Kelpbeds as Classrooms: Perspectives and Lessons Learned

Kelpbeds As Classrooms: Perspectives and Lessons Learned John S. Pearse, Mark H. Carr, Charles H. Baxter, James M. Watanabe, Michael S. Foster, Diana L. Steller, James A. Coyer, Brenda Konar, David O. Duggins, and Paul K. Dayton ABSTRACT. Field courses using scuba allow university students to experience kelp forests and other shallow, subtidal ecosystems. They are unusually effective for instilling essential scientific values: an appreciation of natural history and an enhanced ability to ask meaningful questions and think holistically. After teaching such courses at six institutions over the past 40 years, we discovered common aspects in how our students developed; how the courses were taught; issues of logistics and safety; and the regulatory obstacles we had to overcome. We highlight the opportunities and the need for getting more students into observing natural history through such field courses, thereby enabling them to better grasp and address the looming crises of the world’s ecosystems that support the human population. John S. Pearse and Mark H. Carr, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Long Marine Laboratory, University of California, Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA. Charles H. Baxter and James M. Watanabe, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, 120 Ocean View Blvd., Pacific Grove, California 93950, USA. Michael S. Foster and Diana L. Steller, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, 8272 Moss Landing Road, Moss Landing, California 95039, USA. James A. Coyer, Shoals Marine Laboratory, 400 Little Harbor Road, Portsmouth, New Hampshire 03801, USA. Brenda Konar, School of Fisheries and Ocean Science, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775, USA. David O. Duggins, University of Washington, Friday Harbor Laboratories, Friday Harbor, Washington 98250, USA. Paul K. Dayton, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. Correspondence: J. Pearse, pearse@biology.ucsc.edu. Manuscript received 25 January 2012; accepted 5 March 2013. INTRODUCTION Natural history—the description and study of organisms and natural objects, generally using observational approaches—has been the bedrock of science since Aristotle. Although the discipline was largely ignored during the medieval period, it was resurrected during the Renaissance in Europe (Rudwick, 2005; Holmes, 2008), which in turn led to Darwin’s biological revolution in the mid-nineteenth century. Subsequent technological and laboratory successes and experimentation in science steadily eroded the prominence of natural history and observational science in much of the twentieth century, even though understanding the natural history of systems has remained the cornerstone of ecological work (Bartholomew, 1986). Now, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, it is clear that an understanding of natural history is essential for understanding and responding to the multiple anthropogenic environmental crises that are appearing all around us (Dayton and Sala, 2001; Sagarin, 2008). Instilling an appreciation of natural history and the accompanying sense of wonder of the natural world in the next generation of students and teachers is challenging. Science is not simply a collection of facts, but a search for mechanistic understanding of patterns. However, the development of subdisciplines in science has led to a decline in the thrill of observing and learning from natural objects and processes—the essential nature of science that is both tentative and creative (Bickmore et al., 2009). For ecology, these losses and difficulties are associated with a society that has become increasingly urbanized, with individuals spending less time in nature (Pergams and Zaradic, 2008). Unfortunately, in 134 • SMITHSoNIAN CoNTRIBUTIoNS To THE MARINE SCIENCES many institutions students are no longer trained in the fundamentals of natural history, which underpin a more holistic view of nature, so it is difficult to find people able to mentor subsequent generations of students about the natural world. Much current teaching of biology is based on theoretical constructs of mathematical theory and model systems. The ability to translate these perspectives to the real world, with its complexity and inherent variability, let alone validate model predictions, requires embedded field experience in order to develop functional cognitive pattern recognition. Experience in the field, or natural settings and environments, effectively juxtaposes academic constructs with the realities of the natural world that we hope to better understand, protect, and, in some cases, restore. Yet from our experience, and those of our colleagues, neglecting field courses is not only an impediment to teaching how ecosystems function, but also imposes severe restrictions on the potential to recruit and excite young scientists. We need to develop the cognitive abilities in students to intuitively visualize patterns in nature, which in turn open new directions to explore. It is through many hours of observing species, community patterns, and their natural settings that our minds can develop the skill to address and understand complex interactions between species and their environments. observing nature and creating