we need to know first of all where it is and
who is there?
So that we know how to do through intensive
biodiversity censuses.
Perhaps more important, certainly equally
important and of great interest to me is how
does it work?
What is that--what are those organisms doing?
Are they just lawn ornaments, so to speak,
in the seagrass?
Or are they actually doing things that are
important to us producing food, maintaining
stable shorelines, keeping the system stable.
That is really a question for experiments.
And I'll show you an example of coordinated
experiments in the moment that we already
have underway.
How is the diversity changing?
To really get at this, we need rigorous long-term
time series observations that is monitoring
of the organisms and the environment.
There is a lot of change from year to year,
as you all know you're experiencing a drought
now.
At other times, we have too much water, we've
had a lot of snow in Washington after a number
of very hot years.
So there's a lot of natural variability to
really get at what the long-term trends are.
We need this long time series observations.
Why is it changing?
Again, we need experiments and modeling.
And what can we do about it?
So this is--this is sort of as we move outside
of the realm of science and into the realm
of applied research and policy.
And there what we need is ecological restoration
projects which are very active in the bay
by Kathy and others as we just heard, citizen
involvement and policy action.
So these are the very general goals that we
have for the partnership.
And we are actually meeting with a number
of the scientists from Tiburon Center tomorrow
to really hash out what the specifics of this
plan are and how this can benefit all parties.
So, I want to take a moment to come back to
that--to the issue that I brought up earlier
about what is unique about this MarineGeo
effort?
And, the way I would summarize it very, very
succinctly is that we want to know about how
biodiversity works.
So as I mention before, many of--this figure
to my mind really sort of encapsulates what
most of the existing ocean observing systems
are about.
There are a lot of planes and satellites and
ships and interesting sensors and machines
doing things that are telling us critically
important information like how the water moves,
where the currents are, when storms are coming,
how pollution moves around, how fish larvae
move around.
Those sorts of things.
But there's actually relatively little focus
here on the animals and plants living in the
system.
So, whereas the focus of the existing system
is primarily physical-chemical, our focus
is on biodiversity on the animals and plants
that live there and what they're doing?
The ocean observing system approach is primarily
descriptive and modeling measuring the water
movements and understanding how that's happening.
Our approach will also involve experiments,
the gold standard if you will, for understanding
the causes and effects of processes in the
natural world.
Many of the observing systems, although that
the network are expanding, the systems are
relatively geographically focused.
And partly that's because they're extremely
expensive.
There are a lot of instruments out here, whereas
what we really hope is that by leveraging
partnerships with various institutions throughout
the world, we'll be able to spread out into
a really large network.
And finally the last two I think are really
important.
There's really no explicit focus on people
in most of the ocean observing systems that
are happening right now.
And this is--to do so is very important.
And that is a critical part of what we are
looking at because as we were just talking
about, there is a huge impact of humans on
the marine environment.
And we need to know how we're interacting
with the environment, what our impacts are.
Part of the way of getting at that is by using
history.
So, by focusing on the organisms, the biodiversity
there and using the Smithsonian's resources,
we can go back in time using course--of fossil
course that go down into the sediment and
have amazing ability to reconstruct what kinds
of fishes were living in the system, how big
they were, what people were eating and so
on.
Back through recent time into the deep past.
So this is the niche that we're seeing at
this stage is unique about the MarineGeo or
Tennenbaum network that is not present in
most of the other existing efforts.
So what can we do, there's a lot here.
I don't want to knock people out right away
after that the wine that you've had, but I'll
just mention a few things to show you that
we are thinking about the specifics of what
will be measured in the different sites within
the network.
So, we can think of them sort of as the stage
the players, the action, and so on.
The stage for all of these biological processes
is of course set by the environment.
So the temperature and all of the water quality,
temperature, salinity, the water chemistry
such as pH, the oceans are acidifying, and
that has numerous implications for the kinds
of organisms that live there.
We need to know about that.
And there are already numerous efforts under
way towards this.
