Marine Biology Vol. 1: Recent Episodes
Aquarium of the Pacific
Get in-depth information about current research in the field of marine biology in these short video podcasts from the Aquarium of the Pacific. This Long Beach, California-based institution hosts visiting lecturers in its Guest Speaker Series throughout the year. These experts share stories from the field, new insights about marine life, and knowledge they have gathered about the ocean and its inhabitants over years of study. Speakers include university researchers, explorers, acclaimed authors, journalists, nature photographers, and more.
Bruce Robison recorded this Aquacast at the Aquarium on August 13, 2013. Robison is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.
Edith Widder recorded this Aquacast at the Aquarium on August 27, 2013. Widder is a deep-sea explorer, oceanographer, marine biologist, and co-founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association.
Jim Hellemn recorded this Aquacast at the Aquarium on April 23, 2013. His photography has appeared in National Geographic magazine and at the American Museum of Natural History.
Aquacast recorded on July 25, 2013. Jesus Reyes discusses the pressures on California’s coastal aquatic environments derived from highly developed urban and residential zones and their diverse, extensive activities.
Aquacast recorded on June 19, 2013. Nicholas Fisher discusses the release of long-lived radionuclides from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan into the Pacific and the subsequent bioaccumulation of these contaminants in diverse marine biota.
Aquacast recorded on June 25, 2013. Asila Ghoul discussed a recent study of the sensory systems of sea otters and how these amphibious animals are adapted for an aquatic lifestyle.
Aquacast recorded on June 13, 2013. Richard Ellis discussed the broadbill swordfish, whose scientific name Xiphias gladius means “gladiator.”
Aquacast recorded on May 14, 2013. Rapid coastal development, water and air pollution, overfishing, bycatch, and habitat loss have all contributed to declines in shark populations. Chris Lowe, of California State University, Long Beach's Shark Lab, discussed federal and state agencies and regulations and how they have helped sharks recover.
Aquacast recorded at the Aquarium on May 7, 2013. After the earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Japan in 2010, ocean currents and wind brought debris across the Pacific Ocean to the shores of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Learn from Leslie Harris about the non-native plant and animal species attached to the debris that hitched a ride to our shores.
Differences in diet among individuals of the same species is increasingly recognized as an important component of diversity in food webs.
For twenty-eight years P. Dee Boersma, Ph.D., has studied the largest Magellanic Penguin colony in the world at Punta Tombo, Argentina.
Dr. Maddalena Bearzi takes viewers inside the world of a marine mammal field scientist. She offers a firsthand understanding of cetacean behavior, as well as the frustrations, delights, and creativity involved in dolphin research.
Painter, photographer, and naturalist J.J. L'Heureux shared her photographs and stories from her eleven years of annual expeditions to Antarctica during her lecture on March 20, 2012.
Dr. Ellen Prager presented stories and images about the organisms that inhabit the oceans' depths and how they are connected to our food supply, the economy, jobs, and in biomedical research and biotechnology in her lecture on January 19, 2012.
LuAnn Dahlman, who spoke at the Aquarium on September 22, 2011, spent a season at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, working with an international group of scientists and drillers who are doing this innovative research. Dahlman is part of the Communications and Education group at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office and develops climate-related educational materials.
Craig Heberer, who spoke at the Aquarium on October 11, 2011, works as a fisheries biologist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, Southwest Region, Sustainable Fisheries Division. He serves as the lead biologist for the Fishery Management Plan for U.S. West Coast Fisheries for Highly Migratory Species. Heberer was born and raised in San Pedro, California and grew up in the Croatian commercial tuna fishing industry.
Joe Roman spoke at the Aquarium on September 28, 2011 about his research into the ecological role of whales in the ocean. He is a conservation biologist, freelance writer, and researcher at the University of Vermont. His research appears in the journals Science, BioScience, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, among others.
Michele Westmorland, who spoke at the Aquarium on March 30, 2011, is a photojournalist with a twenty-year history of traveling the world documenting the marine life that inhabits the oceans. Her work has appeared in national and international publications, including National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Sport Diver, and Scuba Diving.
Dr. James Lindholm, who spoke at the Aquarium on April 27, 2011, is the James W. Rote Distinguished Professor of Marine Science and Policy and the founder and director of the Institute for Applied Marine Ecology at California State University, Monterey Bay. His research interests include the landscape ecology of fishes, the recovery of seafloor habitats following the cessation of fishing activity, and the design and efficacy of marine protected areas.
Dr. Milton Love, who spoke at the Aquarium on June 7, 2011, is a research biologist at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has conducted research on the marine fishes of California for over forty years. He has been a recreational angler since 1955 and was briefly a commercial fisherman in Santa Barbara.
Marc Shargel, who spoke at the Aquarium on June 28, 2011, has been diving along the California coast since 1978. He has been working as a professional marine life photographer for over twenty years. A longtime advocate for the adoption of marine reserves, Shargel served on the state's official advisory body, helping to select sites for marine protected areas along the southern central coast.