stories that can be continuously refined and clarified with subsequent observations is the heart of science (Grobstein, 2005). The process is intrinsic in children as they become cognizant of their world, but all too often vanishes as people age. An appreciation of natural history fans the flame of curiosity throughout a person’s life, benefiting him or herself but also society in general by providing context for a coherent, rational, and nature-based world view. Indeed, research has shown that there is a positive correlation between experience with nature and support for legislation on environmental issues (Zaradic et al., 2009). A lifelong appreciation of natural history can be developed and promoted in students through field courses in which they conduct structured and meaningful observations of their world. Among such courses is one simply called Field Quarter, which has been taught for many years at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC; Norris, 2010). Such courses, however, because they are difficult and expensive to conduct and are sometimes viewed as extraneous by other academics, appear to have been increasingly eliminated from college curricula. Despite such barriers, there are strong arguments for supporting natural history at the university level (Dayton, 2003), both in the curriculum and in the enterprises of research. The authors of the present paper have successfully taught such field-oriented, natural history–based courses in a variety of habitats, including subtidal temperate kelp forests. Accordingly, our paper summarizes our field courses in kelp forest ecology: how they were developed over the past 40 years, their strengths and problems, how they advanced our knowledge of subtidal (kelp forest) ecology, and what they offer to students and education. Most importantly, we explore how scuba has facilitated these advances and the opportunities for and ability of researchers and students to personally experience one of the most productive and species-rich ecosystems on Earth. A BRIEF HISTORY In his pioneering work in kelp forest ecology, Wheeler J. North (Foster et al., this volume) employed undergraduates from the California Institute of Technology to assist in his summer research. Although students were not part of a formal course, they were taught to use scuba and conducted directed underwater research in kelp forests, providing North with information that was otherwise nearly unattainable. At the same time, in the 1960s, faculty at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station (HMS) developed a very successful one-quarter “Spring Class” that involved directed student research in the rocky intertidal, both providing students with rich field experiences and generating basic information of that marine habitat (Abbott et al., 1968).A diversity of scuba-based field courses eventually radiated along the U.S. west coast and into New England (Table 1). Most of us were inspired by these approaches that engaged students in the field while generating data. Complementary field courses at UCSC involving scuba are now alternately taught in other locations (e.g., Gulf of California, Moorea, Corsica). Foster likewise alternated his kelp forest ecology class in later years with a similar field course taught in rhodolith beds in the Gulf of California, which is also now taught by Steller and various Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) faculty (Foster et al., 2007). Although there are other courses at other institutions that introduce students to the subtidal environment using scuba, especially in tropical settings, this essay describes courses taught in temperate, subtidal environments by the contributing authors. By combining our collective experiences and perspectives gleaned from teaching similar courses at different institutions and with different sets of species, we provide an overview of the value and challenges of such courses for bringing natural history perspectives to students. GENERAL COURSE STRUCTURE AND APPROACHES The students in our courses are generally upper-division undergraduates (e.g., University of California Santa Cruz [UCSC], Hopkins Marine Station [HMS], Shoals Marine Laboratory [SML], Friday Harbor Laboratories [FHL], University of Alaska Fairbanks [UAF]) and beginning graduate students (e.g., Moss Landing Marine Laboratories [MLML], UCSC, and UAF). Their backgrounds vary, but many students, and more so in recent times, have had little exposure to organismal biology or doing any kind of science, except for those at MLML. Despite this inexperience, we encourage highly motivated students, even those NUMBER 39 • 135 TABLE 1. Chronology of the radiation of scuba-based kelp forest courses in the United States. Course titles Institution When offered Instructors Special Projects; Biology for Divers; Subtidal Communities; Ecology and Conservation of Kelp Forest Communities Neritic Ecology; Kelp Forest Ecology Stanford University, Hopkins Marine Station (HMS) 1971 to present John Pearse, Charles Baxter, Steve Webster, James Watanabe, David Schiel, Michael Foster University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) 1972 to present Advanced Methods in Underwater Research University of Southern California, Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island California State