We're very interested in leveraging and collaborating
with other organizations that are already
doing part of this work.
In fact, we've been talking with the nurse
group here at Tiburon Center and very keen
on adapting their protocols and working with
you.
On the stage, we have the players which are
the organisms that live there, the biodiversity.
And so what we intend to do for each of the
sites is to find out who's there, that's the
taxonomic database.
To get molecular data that will give us a
much finer scale resolution of the diversity
of organisms and how they're related there.
As well as image banks such as photographs
of the organisms, food web links and so on.
Even seed banks in some cases for organisms
that need restoration.
And we're working--just take the arrow down
from the image bank to this area.
I don't believe I have it on there but we're
working with the Encyclopedia of Life to try
and use these collections to build a sort
of electronic field guide to each site that
we work.
So that which will be available to the general
public and researches.
The action is what the creatures are doing.
How productive is the environment which of
course comes up to harvestable fish.
How much of the algae is being grazed?
What are predators doing?
How fast does carbon decompose versus being
stored?
This is a very large issue now as many of
you know.
Is that the potential value of coastal vegetation
such as marshes and mangroves in storing carbon
that's being released into the atmosphere?
And then finally, how all of these come together
in this box that some of you probably can't
see behind the podium, of the impacts and
services to society, fishery production, shoreline
protection, tourism, water quality, the services
that I mentioned earlier.
So these are--a very general outline or the
sorts of things that we like to develop into
a standardized program of research across
all of these sites that will make them larger
than some of the parts.
And finally, we'll also be using experiments
as I mentioned to understand how all of these
things fit together.
So, just to give you a brief sense of what
kinds of organisms we're talking about, we--and
I have the coral reef pictures as oppose to
San Francisco Bay pictures partly because
you can't get very good pictures of things
underwater in San Francisco Bay.
And, yes, people like to dive on coral reefs.
And many of these methods have been worked
out there, they won't work everywhere.
We have to use some methods differently in
estuary than we do on reefs obviously.
But one of the things that we have in common
among all of these different kinds of habitats
is habitat-forming organisms.
In most areas of the marine environment, as
on land, there are certain kinds of plants
or even animals that create a habitat for
everybody else to live in.
In the forest, we have trees, obviously the
birds and insects and everybody lives in the
trees.
In marine environments, we have corals, salt
marsh grasses, seagrasses, mangroves, oyster
beds, and so on.
Understanding those habitat-forming organisms
is a key part of understanding everything
else because that what's sets the template,
so to speak for everyone else.
So, there are standardized ways of measuring
this and keeping tract of them overtime that
will be a big part of this.
It can work not only in coral reefs, but in
seagrass beds, and so on.
At the other end of the spectrum from these
stationary plants and animals that are creating
the habitat are the mobile animals that are
living in the habitat.
And I single out fishes in particular for
a number of reasons.
One is of course we eat fishes, so it's one
of the most direct links from the ecosystem
to a service or a product that benefits humans.
The other thing is that fishes are what might
be called ecosystem engineers.
Their grazing and feeding activities have
a major impact on who lives in the system
and what it looks like.
Fishes for example can tip the balance between
the bottom being covered by beautiful corals
and reef versus the bottom being covered by
algae that's off less value.
Also the taxonomy of fishes is relatively
well-known, so we can get started very quickly
in cataloging the diversity there.
Now, there are many, many kinds of organism
in between these habitat-formers on one hand
and the fishes, including a whole variety
of tiny invertebrates that nobody really wants
to deal with because they're hard to identify.
Well, I shouldn't say nobody--many of us actually
do love them and know them.
But your average person is generally not so
much interested in amphipods and small crustaceans
like that.
Nevertheless, they are very important in some
system as will see shortly, and there been
a number of sort of ingenious efforts to sample
these things.
They're very difficult to sample in coral
reef environments for example because this
reef rock is difficult to get at, you have
to break it apart to get the animals that
are buried down in there, it's very heterogeneous.
