Hello and welcome to the Providence
College podcast
I'm your host Liz Kay and i'm joined by
producer Chris Judge of the class of
2005. Here at the Providence College
podcast we bring you interesting stories
from the Friar Family.
This week we're chatting with Dr. Jack Costello
of the Department of Biology who
is finishing up his 30th year at PC Jack
whose specialty is marine biology has
spent decades studying how sea creatures
move he just returned from a research
trip studying comb jellies and American
Samoa thanks to a grant from the
National Science Foundation
Jack, thanks so much for joining us and welcome back
to Friartown!
-Oh thanks Liz
Can you tell us about your trip What were studying in America Samoa?
My goal was to study gelatinous soap
plankton and the reason that I went to
American Samoa was because it's really
out in the middle of the ocean it's just
this little speck out there it turns out
it wasn't as easy to study those
planktonic animals there as I planned
because it's a little difficult to get
outside the coral reef there and the
reef fringes the entire island and the
surf is quite high, so for what we had a
problem doing that and then it turned
out that we weren't really seeing the
animals I was looking for so I spent a
lot of time free diving and looking at
reefs and fish so we work not only on
gelatinous animals we also work on
propulsion by all kinds of aquatic
animals including fish and so it was a
good chance for me to go to step back
and look at how animals move and a wide
variety of animals so it turned out to
be wonderful and it was one of those
times where I could just let the natural
world tell me what was going on instead
of approaching it with a series of tests
and hypothesis that I had in mind
Liz: So you could kind of go back to a blank slate
Jack: Yeah and I think
that's an important thing too
- because too often I feel that I
approach things with a frame of mind as
if I know what's going on and in some
cases I do but a lot of times there's a
much bigger story than the vision that I
have of that and so it was it was a very
good opportunity to step back from that
and then we came back and we're back in
Providence for a couple of weeks and
went down to Bermuda to the Bermuda
Institute of ocean sciences which is
also a reef system but is much easier to
get outside the reefs and the animals
that were looking for are really there
and so we've got a good chance to start
I'm working on those and and looking at
it I really wanted to see about it as a
site going forward because I'm involved
in a program where we do field work on
these organisms for the next three years
so I wanted to find a good site for that
and why do this work in the field can
you could you bring them back sure the
the whole premise of this project is the
the work that has to be done in the
field here's why you consider laboratory
work and what we learn in laboratorian
we have learned a lot in the laboratory
but really very few animals are amenable
to laboratory work very few animals can
be cultured of the vast array that are
out there very few can be worked with in
the laboratory and that's particularly
true for gelatinous organisms these are
these are animals that live out in the
middle of the ocean where there are no
walls and never have been and they use
water as their support system they don't
have skeletons they don't they have very
what we would call flimsy bodies and
they lived throughout the world's oceans
and in many
they apparently dominate those but now
let's take a step back we know that
they're there it's difficult to sample
them because if you put a net down it
dices them up like jelly so we know that
they're there from particularly remotely
operated vehicles and underwater methods
but how do we get any measurements about
what they're doing you can't put them in
jars and take them in the laboratory
they don't react well they don't they
don't you can't grow them first of all
no controlled experiments like that so
what we have done is modify the optical
methods and measurements that we make in
the laboratory so that we can do it all
underwater in other words we can't take
them to our laboratory so we have
invented ways to take our laboratory
underwater to them and so we need a good
what I was looking for was a good site
to do that and I think we found one for
Liz: Bermuda, not American Samoa Jack: Yes
Jack: Well American Samoa, it's really the place we went I liked it
because it was so remote it's really
pretty much of an outpost not easy to
work at whereas Bermuda is we may have
found another good site in Florida as
well so so I think we're in good shape
to do this work it's it will be
demanding to do it because it all has to
be done underwater doing work underwater
is logistically
really difficult it requires both
support and
travel time and a number of things but I
I think we were pretty good at that I
Liz: I wonder could you tell us how you got
inspired to study animal motion and
propulsion in the first place and
particularly in gelatinous animals so
we're talking about gelatinous
organisms were talking about jellyfish
and comb jellies
Jack: yeah it started out
from a very ecological standpoint um my
real question was what are these animals
doing there what allows them to survive
what at times makes them really numerous
just essential questions in ecology we'd
like to know who's there and how often
and why and so with jellyfish one of the
things that I noticed was that their
capture of prey depended upon swimming
and in the sense that the way that they
capture prey is by moving water so that
the prey run into their tentacles and
capture surfaces that was pretty much
the beginning of being interested in
interface between animals and their
fluid world and once starting down that
path realized really needed to find
methods that would allow us to when I
say asked my colleagues and myself
including former students students other
professionals really we needed a way to
observe that and that meant we had to
find ways to measure water flow around
animals and that was the beginning of it
and since then it's just sort of
followed its own path
Liz: There's really
interesting applications to your
research I mean what what we're learning
what you're learning in your lab about
the way jellyfish move in the water, how have people been working on applying that knowledge?