Janna Shackeroff, who spoke at the Aquarium on July 13, 2011, is the international coordinator for the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program, based in Silver Spring, Maryland. A Seal Beach native, she earned her Ph.D. in marine ecology and anthropology at Duke University in 2008, then began working for NOAA at a marine protected area in Hawaii. In 2010 the journal "Science" recognized Shackeroff as one of four emerging leaders in marine conservation.
Juliet Eilperin, who spoke at the Aquarium about sharks on July 27, 2011, joined The Washington Post in 1998 as its House of Representatives reporter. Since 2004 she has served as the Post’s national environmental reporter, reporting on science, policy, and politics in areas including climate change, oceans, and air quality.
David Helvarg is president of the Blue Frontier Campaign and the author of five books: The War Against the Greens, Blue Frontier, 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, Rescue Warriors, and Saved by the Sea. An award-winning journalist, he produced more than 40 broadcast documentaries for PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others.
Dr. Conrad is the professor of parasitology at the University of California, Davis, school of veterinary medicine. She is the recipient of several teaching and research awards and has written over 170 scientific publications. Involved with sea otter research since 1998, she directed the development of methods to detect, isolate, and unravel the life history of parasites that kill sea otters.
Eli Kintisch is a reporter for Science magazine, and has also written for Slate, Discover, MIT Technology Review and The New Republic. His reporting on geoengineering has included stories on Bill Gates funding planet-hacking research, DARPA exploring the idea, and a week-long historic meeting in 2010 to begin to draft voluntary rules on the concept. His new book, Hack the Planet, taps such first-hand experiences to draw a thorough portrait of this emerging field.
Lance Adams has served as the staff Veterinarian at the Aquarium of the Pacific since 2001. He earned his BS degree in animal science from Cal Poly Pomona and his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Kansas State University. His primary focus is to help keep the animals at the aquarium healthy from day to day and recommend animal care and preventative medicine practices for new species and exhibits.
Sanchirico is a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis and a nonresident fellow of Resources for the Future in Washington DC, non-profit environmental policy think-tank.
He received his Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Davis.
Dr. Tim Tinker is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the Western Ecological Research Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, and an adjunct Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz. Dr. Tinker is the project leader for Federal research on sea otters in California, and currently heads a multi-agency study investigating the factors limiting the recovery of this threatened sub-species.
George W. Benz is a Professor of Biology at Middle Tennessee State University. A native of New England, George earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Connecticut and was employed for 5 years as a Fisheries Biologist with the Connecticut Bureau of Fisheries. He has authored and edited over 100 scientific publications and his research has been the focus of articles in Discover, National Geographic, and Highlights for Children as well as other magazines and popular books.
Sims has a MS in zoology from the University of New South Wales and is the founding president of the Ocean Steward Institute. In this second video, Sims discusses sustainability in mariculture and the complex relationships that exist in the ocean.
Sims has a MS in zoology from the University of New South Wales and is the founding president of the Ocean Steward Institute. In this first video, Sims talks about the start of his career in marine biology while at the Cook Islands.
Corson is a former commercial lobster fisherman turned pop-science writer and culinary expert. He is a best-selling author and a judge on the Food Network's hit TV show Iron Chef America. He is known for his humorous and informative presentations on the creatures that compose our seafood.
Nate Jaros received his Bachelors Degree in Biology and Environmental Science form Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2002, Jaros began working as an aquarist at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, and found his specialty in the area of jelly culture. He accepted his position at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach in 2005. For over two years now he has successfully filled the Aquarium of the Pacific's exhibits with cultured jellies, and has sent many jellies to other aquariums.
Dr. William (Monty) Graham is a Senior Marine Scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab near Mobile, Alabama. He received his doctorate in Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1994. Dr. Graham has broad expertise in the field of Biological Oceanography and zooplankton ecology. His published works range from edited volumes of scientific papers to children's books on topics such as jellies behavior, feeding, and economic impacts of jelly blooms on fisheries. Most recently, his research has been on the role of climate in jellies-fish dynamics.
Eric Zahn, a local salt marsh ecologist and avid botanist, is a co-principal for ‘Tidal Influence' a company he founded to aid community groups and municipalities with their wetlands restoration efforts. Zahn is a lecturer in the Environmental Science and Policy Program at CSULB who has been one of the leaders focused on conserving coastal wetlands in Long Beach.
Dr. Barbara Taylor is a Supervisory Research Fish Biologist with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. She was the U.S. lead scientist on a tri-nation 2008 expedition designed to develop new acoustic monitoring methods and population estimates intended to assist Mexico in conservation efforts to save the vaquita. Taylor has been researching marine mammals for over 30 years.
Since 1998 Jeffrey Gallant and Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark, Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG) shark researchers, have pursued a mythical creature-the Greenland shark. These researchers use a multimedia presentation to tell the story of how two diving scientists searched for and ultimately found a population of Greenland sharks. Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark is the director of Geerg‘s Pacific region and director of the animal care center at the University of British Columbia.