So, this is what--is called an Autonomous
Reef Monitoring System which is serve a fancy
name for a bunch of PVC plates that are all
stack together and you throw it out on the
reef, leave it there for a year or two.
And it essentially becomes part of the reef,
all of the corals and algae and various different
kinds of invertebrates start growing over
it and hiding in here because they don't want
to be eaten which is a problem for small animals
on reefs.
And after end of a year or two, this can be
brought up to the surface and it has almost
all of the organisms that you would find on
a reef except for the large fish obviously.
And so, it's a really efficient way of getting
a standardized sample of the organisms on
the reef.
And these are then subjected by in a group
that includes people at the Smithsonian who
develop this assay.
It goes through a whole series of methods
to get the biodiversity out of it.
This is what it looks like after it's been
setting out there, the shape is different
but otherwise it looks like the reef because
it's been colonized by everything.
And what we get out of these samplers, these
standardized samplers is a series of different
ways of measuring biodiversity.
So, the plates are pulled apart and photographed,
so you can see what kinds of creatures are
growing on them.
Here's an oyster of some sort, there are various
kinds of sponges and sea squirts.
Those are then scraped off and saved as specimens.
The animals that are larger than two millimeters
are individually photographed, a voucher of
specimens is preserved and the DNA sequence
is preserved.
So, we have all of those things linked together.
All the stuff that's smaller than two millimeters
goes into the blender, is blended up and becomes
a DNA milkshake that is then, it's possible
to barcode that, fingerprint all of the organisms
in there simply by doing DNA sequencing--well,
I should not say simply, it's not simple.
But it is possible to be done, let's put it
that way.
Now, this--I just show this as one example
of possible ways of sampling all of the small
creatures and microbes, and algae, and invertebrates
that are very difficult to get that in other
ways.
This is very time consuming and fairly expensive.
But it's actually a whole lot less time consuming
than trying to look at them all under the
microscopes and identify them.
So, this is one of the sort of innovative
ways that is being used to sample biodiversity
of cryptic animals on reefs.
We'll have to use different methods for quantitatively
sampling the animals that are living in the
mud and in the sand in a place like San Francisco
Bay, but we're on that, too.
So, those are some of the components of whose
there that that we are, and how we might measure
them.
And that brings me to what they're doing.
And there are a variety of ways of measuring
what they're doing that we're experimenting
with now.
And basically, the goal here is to find very
simple experiments that can be done in lots
of different places and yield data very quickly
to measure important ecosystem processes such
as production, how quickly plant--new plant
matter is being produced.
Predation intensity, how much are fish feeding?
Do they have a big impact on the small animals
in the system or not?
Similarly with grazing, is the algae being
grazed effectively so that corals can grow
and so on.
And recruitment which simply means the rate
at which new organisms are coming into the
population, and there are ways of measuring
that by putting out plates that you collect
larvae on.
So, this is just one example again from a
coral reef environment of a simple assay that's
used to measure the intensity of fish grazing.
So, some colleagues of mind simply take nylon
rope and collect different kinds of seaweed
in the environment, put them in the rope in
a standardized way, put them on the reef and
wait for fish to--give them a couple of hours
for fish to feed, come back and records what's
still left.
They do this with a video camera so you can
actually see which fish are eating them.
Again, that's not going to work in an estuary.
But the point is there are simply ways of
designing these kinds of experiments that
if take--done all around the world, it can
give us a good sense of the relative intensity
of ecosystem processes such as how fast food
web interactions are happening, how active
predators are, how active grazers or herbivorous
fishes are, for example.
Just one example of how it might be done.
And the ultimate goal of that eventually,
is--what I would like to see come out of it
are global maps of these ecosystem processes,
global maps of diversity, global maps of ecosystem
processes.
And those coming together give us a global
map of ocean resilience, that is can we figure
out why some areas are responding in a very
negative way to fertilizer dumping and fishing
and so on, whereas other one seem to be OK.
