Recommendations for Pandemic Stay-at-home Reading, by Don Orth

During my stay-at-home time, many things have changed, but reading at home is still a welcome escape. There is only so much binge-watching of Grey’s Anatomy and Bosch that I can take.  I have a stack of books to read when I’m not in a zoom meeting, writing papers, teaching online, reviewing student work, and shopping online. Here I share some books that might be of interest to you.

I realize the precarious nature of small, independent booksellers as I often rely on Amazon to deliver books. In 2011 Amazon was estimated to have sold around 22.6% of the books in the U.S. and today is likely higher (Minzesheimer 2011). If the loss of independent booksellers concerns you, try Indiebound.org and find an independent bookstore near you. 

Reading Shelf April 22, 2020.

The following are among the top non-fiction books on my reading list:

Flaws: Shark Bites and Emotional Public Policymaking, by Christopher L. Pepin-Neff (2019).  

If you are interested in the tragic accidents of shark bites and how politicians respond in the name of public safety, then read this account. He develops an emotion-policy framework that is applied to three case studies of policymaking. The human-shark relationship is changing in a post-Jaws era and much more attention is being placed on “Save the Sharks” efforts.

Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez, by Brooke Bessesen (2018).

The small vaquita porpoise, first described in 1958, is the world’s most endangered marine mammal. Banning gill net fishing was its last hope — until illegal fishing for swim bladders of totoaba, a large drum, doomed recovery.  The book chronicles the many people and places engaged in this last-ditch effort.  

Vaquita porpoise  Photo Natural History Magazine CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Being Salmon, Being Human: Encountering the Wild in Us and Us in the Wild, by Martin Lee Mueller (2017)

A story of how salmon influence people, cultural and tribal lore, honoring nature, and why wild caught salmon change us. This book reminds us of our essential humanness as one of many strands in the world. Mueller provides a thoughtful narrative on the human-salmon relationship and interpretations from major philosophers as he contributes to a growing literature on ecophilosophy.

Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir, by Callum Roberts (2019)

Callum Roberts is a scientist who spends his time studying tropical coral reefs.  To pick up and read this is to listen and watch as he details life on a coral reef.  He begins with his earliest recollections exploring waters of the Red Sea of Saudi Arabia and takes the reader to many remote marine parks detailing what makes these reefs special.  A world without coral reefs is considered in the final chapter.

Swarthy Parrotfish Scarus niger is one of several herbivorous fishes that Roberts studied in the Red Sea during his doctoral studies.  Photo CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Matter & Desire: An Erotic Ecology, by Andreas Weber (2017)

Andreas Weber is a biologist, philosopher, and nature writer who believes the root cause of environmental problems is the alienation between people and nature. He argues and demonstrates that feelings and emotions are the foundation of life.  Hence, being alive is an erotic process. This book continues to explore his thesis that meaning, expression and emotion helps us understand the basic framework of life.  Read this is if you can be convinced that living beings should not simply be natural resource.

Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life, by Lulu Miller (2020) 

This book is about one of the most prolific and influential early ichthyologists in North America. David Starr Jordan (1851-1933) will be a familiar person to any serious student of the fishes. However, this story explores many aspects of his life and struggles that have not previously been revealed.  While I had heard about the catastrophic loss of his fish collections in an earthquake, I never knew of the darkness of his personality, his dismissal from Stanford, his views on eugenics, and a possible murder coverup.  Miller writes about struggles that Jordan endured and reveals much about her own struggles to remain creative in the face of adversity.     

Fishing: How the Sea Fed Civilization, by Brian Fagan (2018)  

 Fishing is the last major source of food from the wild. Brian Fagan reviews over a million years of fishing in the wild, from subsistence to commercial overfishing.  You will find this of interest if you care about the significance of fishing in our cultural development.  Fagan draws from many contributions from archaeological research and discussions with modern fishers to explore past and present patterns of exploitation.  Read this to appreciate the complexities of conserving ocean resources while fishing depleted oceans.

