It's Complicated: The Lives of Dolphins & Scientists

The conference was winding down, and most attendees were heading home. But at a far end of the convention center in downtown San Diego last year, one room had drawn a late crowd: Two preeminent cetacean scientists were arguing that dolphins were too smart, and way too much like us, to capture or kill. At the high-profile annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conferring what amounted to personhood on dolphins was a professionally risky act.  

Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and cetacean expert at Emory University, kicked things off, her soft features belying her outsize thesis: Pound for pound, dolphins are better endowed with gray matter than most primates, falling just short of humans, and the neocortex of their brain is just as complex as our own. Marino’s former mentor and close friend, Diana Reiss, a dolphin researcher at Hunter College in New York City, spoke next. Kinetic where Marino was calm, her jet-black hair contrasting sharply with Marino’s gentle brown, Reiss spoke in more urgent tones. She described her seminal work, conducted with Marino, showing that dolphins could recognize themselves in a mirror, evidence of self-awareness seen until then only in primates and elephants. Treating such creatures as little more than seafood with blowholes was no longer acceptable, in her view. “We face an ethical impasse,” Marino said.

Much of the audience arrived already receptive to the message. A shocking documentary called The Cove, which would win an Oscar two weeks hence, had already alerted the world to the practice of rounding up dolphins by the thousands and hacking them to death, preventing them from competing with fishermen in the Japanese town of Taiji. At the end of the talks, Reiss dimmed the lights and amped up the mood with an even grittier sequence shot by the German advocacy group Atlantic Blue: Dolphins were dragged behind a big blue tarp in bundles held together at the tail, like bananas. Japanese fishermen shoved three-foot poles through the backs of their heads and then pushed wooden dowels into the wounds. The dolphins were already dying, but the dowels stanched the telltale blood that would otherwise drench the lagoon.

After the clip ran, one scientist stood and declared in a huff that activism had no place in science. But others lingered for hours, discussing the concept that dolphins were people—not quite like us, but people all the same.

Later that evening, Marino and Reiss met for drinks at a local hotel. For 20 years they had worked together, turning the study of dolphin cognition into a legitimate branch of science. As part of a tight community of serious marine biologists, they had helped rescue their fledgling field from New Age ignominy, fiercely imposing rigor where pseudoscience once reigned and proving that dolphins possess a complex intelligence comparable to our own. But as with some of their predecessors—researchers long since rejected by the broad scientific community—Marino and Reiss risked being branded as extremists or flakes. By 2010 the dolphins, too, had been their friends for decades. As the night wore on, the two scientists returned to the topic of the Japanese drives. The science had led them here, they said, and advocating for the dolphins was their only moral choice.

The meeting in San Diego may have seemed like the beginning of a new era in the battle for dolphin rights, but for two close friends it marked an end. By the time the year was out, the relationship was fractured, with Reiss insisting that science often required working with captive dolphins, regardless of their intelligence, and Marino calling that viewpoint morally wrong. Marino was so offended by Reiss’s stance that she wrote a letter to The New York Times calling her a hypocrite. For Reiss and Marino the break has been personal, but for science it forces out into the open a deep professional question: How close can a scientist get to her experimental subjects or her fellow researchers before objectivity itself disappears?

What Are Coral Reefs?

The mention of coral reefs generally brings to mind warm climates, colorful fishes and clear waters. However, the reef itself is actually a component of a larger ecosystem. The coral community is really a system that includes a collection of biological communities, representing one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. For this reason, coral reefs often are referred to as the "rainforests of the oceans."

Corals themselves are tiny animals which belong to the group cnidaria (the "c" is silent). Other cnidarians include hydras, jellyfish, and sea anemones. Corals are sessile animals, meaning they are not mobile but stay fixed in one place. They feed by reaching out with tentacles to catch prey such as small fish and planktonic animals. Corals live in colonies consisting of many individuals, each of which is called polyp. They secrete a hard calcium carbonate skeleton, which serves as a uniform base or substrate for the colony. The skeleton also provides protection, as the polyps can contract into the structure if predators approach. It is these hard skeletal structures that build up coral reefs over time. The calcium carbonate is secreted at the base of the polyps, so the living coral colony occurs at the surface of the skeletal structure, completely covering it. Calcium carbonate is continuously deposited by the living colony, adding to the size of the structure. Growth of these structures varies greatly, depending on the species of coral and environmental conditions-- ranging from 0.3 to 10 centimeters per year. Different species of coral build structures of various sizes and shapes ("brain corals," "fan corals," etc.), creating amazing diversity and complexity in the coral reef ecosystem. Various coral species tend to be segregated into characteristic zones on a reef, separated out by competition with other species and by environmental conditions

Virtually all reef-dwelling corals have a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with algae called zooxanthellae. The plant-like algae live inside the coral polyps and perform photosynthesis, producing food which is shared with the coral. In exchange the coral provides the algae with protection and access to light, which is necessary for photosynthesis. The zooxanthellae also lend their color to their coral symbionts. Coral bleaching occurs when corals lose their zooxanthellae, exposing the white calcium carbonate skeletons of the coral colony. There are a number of stresses or environmental changes that may cause bleaching including disease, excess shade, increased levels of ultraviolet radiation, sedimentation, pollution, salinity changes, and increased temperatures.

Because the zooxanthellae depend on light for photosynthesis, reef building corals are found in shallow, clear water where light can penetrate down to the coral polyps. Reef building coral communities also require tropical or sub-tropical temperatures, and exist globally in a band 30 degrees north to 30 degrees south of the equator. Reefs are generally classified in three types. Fringing reefs, the most common type, project seaward directly from the shores of islands or continents. Barrier reefs are platforms separated from the adjacent land by a bay or lagoon. The longest barrier reefs occur off the coasts of Australia and Belize. Atolls rest on the tops of submerged volcanoes. They are usually circular or oval with a central lagoon. Parts of the atoll may emerge as islands. Over 300 atolls are found in the south Pacific.

Coral reefs provide habitats for a large variety of organisms. These organisms rely on corals as a source of food and shelter. Besides the corals themselves and their symbiotic algae, other creatures that call coral reefs home include various sponges; molluscs such as sea slugs, nudibranchs, oysters, and clams; crustaceans like crabs and shrimp; many kinds of sea worms; echinoderms like star fish and sea urchins; other cnidarians such as jellyfish and sea anemones; various types of fungi; sea turtles; and many species of fish.