Now see we really started with jellyfish
because I was interested in the
ecological phenomena of jellyfish yeah
of jellyfish blooms like why do they show
up when they show up and and what are
they doing out there and so we start to
look at those very basic questions and
what we found as we develop methods to
look at how an animal interacts with
fluid was that in fact jellyfish were a
very good model because they are one of
the simplest animal designs there there
we tend to call them very primitive and
and in an evolutionary sense they're one
of the earliest animal groups that we
know of their record for forms that look
pretty similar to current day forms
stretches back over 500 million years so
they've been around for a long time
they've been successful for a long time
yet they don't have what we consider
complex body forms like a number of fish
that they're they don't have lots of
fins and a variety of other structures
and they really can't produce force the
way that mussels and fish do so there
they're just not as complicated and so
when their bodies are moving they
represent really a very stripped-down
version of animals and the basics of
propulsion and motion so they've turned
out to be a very useful and instructive
model for animal motion and answering
questions about whether flexibility for
example of tissues affects propulsive
design they've been very useful for
understanding
how an organism maneuvers and it
remarkably it turns out that many of the
principles seem to be similar for a wide
variety of animal groups
it's just with jellyfish they're so easy
to observe and work with and they don't
have the complex array of speed and
agility that a number of fish do so it
makes it actually easier to work with
Liz: that's really neat in terms of the idea
of just this is the the very basic kind
of yes was one of the early we think
about even more primitive organisms
they're often kind of static right you
know but but these move right and so
it's kind of one of the earliest forms
of animal that developed Jack: we think that they're probably the
first muscle powered swimmers Tinafors are propelled by cilia suddenly they do
have muscles and there are some muscular
motions they perform but medusae are
jellyfish which are even though they're
gelatinous they're a totally different
group than Tinafors or comb jellies
the medusae rely upon muscular motion
to move and so in that way they're
we think probably the first group to
develop that and they did so with what
we consider very basic muscular tissues
they don't have the complex muscle
structure that we have they don't have
the complex neural structure that
further percent so in order to swim they
have to be very efficient and and for
that reason they've been a really good
model and the things that you're
learning about these really efficient
swimmers so they don't take a lot of
energy but you know a jellyfish bloom
can occur and kind of take over a bay or
Harbor or a body of water right right
when when your body is comprised mostly
of water and with very few complex
tissues that's a big advantage for
converting what you eat into more of
your body tissue it they're mostly water
and very dilute organic material and so
they don't take a lot of organic
material to produce a lot of body tissue
that's one of the advantages of a
gelatinous design it has some
disadvantages they don't have the
agility or capability for a lot of the
complex motions and activities that what
we call more advanced animals have but
their ability to convert what they eat
into body tissue is rather remarkable
and there have been a number of
collaborators who've been interested in
kind of adapting what you've learned to
apply to autonomous vehicles for example
right yeah it's it's um it's surprising
to me to see at this point other
researchers are using some of those
principles to do really very remarkable
work and so it gives us a chance to
contribute to a growing body of
knowledge that is well it's really
gratifying thing as a scientist well if
that if the Navy for example wanted to
develop some unmanned vehicles to go
underwater some of these principles
might be yeah
and we call that we call that a
transition from from basic research
where we're looking at essential
principles that underlie organism
function that's the realm that we're
usually working in
but it can be translated into other
functional designs and engineered
designs so we do some of that work we
provide some of the information to do
that and I'm on a project where we we
are working with engineers and an
engineering firm to build a vehicle
using and the premise is that the
efficiency of motion of jellyfish is
useful particularly for a vehicle that
just wants to stay in a one relative
position for a long time so we call that
station-keeping
and if you want to have a mooring for
example that stays in an area but it's
in deep water so it's very hard to