universities, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) Cornell University/University of New Hampshire, Shoals Marine Laboratory (SML) University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) University of Washington, Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) 1970s (no longer taught) John Pearse, Baldo Marinovic, Giacomo Bernardi, Peter Raimondi, Mark Carr Robert R. Given and Andrew A. Pilmanis Subtidal Ecology Underwater Research Kelp Forest Ecology; Field Studies in Subtidal Ecology Research Apprenticeship Program; Scientific Diving who have little or no background in biology or even in science, to enroll in these courses. Even though they lack the background of some students, most students currently enrolling in our courses are highly motivated, this being almost a requirement because the courses tend to be physically and mentally demanding. our collective experiences highlight many examples of students with little background in science being among the best students, with some of them changing fields to pursue degrees in biology/ science. Regardless of institutional affiliation and field locations, our courses are similar in that they place an initial emphasis on (1) familiarity with the local flora and fauna, (2) concepts of scientific research in general (observing, recording, generating hypotheses, experimenting, analyzing, and interpreting), (3) fundamental ecology and natural history, and (4) practices for safely conducting research under water. The natural history of the species in the kelp forest was the main objective of Pearse’s first few classes; students were assigned different groups of organisms to learn about and document in order to develop a good annotated list of the species in the Hopkins Marine Life Refuge (Pearse and Lowry, 1974). An annotated list was used for many years as a central teaching tool in the UCSC course, and updated web versions are now used 1978 to present Michael Foster, Michael Graham, Diana Steller, Scott Hamilton Late 1970s to present Larry Harris, James Coyer, Jon Witman, Phil Levin, Jon Grabowski, Deb Robertson, Elizabeth Siddon Brenda Konar 2000 to present 2009 to 2010 (Research Apprenticeship Program); 2010 to present (Scientific Diving) David Duggins, Kevin Britton-Simmons, Pema Kitaeff by the classes at both UCSC (http://bio.classes.ucsc.edu/biol161/) and HMS (http://seanet.stanford.edu/). Similarly, the first few years of the course at SML had students conducting replicated underwater transects to gauge spatial and temporal patterns of abundance of species present, and that database has been used in subsequent years. At MLML, a collection of photos of common organisms has been assembled and annotated to help students get to know what they are observing under water. Moreover, a select set of original papers is provided to show students what has been done (e.g., Foster and Schiel, 1985). All of these teaching aids and references are now made available to students at course web sites. The diving conducted in the summer course now taught by Watanabe at HMS is augmented by lectures covering organismal, population, and community ecology. Concepts of physiology, biomechanics, population regulation, competition, predation, and disturbance are made tangible and relevant by what the students see while diving. Instruction on sampling methods and basic statistics are integrated with data collected for a growing set of time series that document the abundance of sea stars, abalones, and an invasive bryozoan. These data are invaluable for demonstrating the year-to-year variation seen in kelp forests 136 • SMITHSoNIAN CoNTRIBUTIoNS To THE MARINE SCIENCES FIGURE 1. Abundance of giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera collected yearly (usually in early July) by J. Watanabe’s kelp forest ecology summer course at Hopkins Marine Station. Populations are sampled at two sites in southern Monterey Bay, California: Hopkins Marine Station within a fully protected state marine reserve (36°37′N, 121°54′W), and otter Point within a state marine conservation area that allows recreational fishing and kelp harvesting (36°38′N, 121°55′W). Data are from either 10 m2 circular plots or 10 × 2 m transects placed randomly within each site; values have all been standardized to number (No.) per 10 m2. Sample sizes range from 20 to >50 for each year. Plants <1 m tall are sporelings, those >1 m tall but with 4 or fewer fronds are juveniles, and all other plants are considered adults (J. Watanabe, unpublished data). (Figure 1). The course ends with an emphasis on conservation issues, which is particularly appropriate at HMS, the site of one of the oldest marine protected areas in the country. A major portion of the courses taught at UCSC, MLML, UAF, and FHL is devoted to directed projects involving sampling and experiments that are pursued by individual or small groups of students and culminate in both written and oral reports. Some students from these courses present their reports in talks and posters at local and national scientific meetings. At UCSC, with a quarter-long course, and at MLML and UAF, with semesterlong courses, students are responsible for project development: they find and digest original papers relevant for their proposed research, identify questions and goals, and design