This is what I think we can get out of this
through a collaborative project such as this.
And speaking of collaborative projects, I
want to spend just a couple of minutes to
show you how this might happen in the marine
environment using the example of the seagrass
network that Kathy mentioned working in eelgrass
which occurs here in the San Francisco Bay,
and all over the Northern Hemisphere actually.
The scientific name of eelgrass is zostera
marina.
And so, what we've done is to gather a group
of collaborators from all around the Northern
Hemisphere and what we call the Zostera Experimental
Network or ZEN.
This is our cool logo that we put on t-shirts.
And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on
this because I know it's late.
But I'll just say that what we've done is
to find collaborators that work in this eelgrass
ecosystems all over the Northern Hemisphere
that were willing to work with us in much
the same way as we're talking about with our
colleagues here at Tiburon, to do some very
simple experiments that become extremely informative
when we look at them across sites.
And without going into details, I'll just
tell you that we have a whole bunch of sites,
16 actually in the first generation, we're
now moving into the second generation, including
San Francisco Bay site that was headed up
by Kathy Boyer.
And basically the experiment consisted of
artificially fertilizing seagrass plots out
in the field and also taking the grazers away
using a degradable insecticide.
Very simple but we looked at how the results
of that experiment varied across all of these
different sites along gradients of biodiversity,
temperature, latitude, and so on.
And just to give you one little tidbit of
what happened out of it.
One of the things that came out that I thought
was quite interesting is that we found a pretty
strong correlation between diversity and the
ability of animals--the grazers to keep the
grass clean.
These seagrass habitats are very important
nurseries for fishes and shellfish.
But they are very vulnerable to being fouled
[phonetic] by algae that overgrow them in
cause the death of the seagrass.
So, these small animals, the bugs and slugs
that are out in these systems, despite being
very inconspicuous can be extremely important
to the health of the seagrass.
They can also be pests on the seagrass as
they are--and some of them are here in--some
of the invaders are here in San Francisco
Bay.
But in essence, when we look across this big
network in this data look pretty noisy, I'll
admit.
But if you trust me for a moment, what we
found is that then sites that had many grazer
species that have high biodiversity were actually
places where we had really effective grazing
of that algae and removal of the competitors
that maintained healthy seagrass.
So, that was a really interesting result that
sort of resonates with this hypothesis that
biodiversity can provide resilience.
So, that's something--the kind of thing that
we're hoping we can get much better handle
on as we go forward with the larger network.
And I'm delighted to say that the ZEN network
has been funded for a second generation by
the National Science Foundation.
And we're actually expanding out now to 25
different partner institutions in 14 countries
and about 50 sites.
And one of my secret plans is to ultimately
have those sites come in to the MarineGeo
network as well.
And we have a few takers on that so far.
So, I think that there's a lot of to be gained
there.
OK, so, where do you fit in and this was addressed
primarily to the scientists here at Romberg
Tiburon Center, but of course I would open
this to everyone because we need help from
all quarters.
And these are just a couple of the reasons
why we think that joining into this partnership
will be valuable to both parties.
So, by developing this global network of sites,
we have a platform for comparative research
with environmental data, biodiversity data
being collected in the same way at all these
places.
It creates a real wealth of additional data
that we can use to ask questions of--that
are of interest here for San Francisco Bay,
as well as for the world at large.
Long-term, environmental and biological data,
there are relatively few places where we can
compare those long term trends over large
areas.
Explicit connections to other sites worldwide,
developing networks with other scientists,
this is we think especially important for
students.
And we're talking tomorrow in more detail
about how to involve students in this process,
we think it's really a win-win situation to
have student working on--the undergraduates
and graduates student as well working on this
research and gaining insights from it.
And that sort of segues into the research
support and training.
We have just recently awarded two post-doctoral
fellowships.
And in fact, both of them in the MarineGeo,
the Tennenbaum Marine Observatory Network,
both of those fellowships are going to recent
PhDs from--that have been working in San Francisco
Bay area.