The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, by Ian Urbina, August 20, 2019

The Outlaw Ocean introduces us to many bad players in the world of fisheries as it reviews maritime and fisheries laws. It’s not an easy read as Urbina reveals the scope of illegal fishing, modern-day slavery, dumping, murder, and gun running on fishing vessels. His journeys reflect the unsettling reality that modern laws do not apply in many places in the ocean.  I came away with a deeper knowledge of the real cost of cheap seafood.

What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins, by Jonathan Balcombe (2017)   

 We know so very little about fish cognition, emotion, and perceptions.   Do fish play?  Do moray eels plan their hunting excursions? Do wrasse learn?  Can fish suffer?  Do bass recognize faces? These and many other questions are not explored in Ichthyology texts.  Increasingly, researchers are exploring fish behavior with more rigorous methods.   Jonathan Balcombe is a behaviorist who makes our current knowledge of the fishes easier to understand.  As a result, we have a newfound respect for the capabilities of fish.

Prophetic investigations of conditions leading to past pandemics in book by David Quammen.  Photo by Bernard Goldbach CC BY 2.0

 

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, by David Quammen (2012)  

 Written before the emergence of COVID-19, this is a timely read. David Quammen examined outbreaks of SARS, MERS, AIDS and visits the experts. We learn that a virus can become pathogenic in a nonhuman animal and then jump to humans. We learn that a relatively harmless version of virus can jump from bats to another animal and then to humans.  More than one intermediate animal species could be involved in transmission.  Human are expanding and living in closer proximity to wild animals. Once in the human population, a virus can evolve to become potentially dangerous.  Spillover was a prophetic book and foreshadowed the emergence of a deadly pandemic, in this case COVID-19. 

The Curious Death of Peter Artedi: A Mystery in the History of Science, by Theodore W. Pietsch (2010)  

Peter Artedi is often referred to as the father of Ichthyology. Unfortunately, Artedi died before his life's work was completed.  His studies on fish were eventually published by his friend and colleague, Carl Linneaus.  This book is a fictional account of the events before and after Artedi's untimely demise. 

I also recommend some fiction to help you avoid the news of the day.

Razor Girl, Bad Monkey, or Double Whammy, by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiassen writes of quirky characters centered in south Florida.   Double Whammy is one of the most memorable. One of the quirky characters is a private detective who investigates a suspected cheater in bass fishing tournaments. The double whammy is a bass fishing lure, found on a dead body in the beginning of the story. Double Whammy was also on a list of books banned in Texas prisons—I’m not making this up!  Hiassen’s reaction to hearing the news was  “I confess to feeling flattered that I made the Texas list.”

The Guardians, by John Grisham (2019), follows innocence workaholic attorney-and-Episcopal-priest named Cullen Post as he attempts to free a convicted murderer on death row.

Blue Moon, by Lee Child (2019). Jack Reacher has no particular place to go and all the time in the world to get there.  Reacher says "once in a blue moon things turn out just right.”  This wasn't one of those times when Jack Reacher helped an elderly man who turned out to be paying his loan shark.  Reacher, never off duty, cannot leave that one alone.  

The Night Fire, by Michael Connelly (2020), is the latest crime novel that features detective Harry Bosch.  Even if you haven't read previous novels by Connelly, you can pick up this book which pairs
the now retired and ever stubborn Harry Bosch with Detective Renée Ballard. Even in retirement, Harry lives by his credo that "Everybody counts, or nobody counts.”  

Lyra and the Adventure of the Flying Fish, by Peter Emina, illustrated by Alice Ridley (2011), is a story inspired by and about Lyra McConnell.  Lyra was born premature at 24 weeks, 5 days, and weighed only 1 pound and 10 ounces. The story is a fictional account of the adventures of Lyra  that demonstrate a sense of adventure and determination in this little girl that must have started in her incubator.  Lyra and her friend, W. Rabbit, explore many fishy worlds. It's a great story about a young girl and adventures with her snorkel.