sampling and analysis protocols. Experiments are encouraged where appropriate and feasible. While the much shorter duration summer course at UAF also has projects and reports, the summer courses at SML and FHL preclude detailed projects. Instead, SML students individually collect preliminary results, which are then integrated into a formal research proposal that forms an essential component of the course. Project proposals are developed after initial exploratory dives, which are critical for getting students to ask questions based on their own field observations combined with guidance from relevant literature. Using exploratory dives, SML students compile a list of 20 questions that are of personal interest. The five best questions are presented before the entire class, with the resulting discussion invariably helping to formulate one of the questions into the student’s project proposal. The proposal format allows students to creatively extrapolate project design beyond the course’s two-week limitation. Friday Harbor Laboratories has an apprenticeship model for student project activities that groups a small number of undergraduate researchers with an active research project, and relies less on a classic lecture–lab format than on a mentor–apprentice structure based on a specific research question. Projects as a pedagogical tool give students first-hand exposure to actively engaging in creative science and developing questions through direct observations. This teaches them to develop a hypothesis and then design and carry out manipulations, experiments, data analyses, and further observations to test that hypothesis. It is important, of course, for the students to realize that answers are rarely definitive in science, especially those obtained during courses only 2–15 weeks in duration. In shortterm student projects, there is always some concern about data quality, so alert instructors and teaching assistants are essential for helping to provide quality control. Some student projects from our classes have been published nearly as completed in the class (e.g., Lowry and Pearse, 1973; Towle and Pearse, 1973; Lowry et al., 1974; Aris et al., 1982; Foster et al., 2007); others have led to senior theses at UCSC and published master’s theses at MLML and UAF (Reed and Foster, 1984; Singer, 1985; Hoelzer, 1988; Hymanson et al., 1990; Carr, 1991; Konar and Foster, 1992; Konar, 1993; Leonard, 1994; Edwards, 1998; Clark et al., 2004, Brewer and Konar, 2005; Chenelot and Konar, 2007; Hamilton and Konar, 2007; Daly and Konar, 2008, 2010). Some have contributed useful data to other papers (e.g., Hines and Pearse, 1982; Harrold and Pearse, 1987; Pearse and Hines, 1987; Watanabe and Harrold, 1991; Figure 2). At FHL, the 2009 Subtidal Ecology Apprenticeship class generated much of the preliminary data used for a successful NSF proposal on the fate of kelp detritus. other student projects in our courses have facilitated successful NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Additionally, the SML course led to production of NUMBER 39 FIGURE 2. Densities of five species of asteroids in the Hopkins Marine Life Refuge, Pacific Grove, California. Densities were determined by counting all individuals within 10–21 circular plots, each 10 m2, located at random in a 1600 m2 study area. The data for the fall of 1973, 1975, and 1977 were taken by students who were in the kelp forest ecology class of the University of California, Santa Cruz; much of the other data were taken by students who followed the class with independent study or by assisting the researchers. From Pearse and Hines (1987). The Underwater Catalog (Coyer et al., 2011), a techniques guide for subtidal research that is now used in many classes. Regardless of which career path students follow after completing our classes, it is our conviction that they are enriched by experiencing field courses such as those mentioned here on kelp forest ecology, and society in general benefits by having these graduates dispersed throughout academics, business, politics, and indeed all walks of life. THE DISTINCTIVE NATURE OF KELP FOREST ECOLOGY COURSES Although similar to many other field courses that include a focused, independent research module, our courses in kelp forest and subtidal ecology feature distinctive aspects with the potential to make them more effective in giving students a full • 137 appreciation of natural history and ecological research. To begin with, scuba diving is a challenging and exciting endeavor for students. By having a course using scuba as a tool for conducting research, we have a magnet for recruiting motivated students yearning for something different. This is particularly true in areas such as Alaska, where the diving is taken to an even more challenging level, requiring drysuits and other tools for cold water. To students arriving from noncoastal states, the nearshore subtidal environment is literally another world, but even students raised in view of (and in some cases on and in) the oceans find the subtidal world to be very engaging. To both sets of students, indepth exploration of life history characteristics and/or different forms of organisms can present a whole new world of discovery, setting the stage for fresh perspectives. To use a contemporary example, the experience is quite similar