actually more it or anchor it you can do
that with propellers and and all but the
problem is that those require energy and
they have to be serviced quite often and
so one of the goals is to extend the
period of time that you can put it out
there without servicing it and refueling
so efficiency energy efficiency becomes
an important criteria it's not as if you
want to go someplace fast if you want to
go someplace faster torpedos really a
great design right but it's not
energetically very efficient if you just
want a station keep maneuver stay in a a
general area then the designs that we're
looking at in nature are very effective
so if you wanted to monitor the weather
near of weather it's the wrong word
underwater the temperature or some other
conditions yeah buoys that that might go
that you might want to vertically
migrate that is move up and down in the
water column sample in the water column
but come up to the surface signal send
some kind of signal to satellite
reception and and stay out there and
just keep doing that much like
modern-day buoys do already but just try
and do it more energetically efficiently
reduce that kind of maintenance that
you'd need yeah it's not it's so in this
case it's it's no pie secrecy covert
operation it's just an effort to build a
more efficient system than what we have
so Jack you done this work on all your
research trips and you've traveled
around the world to study these
gelatinous creatures but you also do
your research on campus and at the
Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods
Hole in the summers right yeah can you
tell us about what that's like to be
part of that scientific community there
great yeah it's it's a different
environment than Providence College
Providence College we love because it's
very contained and very focused really
and the work that I my students do here
tends to be very focused on distinct
processes that we can look at in the
laboratory when we go to the Marine
Biological Laboratory the range of
equipment is different and the range of
people we work with is different that is
we have lots of we have visitors from
colleagues from California and Oregon
and Florida and Brazil and Europe that
visit us and we work together on
projects and we have that laboratory as
as part of it a number of optical
approaches that we keep there that I
share with my colleague Sean :
it's our joint lab and so we bring
oftentimes undergraduates it depends it
depends on the project the students and
the type of support that we have but
often we'll have
students postdoctoral scholars other
people and it's it's more of of an
intellectual soup type of environment
there's just a lot going on and we
invent a lot of things there are new
ideas new methods new ways to analyze
data that we already have that's taken
optically but it's led to a variety of
different kinds of results and it's
pretty unpredictable so it's it's really
fun it's it's a never know what's gonna
happen well I was just about to ask you
about the role of undergraduate
researchers in your lab and Shawn is
probably a great example because he's a
PC alum himself for it he is we worked
together for quite a while and and Shawn
traveled with me at that point we I was
working at Friday Harbor laboratories
out in Washington more but then he went
off and went to a master's program
somewhere else and then a ph.d program
somewhere else and then went and taught
so he went and was very successful in
all these other endeavors but we stayed
in contact and then ultimately just
started working together and then just
work together as a pair for quite a
while now and maintain this lab together
and all of our projects are pretty much
joint projects did you come with you on
your most recent research trips
no no because this has been sabbatical
the poor guy has to work somebody has to
ya know so you know this was and he said
sabbatical and does things independently
so we share components but we both have
different institutions and
in different plans and and timing we
just always try and share a time down at
the NBL working together and we're in
constant contact fortunately in Roger
Williams University is where Sean works
is very close so we try and keep in
contact
it's amazing how absorbing work is
during the year though you you think
that just because we're close that we'll
spend a lot of time working that way but
but really once our semester start will
pretty much focused at our own
institutions what else have some of the
alumni of your lab gone on to do if
you've sent a lot off to grad school for
marine biology between biology and
ecology quite a few some there's
oceanographers at NOAA in Washington
biostatisticians the Providence biology
department has a large number of medical
students and medically oriented so many
amazingly many of our students go there
but others also Patti Schilling is a co
trainer at the New England Aquarium so
the diversity of what people do is quite