  

References

Minzesheimer, B. 2011.  Is there hope for small bookstores in a digital age?  USA Today February 10, 2011.  Available at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2011-02-10-1Abookstores10_CV_N.htm {accessed on April 22, 2020}

BOOK REVIEW Are You Ready for More Underwater Adventures? by Don Orth

Snorkeling Rivers and Streams: An Aquatic Guide to Underwater Discovery and Adventure, by Keith Williams, Stackpole Books, Guilford, Connecticut. Release date March 1, 2020.   224 pages.  ISBN-10: 0811738450 ISBN-13: 978-0811738453.  Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 inches.

When you see a river or stream, do you want to explore it?  Do you wonder what lives there?  Do you feel the river calling to you to get wet?   If you answered yes, to any of these questions, then I have a book for you.  Snorkeling Rivers and Streams: An Aquatic Guide to Underwater Discovery and Adventure, by Keith Williams, is an invitation to explore the many secrets that lie beneath the water's surface.   

Keith Williams is executive director of NorthBay, an outdoor educational program.  He has snorkeled extensively in rivers across the United States, has developed river snorkeling-based science curriculum, and works with the U.S. Forest Service to develop river snorkeling programs. This new book helps you to understand how to see beneath the water surface with a mask and snorkel.  There are twelve chapters, ten about specific fish you may encounter via snorkeling, and one chapter on frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, and gators, and one chapter on benthic macroinvertebrates.  The reader will learn about many types of animals seen when snorkeling.   However, the book must leave out many fishes in order to keep the book reasonable short and accessible.   I found a broad and national representation of fish groups so the reader will not be bored.  Salmon, lamprey, eels, darters, minnows, tomcods, sculpins, herring, quillback, shad, sunfish, and bass are dominant fishes described in the book.  These provide ample opportunities for fish watching and specific issues and people related to the conservation and restoration of these fish. You meet many people on snorkeling adventures.  One that Keith Williams met was Elmer Crow, a Nez Perce elder who shared his philosophy— “We are the circle. That’s what life is about. So when one of us is in trouble, that’s when the rest of us need to step in.”

The introduction uses a story of Keith instructing a young student to find and identify a small fish.   After seeing and identifying a new species for the first time, she stops and asks “How can we conserve something if we don’t know it’s there?”   The introduction illustrates that the focus on this book is educational.  This student quickly got the message and understood that in order to protect a stream, we need to know and appreciate and love it.  Watching and experiencing aquatic animals means we must watch and experience their life in its habitat.   The introduction provides thorough descriptions of gear, safety, snorkel etiquette, and where to go, before providing a message for conservation.  Throughout the book, it’s clear that conservation starts with snorkeling.  

Each of the chapters provides useful information on where to go and how to observe the fish or other animal in its habitat.   Specific locations for planning your next underwater adventures are described and illustrated with photos.   In addition, specific directions on how to get to the access site are provided.  Lack of public access may deter many would-be snorkelers.  I error checked the directions for some rivers and find the information complete and accurate. The reader will find much useful information on where to go and how to observe the fish or other animal in its habitat.   Specific locations for planning your next underwater adventures are described and illustrated with photos.   In addition, specific directions on how to get to the access site are provided.  Lack of public access may deter many would-be snorkelers.  I error checked the directions for my local rivers and found then accurate and complete.

Kate Meyer surveying the South Fork of McKenzie River. Photo by Keith Williams. 

Spawning Brook Lamprey. Photo by Keith Williams. 

This book is written for anyone and everyone.  You don’t have to be an aquatic ecologist to read and apply what is learned.  The only requirement is a desire to “get your face wet and appreciate underwater life right in your backyard.” My favorite parts of the book were the many snorkeling experiences described and illustrated with color photos. I felt as though I was underwater with Keith Williams, surreptitiously experiencing the same places and unique aquatic animals. 