to the effect of the uniqueness and beauty of Pandora in the movie Avatar, which captured the imagination of a large and diverse audience. Discussions in our classes of the magnitude and implications of the differences between marine and terrestrial ecosystems with regards to evolutionary and ecological processes as well as approaches for conservation and management (e.g., Carr et al., 2003; Shurin et al., 2006) reinforce and build upon student impressions from their experiences in the field. For any of us, whether a beginning student or experienced marine researcher, focusing on a small copepod while we are suspended in a visually infinite body of water is a moving and profound experience. Peering at the world through the confines of a facemask while swimming close to the bottom brings a focus not experienced on land, where it is easy to be distracted in many different directions. There is no substitute for seeing organisms up close and personal in their habitat, rather than in drawings, photos, videos, or movies. observing organisms in their habitat is three dimensional, whereas the other depictions are two dimensional. In the Monterey area, for example, sea urchins and abalones are tucked away in crevices, holding and munching on pieces of kelp, while broken shells litter the bottom in evidence of sea otter predation on those same urchin and abalone species. Kelp crabs and snails move about and graze on the kelp, and their predators, rock fishes and sea stars, are conspicuous on the bottom. There are also all of those strange, sessile, suspension feeders, some overgrowing others, suggesting severe competition for space. The total picture cannot be perceived by looking at two dimensional representations such as photos or videos. only by literally being there and experiencing three-dimensional space can the entirety of the interactions be appreciated, which then leads to the creative endeavor of posing questions, hypotheses, experiments, and generalizations. Even statistics become palatable to students when framed with kelp-forest denizens and the opportunity to design a small study that includes collecting their own data. Moreover, kelp forests and similar nearshore communities are extremely dynamic. Kelps grow rapidly, but then entire beds can be removed almost overnight by storms. Evidence of change and turnover are often conspicuous from one dive to the next. In addition, dramatic changes can also take place over the years, 138 • SMITHSoNIAN CoNTRIBUTIoNS To THE MARINE SCIENCES and time-series datasets to which each new cohort of students contributes connect the relatively brief contact each student has with a longer-term temporal component of the kelp forest. For example, at SML the nearshore community has changed from lush kelp forests to sea urchin barrens to meadows of an invasive green alga (Codium fragile) then back to lush kelp forests and now (2013) to extensive beds of an invasive red alga (Heterosiphonia japonica) within the past 33 years. Invasive species are common in the Gulf of Maine and synergistic interactions between two invasive species, Codium fragile and the invasive bryozoan Membranipora membranacea, shaped the entire community. In the Monterey Bay area, we have seen the kelp forest recover after being almost stripped from the bottom by storms or sea urchin grazing. In Kachemak Bay, Alaska, canopy-forming kelps have alternated between Nereocystis luetkeana and Eualaria fistulosa over the last 30+ years for as yet unknown reasons. Also in Kachemak Bay, the small gastropod Lacuna vincta can overgraze kelp beds, leaving the same destruction as sea urchins elsewhere. Consequently, kelp forest systems, regardless of the species of kelp or dominant grazer, are excellent for introducing students to the concept of resiliency, thereby broadening their appreciation of ecosystems beyond the more familiar experience of seasonal changes on land and how humans contribute to changes. Being completely immersed in kelp beds makes students realize that nature is everywhere, all around them, whether under water or on land. It is not just somewhere else, as seen in those spectacular videos with the never-ending string of superbly filmed but sanitized, digitized, razor-edited, or once-in-a-lifetime shots complete with background music. Students can experience the reality themselves in the gritty, cold, murk under water, and realize that nature is all around them as they rekindle their innate childhood curiosity. Finally and importantly, most underwater experiences are for the most part intensely private, without conversation or interactions with others, and without distractions such as iPods, cell phones, text messaging, or internet access (Carr, 2010). on the other hand, scuba requires frequent attention to the equipment that allows one to survive the experience, underscoring how well-trained and experienced divers can benefit most from these experiences. Nonetheless, the wonder and solitude ignite the process of thinking, of questioning, and of finding potential answers. only afterward can the students share their experiences with others in the class. And they often do so with excitement, enthusiasm, and considerable reflection. Management Departments, our courses have developed diving safety prerequisites over time that now include diver