quite an impressive really broad array
of things that people follow up and and
head into afterwards some go right into
graduate school and in phd's many people
try out a variety of different jobs and
so were we have probably great
representation in biomed fields but also
ecology oceanography yeah
so it's pretty diverse very impressive
your own career did you always think you
were going to be a marine biologist was
that your ambition
growing up you know when I was a little
kid I want to be a veterinarian and so
I've always been interested in animals
in nature and then something happened to
me I'm not sure what that led me to more
to fieldwork part part of it was as an
undergraduate doing fieldwork and and
working with some faculty that really
made decisive differences in my career
and though that was really influential
my undergraduate time was when I was
most how can I say unfocused and I
wasn't necessarily a good bet because my
priorities were not always towards
academics and so I sort of I had a
actually a very spotty academic record
but some faculty members really took me
under their wing and that made all the
difference I had great experience out in
the field and that turned my direction
that way by the time I got to graduate
schools very directed so it didn't it
wasn't too hard for graduate mentors for
me to me the fundamental fundamentally
important place was undergraduate that's
really interesting because I my
understanding is that you didn't start
off as a science major no no I didn't I
I started off as an English literature
major and mainly because I liked reading
and I liked writing and so it was fun
and I took biology courses men because I
was interested in biology but I didn't I
wasn't very interested in chemistry or
calculus I was just doing it for fun and
then at some point I realized I actually
would prefer to do this so I had a lot
of catch-up that was in my junior year
that I decided to switch majors and I
had to pile in all the courses so the
rest of my time was at college was
fairly intense with courses but I loved
it I and I my senior year right I was
taking five biology courses to fill in
and it was great I love that part of it
so that was pretty instructive to me
about what I would enjoy spending my
time doing there's probably some analogy
there about being able to switch gears
that we could think about and being
being turn on a dime which a jellyfish
wouldn't want to do yeah and I think
partly it's one of the things I like
about a liberal arts education why I
believe in liberal arts education that
ability to to think from a number of
fields and the mental agility to switch
between them I think is quite important
at least I appreciate it sorry and I
appreciated that I could do that because
that's how much of a difference it's
made perfect segue to ask you about you
know after so many decades of being a PC
professor you're also a PC parent as
well yeah so so both your daughter's
attended PC they did I think that they
were the two the class of 2012 and but
neither of them started at PC I didn't
realize they both had attended public
school in Providence and even though
they've gone to all hockey games and
sports here thought it'd be best for me
to go someplace else for college and so
they started at other places and moved
around but by sophomore year both of
them more back here
what was it like to be on sort of the
other end of the table as a parent
enrolling your child here as opposed to
being a faculty member you know it's an
it's an interesting difference because
as a parent you tend to be more
protective and as a faculty member I had
always scorned protective parents so it
was a conflict that way but not much of
one because really they were off on
their own and they lived in the dorms so
they didn't live at home and they
weren't biology majors so they were
there were both over in the art
department and so the amount of we had
to actually organize ourselves to
intersect each other it was very easy
and and they just had a really good
experience so it was pretty easy to be a
parent with kids at the institution it
was fun actually I was a interesting
insight to hear about SIF and other
things well it's interesting because you
know PCC is a pretty small school but
the fact that you know you're both on a
campus with less than you know about
4,000 students and you still didn't have
paths and intersected all the time is no
yeah just we would pass sometimes and I
remember one time my daughter Elise was
with a friend and at least stopped to
talk with me and and afterwards her
friend Sam you know who was that guy and
at least explained because her friend
was taken aback that the familiarity
that that seemed to show and between us
but she and her friend had no idea that
her father was a faculty member I mean
that was pretty new when she was when
she had been here very
yeah which I you've you've been able to
travel all over the world and study