Iridescent metallic scales make river herring one of our most beautiful fish. Photo by  Keith Williams. 

Is it the best book on subject? It’s the only book on the subject that has a national perspective.  If you want to explore rivers and streams, you will find this book very helpful for your first trip and all subsequent ones.  One regional guide Snorkeling the Hidden Rivers of Southern Appalachia includes descriptions of 7 snorkeling sites and how to find others.   This guide also explores safety, proper gear, species encountered, and environmental concerns and contains outstanding photos by Casper Cox, Jeremy Monroe, and Dave Herasimtschuk.  This is for sale on here.  

Large stonefly nymph. Photo by Keith Williams.

Female lampsilis mussel lure.  Photo by Keith Williams.

You will be ready to jump right in before finishing the book.  In the closing chapter on benthic invertebrates, Keith Williams calls us to “stick your face in the water, and get to know those unknown species—on their own terms underwater.  Settle into the creek to just watch and learn and admire the beauty and intricacy of even the smallest freshwater lifeforms.” The book and the similar regional Snorkeling the Hidden Rivers of Southern Appalachia confirm that snorkeling streams and rivers is a legitimate and growing outdoor educational activity.   

I expect the book will help the activity to expand.  What comes next is anyone’s guess. Jim Herrig, a longtime Fisheries Biologist on the Cherokee National Forest began programs to get youth groups to snorkel in creeks on the National Forest.  Keith Williams has worked with the U.S. Forest Service and other to develop a freshwater snorkeling curriculum.  If you wish to expand your own underwater adventures with youth groups, consider the snorkeling toolkit and curriculum available here.   

Jim Herrig, of the Cherokee National Forest, started public snorkeling programs in the Conasauga River basin as a way to connect people with the incredible diversity of aquatic life in Southern Appalachian streams. Photo by Tom Martin, public domain. Flickr

In the future, I hope to see evaluations of the educational values of these activities. Educators and education administrators want to know if these short-term outreach activities can have a positive impact on the scientific literacy and long-term career goals of the participants. 

What's So Hot About the Opah? by Tanner Cullop

Lampris guttatus, commonly known as the Opah, is the first fish confirmed to be warm blooded. The Opah can be found in most all tropical oceans around the world excluding the Indian Ocean. What advantages and disadvantages are there to being a warm-blooded fish in relation to its ability to catch prey and evade predators? The Opah is able to warm blood within their eyes and brain to give them advantages that many of their prey and predators will not have when plunging into deep colder waters (Runcie et al.  2009). The explanation for cranial endothermy in the Opah is most likely due to the increased ability to expand its niche vertically in order to more efficiently feed.

Opah Lampris guttatus Photo by Fishcare Victoria   Creative Commons Flickr

            Little is known of the biological and ecological role of the Opah, based on captured and studied specimen it is thought that their diet mainly consists of squid and smaller fish (Jackson et al. 2000). They are a rare catch for many recreational and commercial fishermen as they are mostly found in deeper waters miles off-shore. Most Opah that are harvested are caught as by-catch from tuna longlines and are sold as one of the most sought-after sushi and sashimi fishes. The Opah is considered a trophy fish to commercial and recreational fishermen alike. They are described as a large, colorful, deep-bodied pelagic lampriform fish. There are only two species in the lampris genus, one living in local tropical temperature waters of most oceans, while the other can be found anywhere in the southern hemisphere.

            In 2015 the Opah was discovered to be the first warm-blooded fish (Pappas, 2015). This gives the ability for the fish to swim faster and more efficiently in deeper, colder waters. The Opah has the ability to dive to depths of 1300 feet in the search of its favorite prey, squid. These quick and drastic changes in depth and water temperature are accomplished by a process called counter current circulation. Cold oxygenated blood is passed along warm deoxygenated blood in the blood vessels warming the oxygenated blood throughout the fish. The ability to warm its blood gives the Opah a great advantage in the colder waters over its prey and most all of its predators making it easier for them to avoid predation. There is not a lot of research that has been completed on the warm-blooded features and anatomy of the Opah. Although there is readily available research on the cranial endothermy of the fish.