certification, a complete medical examination, certifications in CPR/First Aid/ Emergency oxygen Administration, standardized swim and scuba practical exams, and possession of appropriate equipment. We are fortunate in having active diving safety programs on our respective campuses that can certify the students, at least as Divers-inTraining, before they take our courses, although many students obtain certification from other sources. In some cases, scientific diving certification through the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) guidelines is also necessary, although students who successfully complete the “Underwater Research” course at SML receive a letter of reciprocity and AAUS Scientific Diver status (as long as annual requirements are met). At Friday Harbor, students are required to have logged at least 20 open-water dives and, as at many institutions, take a short rescue diving course or refresher diving course during the first week of their “Subtidal Ecology” course. Furthermore, many programs provide mixed gas (enriched air nitrox) and nitrox certification with additional training. A key element of our teaching is to do whatever is necessary to safely get students under water so they can begin the process of discovery. This means that we closely watch hesitant (but otherwise enthusiastic) divers and many times accompany them on their initial dives. our primary goals are safety and “getinto-the-water”—goals that are by no means mutually exclusive. Diving is usually restricted to depths less than 15 m, always done in buddy pairs, and always under supervision of dive-experienced faculty and teaching assistants (who serve as the lead diver and divemaster). Diving occurs from shore (with a standby boat with additional tanks for emergencies), small boats (inflatable or hard shell), or a dive float (anchored floating platforms with a standby boat) (Figure 3). Dive locations are usually in protected areas with easy access and relatively calm conditions. In nearly 40 years of teaching our courses, involving nearly one thousand students and tens of thousands of dives, very few dive incidents have occurred. The rare accidents (e.g., decompression sickness) occurred while diving within the standard no-decompression limits and were successfully treated in nearby recompression chambers. other minor incidents include the predictable ear (external and middle) and respiratory (upper and lower) infections. The experience the students gain from diving safely with a group of experienced subtidal instructors and teaching assistants no doubt contributes to their development into safe, confident, and independent underwater researchers. LOGISTICS CHALLENGES SAFETY Most of us have been involved with the development of our institutional diving programs, both through our own research programs and by serving on our institutions’ Diving Control Boards. Working with our institutions’ Diving Safety officers and Risk Kelp forest ecology courses are not much different from other field courses that demand logistical preparation beyond the lectures and organized laboratory sessions. Students need to have operable and certified diving equipment available, have transportation to diving field sites, and be able to clean and service their gear after diving. We generally have students take the course at the field site (a marine station), or they are transported NUMBER 39 • 139 FIGURE 3. Students in their “classrooms.” Top: Stanford University’s Ecology and Conservation of Kelp Forest Communities class at Hopkins Marine Station preparing for a surf entry at Monastery Beach, Carmel Bay (left), and returning in small boats from a dive in the kelp classroom behind them (right) (photos by James M. Watanabe). Bottom: Shoals Marine Laboratory’s Underwater Research class on their tethered dive float off Appledore Island in the Gulf of Maine (photo by Amy E. Broman). in university vehicles or drive on their own to the field sites. The latter raises the specter of liability, which needs to be addressed institutionally. We expect the students to provide their own equipment in good working condition (usually with annual safety inspections), although tanks, weights, and/or air fills are often provided. Small boats (Boston Whalers, inflatables, skiffs) are used for conveying students and equipment to and from the dive sites, as well as for safety. At most institutions, instruction on small boat safety and operation are part of the course. Most marine laboratories now have dive lockers or equivalent infrastructure that provide students with dressing rooms, after-dive showers, and areas for cleaning gear and logging dives. Field courses at remote sites such as those offered by UCSC and MLML in Baja California (Figure 4), Moorea, and Corsica, and by UAF at the Kasitsna Bay Laboratory present additional logistical challenges, but these are more than compensated for by the total immersion and lack of distraction for one to several weeks of almost continuous discussion of projects and observations. Not all of these remote-site courses, of course, focus on kelp forest ecology, but rather on a broader context of shallow subtidal ecology. Such courses can introduce the students to very unfamiliar natural environments, opening eyes and minds to new organisms and ecologies for comparison with kelp forests near their home institutions. REGULATIONS FOR COLLECTING AND FIELD EXPERIMENTS State and federal regulations governing coastal ocean activities and impacts have increased dramatically over the past 40 years, even for scientific research and education. 