animals in the ocean
I'm just curious all for these these
decades since you've started your
research how have the oceans changed and
what do you feel are the biggest threats
to the ecosystems that you've been
studying I don't see I don't experience
a lot of the negative changes directly
because the places I go tend to be
places that are more pristine or oceanic
or so it's not really something that I'm
experiencing so much except that we've
done work that depends completely on
climate change in that we were looking
at the seasonality of Tina force in
Narragansett Bay and one of the one that
we're trying to explain why some years
they show up very early and as
background tina force sometimes called
sea walnuts or they're their predators
gelatinous partners they're the the non
stinging gelatinous organisms that are
really numerous here August through the
beginning of October if you go swimming
down anywhere in the bay you'll run into
it but they don't sting okay they're
they don't sting us they're predators
and they eat crustaceans and and fish
eggs and essentially anything they can
in the water column and by doing that
they can have a major effect on the
plankton community which affects fish
and they can be a very dominant
influence in the community structure and
our goal was to find out what is causing
their variations from year to year and
one of the things that we found was that
a overwinter in shallow waters and so in
years where the spring started early and
what that were warm they would warm them
up warm up early and reproduce early and
and then spread out into the bay and
affect the planktonic community early
and that that affected which copepods
were present and whether there were
cocoa pods essentially cocoa pods are
small crustaceans that are an essential
part of the community here and also
surface food for developing fish so when
the Tina for show up early they take out
the cocoa pods and that influences
what's left for the rest of the
community as food source and what we
found was okay for mirs it's pretty
simple it warms up their breeding
grounds and they are then available
early throughout the the bay cold years
on the other hand they don't start until
later in the year and so there's a a
window of time where things where the
crustacean copepods can become numerous
and develop and have what the type of
community that was characteristic of
Narragansett Bay 25 years ago but is
often not characteristic in present
times because of these warming patterns
that are particularly influential in
shallow water breeding grounds so so
actually things like climate change have
almost inescapably become part of all of
our research even if it's not the intent
it's such an ever-present component of
systems that it's part of our work
I'm curious what changes you've made
personally in your own life knowing that
this is a factor essentially I I try and
live with as small an environmental
impact as possible and it's it's the the
changes that we've made when I say we've
because it's my wife and my family all
are part of it a lot of the changes are
really pretty easy
for example we we don't have a car
anymore I bike we live in the city we
live in on the east side so it's not
hard to do and fortunately in cities
there's ride-sharing zip cars are
completely adequate for us so
transportation we is one thing we try
and live pretty simply that includes
food we lead a vegetarian life and so
minimize our use of really our use of
resources that way those are those
aren't those haven't been really hard
changes for us would be probably it
would be great if for transportation if
we never went anywhere but there's
trade-offs that we make and so those are
some of what we've done we we just
basically try and live a pretty direct
and simple life within the framework
that that we have and it doesn't feel
like we're in any way restricted may not
be driving our car around town but
you're saving up those the carbon for
that trip across yes right I mean
there's there that's that's where
there's trade-offs there's always
there's always ways to improve and what
we're doing and some of the decisions
that we make are
um we'd like if there was a more
energy-efficient and less
environmentally impactful way to do
things but in order to achieve other
goals we make the compromise that's
available well you're one of among good
crew of PC faculty who bikes to campus
so I think you should feel proud that
there others making someone yeah I was
glad to see it and also these um these
really brightly colored bikes from the
bike stations that are around town or
the jump bikes yeah yeah yeah they they
look really really interesting so and
I've been very encouraged to see the
rise of in popularity of this Jack thank
you so much for being on the podcast
it's been great chatting with you about
all you've learned in these these years
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