So, we're integrating them into the global
network.
In fact, Lisa Schile is here right now.
And we're also hoping ultimately--yes let's
have a hand for here.
[ Applause ]
And I should also call out again our gratitude
to Tennenbaums, Michael and Suzanne Tennenbaum
of the Smithsonian National Board who have
provided the initial funding for this to get
the network off the ground.
And who are also supporting that fellowship.
There are lots of other opportunities if you'd
like to speak with me about that.
So, research, support, and training, we think
this will actually be quite critical in engaging
new talent in building the network over time.
Small grants for research are something that
we are looking forward to in the future, opportunities
for exchange not only of students but of scientists
in developing a network.
And then, finally the economy of scale, large
research questions, increasing the ability
of all of these parties to be competitive
for grants, from agencies and else where.
And of course just in general, collaborative
analysis and synthesis.
I think this is a revolutionary way to do
science.
It's the way that science is going.
And I very much look forward to San Francisco
state being a part of that and to working
with you.
And I think that might be the end.
What do we gain, I've talked about some of
these already.
The critical data on your shore ecosystems,
the collections, physical specimens, genomic
data and images, all of which, ultimately,
will be open access, not just to the partners
but ultimately to the general public.
Training the next generation, I've talked
about already and partnership in the world
class science.
So, thank you very much for coming and for
your attention and I would be happy to answers
questions.
[ Applause ]
>> Stay here.
>> I'll stay here.
>> All right.
Now is your chance to participate in the discussion.
So please if you've written down a question,
send it over to the end of your row and we'll
collect them.
If you have questions about the topics that
Emmett [assumed spelling] covered tonight,
if you have questions about the Romberg Tiburon
Center, about the Smithsonian, any of those
are fair games [phonetic] so please let us
know what you're interested in and we'll get
those questions up to Emmett.
>> So, the first one is what kinds of global
questions can be answered by having monitoring
sites around the world?
I think by having this site--and I would say
especially by having site that are both monitoring
and experimental--coordinated experiments,
we can answer questions that are really impossible
to get at by research at individuals sites.
And that certainly from my own perspective,
something that I've learn from the ZEN network.
One of the ways that I look at it is over
the course of the last 50 years of marine
ecology, the low hanging fruit has been picked
so to speak.
We have a lot of insights about how species
interact with one another, what effect predators
have on diversity, how nutrient pollution
influences algae growth ,and so on at very
small scales.
But most of the really big and really thorny
challenging questions we know face in the
environment are about how large scale processes
interact with those small scale processes.
And these are things like how biogeography
and dispersal across very large areas influence
how these systems work and how they respond
to problems.
And that's something that I think we can only
get through these kinds of large scale partnerships.
>> All right.
Well, I can't read all the writings.
[inaudible] trying to figure out what some
of this say.
>> Do I get to pick the one I like?
>> The one you can read, how about that?
OK, let's see.
What methods, if any will be used to assess
biodiversity--
>> Of pelagic organisms--
>> --of pelagic organisms such nekton and
planktons.
>> Oh, yes.
OK, very good question.
What methods if any will be used to assess
biodiversity of pelagic organisms such as
nekton and plankton?
Obviously this was written by a scientist.
So, pelagic organisms, meaning in the water,
most of the things I've talked about are on
the bottom.
The nekton and plankton--plankton of course
are the small creatures that are floating
around in the water.
They form the base of the food web.
And the nekton are swimming things which are
mostly fish, but also squids and some crabs.
So, the question I think is since we've talked
all about--mostly about the ecosystem on bottom,
what about what's in the water which obviously
is a big part of what's going on particularly
as we get out into deeper water where most
of the habitat is in fact the open water.
And I guess a couple of things I would say
to that, we are very much interested in keeping
track of the plankton because that is more
or less the food for most of the organisms
in these systems, as well as algae, they're
growing on the bottom, that's critical to
know about.
And it's very variable through space in time.