Cranial endothermy has evolved independently in lamnid sharks (family lamnidea), billfishes (families Xiphiidae and Istiophoridae) and in tunas (family Scombridae) is thought to decrease the effects of repeated deep-water dives into colder waters (Runcie et al. 2009). Researchers have taken localized temperature samples of regions of the cranial cavity of the Opah that is believed to be the source of their ability create cranial warmth. The researchers found that areas behind the eye were on average 2.1^oC and as much as 6.3^oC warmer than the myotomal muscle temperatures (Runcie et al. 2009). Observed in a laboratory the location of the heat source was determined to be the lateral rectus extraocular muscle which is located posterior to the eye and separated from the brain by a thin layer of bone (Runcie 2009).

Temperature profile of the opah with ambient temperature of 10.5 C.  Wegner et al. (2015).

            This concept of tissue specialization in the production of heat is not common in the animal kingdom. The ability for the Opah to be able to perform this endothermy is a key role in its survival. With the Opah’s main food source being squid that live in the deeper waters of the ocean having the ability to dive to these deeper, colder waters to feed is vital. The Opah keeps its brain and eyes warm by conserving metabolic heat with countercurrent heat exchangers in the circulation between the eyes and the brain (Block, 1986). The lateral rectus extraocular muscle has developed a morphology where the coratid rete is a counter current heat exchanger and prevents the loss of heat being produced (Block, 1986). The conservation of heat is accompanied by a layer of fat that is surrounding this muscle.

            The Opah, like most fish with cranial endothermy, is a predatory fish which moves vertically in the water column and experience drastic temperature changes quickly when moving into deeper waters (Runcie et al. 2009). This gives the Opah an advantage that many other fishes do not have allowing it the ability to go into these deeper, colder waters to feed. There are some studies being done now to determine if the Opah and its cranial endothermy might also advance its ability to see better when moving quickly in the water. The mechanics of this theory are thought to be similar to that of the blue marlin (Runcie et al. 2009). The ability for these fish to enter waters also give it the advantage of evading predators that are unable to swim to water with these conditions. 

            In conclusion, the Opah has been announced to be the first warm-blooded fish to be positively identified. Although there is not a lot of data yet released on the understanding and the science behind this warm-blooded lampris it is still yet fascinating to understand. The understanding of how the Opah uses its cranial endothermy to more efficiently hunt for prey and evade predators is most likely the backbone to understanding it being a warm-blooded fish. Cranial endothermy is a key morphological trait which is vital to the survival of the Opah, allowing it to repetitively dive into deep cold water to feed.

           

References

Block, B.A.  1986. Structure of the brain and eye heater tissue in marlins, sailfish, and spearfishes. Journal of Morphology 190: 169–189.

Jackson, G, Buxton N, George M (2000) Diet of the southern opah Lampris immaculatus on the              Patagonian Shelf; the significance of the squid Moroteuthis ingens and anthropogenic plastic. Marine Ecology Progress Series 206:261–271.

Papas, S (2015) First Warm-Blooded Fish Discovered.  Scientific American.  Available at:

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-warm-blooded-fish-discovered/.  Accessed 2 Apr 2018

Runcie, R.M., H. Dewar, D. R. Hawn, L. R. Frank, K. A. Dickson. 2009. Evidence for cranial endothermy in the opah (Lampris guttatus). Journal of Experimental Biology 212:461–470  

Wegner, N.C., O.E. Snodgrass, H. Dewar, and J.R. Hyde. 2015.  Whole-body endothermy in a mesopelagic fish, the opah, Lampris guttatus.  Science 348(6236):786-789.