James B. Wood, PhD is the Aquarium of the Pacific’s director of education. He has published numerous peer-reviewed and popular papers on cephalopod behavior, life history, physiology, and husbandry. Dr.Woods is webmaster of The Cephalopod Page, one of the longest running biological web sites and is a founding executive member and board member for MarineBio.org. He has worked with the Census of Marine Life since 1998 and co-developed one of their pilot species databases–CephBase.
Dr. Alex Hearn studied Oceanography and Marine Biology at Southampton University in the UK, and did his PhD at Heriot Watt University in the Orkney Islands. In 2002, he moved to the Galapagos Islands and worked as coordinator of fisheries research at the Charles Darwin Foundation. Hearn developed the Galapagos Shark Research and Conservation Program in 2006. He is currently working as a postdoctoral scholar at the Biotelemetry Laboratory of UC Davis.
Dr. Jeffrey Graham is a research physiologist and senior lecturer at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. His research has expanded from studies on the physiological and biological perspectives of sharks to include shark ecology and habitat research. In 2006, the Southern California Bight Elasmobranch Consortium was created and headquartered in his laboratory. Dr. Graham holds a PhD from the University of California San Diego, Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
Dr. Gregor Cailliet received a doctorate in Biological Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1972. That same year, he became a faculty member at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and has been there ever since. Dr. Cailliet presently serves as the Program Director of the Pacific Shark Research Center. He has served as an advisor to 100 masters students in the field of marine fish ecology and has also been very active in central California reserves or sanctuaries.
Chris Lowe has been studying sharks for over 20 years and currently runs the Shark Lab at CSULB where he was recently awarded Professor of the Year. Dr. Lowe’s research interests include the physiological and behavioral ecology of elasmobranchs and other gamefishes, as well as the role of marine refuges in fisheries conservation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in marine biology at Barrington College. He went on to get his masters in biology at CSULB. And he holds a PhD in zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The Aquarium of the Pacific is pleased to announce Brent Maxwell Ward as its 10th Anniversary Scholar in May for his efforts in marine science and conservation. Ward has shown a strong interest in marine biology and conservation. He studied ocean life and the tides during the summer in a NAACP sailing program. There, he learned to work with shipmates of all backgrounds. He has also volunteered at beach clean-ups at Colorado Lagoon. His interest in water extends to his participation in water polo and on the swim team. Maxwell wishes to study biology in college, and become an anesthesiologist.
Jesse Ausubel is a Program Director for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University in New York City. During the past decade he helped launch and lead three major international scientific programs in biodiversity science: the Census of Marine Life, the Barcode of Life Initiative, and the Encyclopedia of Life. Ausubel was a main organizer of the first UN World Climate Conference (Geneva, 1979), which substantially elevated global warming on scientific and political agendas.
Daniel Botkin is a scientist who studies life from a planetary perspective. He writes about nature, and is one of the world’s leading researchers who has helped solve major environmental issues. Dr. Botkin is a research professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California Santa Barbara and president of The Center for the Study of the Environment. For 39 years, as a Ph. D. ecologist, Botkin has tried to understand life on the Earth. He has studied moose in the far north, elephants in Africa, bowhead whales in the northern ocean, and forests in North and Central America. Botkin has worked as a professional journalist and has degrees in physics, biology, and literature.
Richard Ellis is one of America's leading marine conservationists, and is generally recognized as the foremost painter of marine natural history subjects in the world. His paintings of whales and sharks have appeared in Audubon, National Wildlife, Australian Geographic, the Encyclopedia Britannica,Sports Afield, and Reader's Digest among many others. In addition to painting, Mr. Ellis is the author of more than eighty magazine articles. In 2008, he published Tuna: A Love Story, and in 2009, On Thin Ice: The Polar Bear and Global Warming. His books have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Korean. He is currently serving as co-curator of Mythic Creatures for the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
For more than three decades, Peter Howorth has been involved in numerous nonprofit environmental organizations. He was president of the Santa Barbara Underseas Foundation, an organization devoted to education, conservation, and research involving the sea. He was a founding director and president of the Friends of Channel Islands National Park. Howorth has also been involved in numerous research projects with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He has the distinction of being their first staff associate. Since 1975, Howorth has been a member of the Shark Research Committee, which studies shark attacks on humans worldwide. Howorth's work with marine mammals earned him both state and federal Senatorial Commendations. His work has been featured in numerous television documentaries, ranging from Cousteau's "Rediscovery of the World" to Tom Brokaw's Nightly News.
Desray Reeb, Ph.D., is what is commonly called a whale hugger. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, where her research included studies of pygmy right whales, mike, humpback, and both northern and southern right whales. More recently she has participated in studies of the northern Pacific right whale in the Bering Sea and sperm whales and other cetaceans in the Gulf of California.
There are rescue animals, or animals that would not be able to survive in the wild, that reside at the Aquarium of the Pacific, including sea otters, sea lions, and other marine creatures. One of those is a recent addition to the Aquarium family, a sea lion named Odin. Despite the fact that Odin is nearly blind, he has acclimated to his new home quite nicely.