So, I haven't mentioned that but we're certainly
interested in monitoring plankton.
As far as the nekton, the fishes, I've already
mentioned those.
Mostly in association with the fishes that
are living near the bottom, associated with
seagrass and reefs and so on.
Our focus--one of the things that is perhaps
not unique, but I think special about this
network that differs from many of the sort
of organized long term observing systems is
we're focus on very shallow water, very near
shore water.
Starting actually on land and moving into
the water.
And the reason for that is that that's were
people interact with the ocean for the most
part, that's where most of the diversity is
and that's where most of the productivity
is.
And so--in answer to the question, we're primarily
interested in the fishes and the plankton
it's in shallow water that is interacting
with these systems on the bottom, primarily.
>> OK.
Are you considering--how do you think contaminants
should--
>> Are you considering or how do you think
contaminants should be consolidated in your
network site comparison?
I think they should be.
You know, one of the challenges we will be
facing--we are facing now is what is--of the
very large world of things that we would like
to do, what is realistic to do.
And so, my feeling is we start with some of
the basic thinks that we've talked about here.
And that--as that gets under way, then we
can expand.
Contaminants, pollutants is definitely something
that that's of keen interest and in fact I
was just advised by one of our Smithsonian
staff who goes in talks the people in Congress
and in the agencies that it would be a good
idea to monitor pollutants.
So, we may well be trying to do that soon.
Part of the issue with that is that it takes
generally, fairly specialized chemical expertise
that is a little bit different than some of
the other things that we're talking about.
Although, of course, the molecular analyses
of the biodiversity is also sophisticated
too.
So, yes we would like to do that and I'd love
to talk any of you who have suggestions about
that.
>> OK.
How much you adopt to address the vision need
for ecological restoration, citizen involvement
and policy change?
>> OK.
>> It's a bunch of questions--
>> OK, yes it's a multi question.
How will the program adopt--attempt to address
the need for ecological restoration, citizen
involvement, and policy change?
And there's another one here.
Let's just do that one for now.
Well, these are all things that we have talked
about at length and that are in our original
white paper that was the sort of dream division
for MarineGeo.
What I--Where we are now I think is in trying
to set sort of a series of priorities, meaning
here's what we'll start with as I just mentioned.
And here's where we go next.
We're very keen, as I said, on education,
generally, and on having citizen involvement
as well, particularly where we can match citizen
involvement with the kinds of research that
we're doing that that needs a lot of people
and that is relatively straight forward measurements
that are also very meaningful.
And we've seen a number of cases where this
can be extremely powerful.
You perhaps know about the Christmas Bird
Count that's done by--all over the world,
I think.
Certainly all over the country, there's a
huge quantity of information on bird diversity
and abundance and how it's changed over the
years that's collected by citizen bird watchers.
It would be very neat to do that with the
marine systems, there are actually some --there
are some programs in Australia I know of and
perhaps here as well, that use iPhone apps
to try and report new findings of invading
fish species for example, maybe there's something
similar here.
So, I think as a group, we're--at the Smithsonian,
certainly, we're very interested in finding
ways to do that.
We haven't got into the details yet, partly
because we're starting with the, you know,
the basic science of architecture, but very
interested in that and in bringing in citizen
science.
Policy change, that sort of a further downstream
one but I know that a number of us, both at
Tiburon and at the Smithsonian, are interacting
on a regular basis with managers and policy
makers.
And so we hope that that will continue and
that this data will really provide some powerful
information to take there.
>> OK.
Well, that's good segue into this.
So, two, this have to do with political stuff.
I don't know what this word is.
Does the Smithsonian have a plan for political
something.
And then, the second is global political interest
in TMON as strong as global scientific interest.
>> OK, that's interesting.
The Smithsonian have a plan for political
something.
I don't even know what the last word is but
I can answer it.
And the answer is no.
We do not have a plan for political anything.
The Smithsonian is Switzerland is the way
it was stated to me and I really like that.
The Smithsonian is a--could be described as
a public-private partnership.
Some of our money comes through the federal
government, some of it comes from inducement
and so on.
But we have--we are--can I say this, as a
federal agency.
>> No.
>> No, sorry.
I wasn't supposed to say that.
At any rate, the point is we are in apolitical
entity and our job and--is to provide reliable
scientific information and other kinds of
information.
And I want to stress how important that is.
We, like any reputable scientific organization,
rely on people's trusts that were objective.
And so, we can not be political.
And I think I would also sort of come even
back a little bit further from that to the
question of whether we can be activists so
to speak and maybe that's wrong word.
The way I would say this is we are happy to
provide and in fact dedicated to providing
objective scientific information that is of
use to making policy decisions.
But the--I think the position we have to take
is say this is the science as we understand
it.
If a policy has been recommended, I would
feel comfortable saying to the best of our
scientific knowledge, this is what would happen
if this policy is enacted, this is what would
happen if it is not to best of what we understand
now.
But we can not advocate for a particular policy.
My boss, Tuck Hines, might say something about
that, I don't know.
>> That's correct.
>> That's correct, OK good.
I got that right.
Let's see, what was the other one?
Political--is global political interest in
TMON as strong as global scientific interest.
I'm not sure, I don't--I'm not sure, I know
actually what that means.
I--most of the context that we've had with
potential partners outside the US have been
mostly with individual scientist or with administrators
of organizations, of academic institutions.
And there is pretty strong interest and a
number of places there.
I am quite optimistic about the ability to
get started in those places 'cause in most
of them, my sense is that there would be a
strong interest in partnering with the Smithsonian.
There will, of course, be some places that
would be difficult to work for various reasons,
both political, safety and logistics, and
so on.
So those are things obviously that we'll need
to take into consideration as we develop the
plan.
>> I'm getting low on questions.
So, if there's things that are building in
your brains, we have more card.
Please raise your hand and ask them out [inaudible].
How do estuaries make clean water, isn't it
salty?
>> Oh, that's a good question.
How do estuaries make clean water, isn't its
salty?
Well this--it is in fact salt in some places
more than others.
And this shows to me that I wasn't being clear.
When I say clean water, I mean water that
is relatively free of sediment and debris
and pollutants.
So, what I mean by estuaries is making clean
water is that not the estuary per se, but
the vegetated habitats along the margins of
the estuaries.
Because as water comes in on high tide and
goes out on the low tide and pulls in those
areas, first of all the vegetation there slows
it down and that allows sediment and, you
know, mud and sand particles to fall out on
to the bottom.
Also, there many filter-feeding organisms
in there that are eating that stuff up.
And some of them are also concentrating the
pollutants, either in their own bodies or
down into the sediment.
And so that when the water eventually washes
out again, it's relatively cleaner in a sense
it doesn't have a lot of mud in it.
Sometimes the phytoplankton, the algae in
the water has been eaten by filter-feeders.
That's what I mean by clean.
It's still salty, I wouldn't drink it.
Yeah.
>> OK.
People who deny group of climate change seem
to be in positions of political power and
influence, what can be done to counter the
harm this people cause?
>> All right.
I'm going to read this question it's not my
question.
People who deny climate change seem to be
in positions of political power and influence,
what can be done to counter the harm this
people cause?
I just answered the question a few minutes
ago that I'm not getting political.
So, you know, I'm--it's probably if I just
don't even touch that.
But what I will say is that part of the reason
that there's argument about climate change
is because the data are inherently noisy,
you know.
It's understandable there's a very complex
problem.
I personally am quite convinced by the data
that that is happening in that we have problems
coming.
But I can understand that this is a difficult
issue.
This is one reason why I think the kinds of
things that we're talking about here are critically
important because the only way to really show
this is to have good data collected from a--from
a variety of different places where we can
really-- where we have really objective data
that shows what's happening.
And we really only have those kinds of records
on a long term from a couple of places at
this stage.
>> That's all the questions we have.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