140 • SMITHSoNIAN CoNTRIBUTIoNS To THE MARINE SCIENCES FIGURE 4. Moss Landing Marine Laboratory’s Subtidal Ecology class at a remote dive site on the shore of the Gulf of California, Baja California, Mexico. (Photo by Michael S. Foster.) Nongovernmental groups have surged in their activity aimed at increasing public awareness and pushing for additional regulations for environmental protection, resulting in remarkable regional improvements of our ocean environment (e.g., Palumbi and Sotka, 2010). Although we welcome strong regulation of human activities in the ocean along our coasts, as well as on land, and recognize the benefits of protecting the environment for present and future generations, regulation can hamper and constrain our ability to carry out scientific studies and collections. In some cases, the regulatory demands are more than a mere nuisance; they seriously discourage or prevent scientific monitoring, collecting, and experimental manipulations to the extent that areas or species are effectively off limits for science. Restrictions on working with vertebrates (fishes) can be particularly constraining. Regulation needs to be given careful consideration in teaching field courses such as kelp forest ecology, where reasonable and prudent collecting and experimental manipulations are needed to adequately educate future scientists as well as keep a finger on the pulse of community changes in local habitats. It would be particularly good if the regulators themselves better understood science by taking our courses. Another type of regulation with potential negative impacts on the conduct of our field courses pertains to diver safety and associated liability issues. When the courses discussed in this essay were initiated, there were very few regulations; students received diver certification from a commercial dive shop and provided evidence of passing a standard medical exam. As student numbers increased, concerns about liability also increased, inevitably leading to more and more regulations requiring the need for (and expense of) dive programs and diving safety officers to run the programs at a home institution. In some cases, diver certification courses are also offered. Fortunately, the guidelines currently developed by AAUS strike a reasonable balance between the sometimes conflicting demands of academics and risk management (essential training and exams) so that students are not precluded from obtaining first-hand experience of diving and working within kelp forest ecosystems. We believe it is crucial for this balance to continue and that easy access for training scientific divers is imperative to making subtidal scientific discoveries. our continued involvement as diving researchers and instructors on the Diving Control Boards of our institutional dive programs greatly assists in maintaining diving access for these introductory courses. It is important to realize that excessive regulation can and has destroyed research programs. For example, scientific diving is so restricted in parts of the European Union that it would be virtually impossible to offer any of our courses, as regulations regarding standby divers, training, diving medical certifications, NUMBER 39 and required equipment (among other items) combine to make scientific diving as a course prohibitively expensive. It is no surprise, therefore, that although pioneered in Europe (e.g., Kitching, 1941), the amount of shallow subtidal scientific research now conducted in Europe pales in comparison to what is done in the US. While we all recognize the need for diving regulations, we stress that they need to be reasonable, as reflected in the current level of AAUS regulations and program certifications. FUTURE CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS There are continual challenges to both justify and offer field courses such as ours in kelp forest ecology. At the same time, the need to develop an awareness and appreciation of natural history in the next generation of students is greater than ever. As our human population grows and is matched in the levels of consumption and exploitation of our environmental resources, more and more of the Earth systems that support us will deteriorate, even the vast and seemingly indestructible oceans (Jackson et al., 2001; Worm et al., 2006; Danson, 2011). The need for more strategic regulation in the use and harvesting of marine resources based on ecosystem-based management (EBM) is becoming increasingly evident (Ruckelshaus et al., 2008; McLeod and Leslie, 2009; Foster et al., this volume). Major components of EBM are marine protected areas (MPAs), which can be monitored to evaluate the effectiveness of regulating human activities. Such monitoring, and the interpretation of the information collected, demands well-trained personnel. Not only will kelp forest ecology courses help provide such people, but the courses themselves can assist with required monitoring within and outside MPAs. Friday Harbor Laboratories and Hopkins Marine Station, for example, are located within MPAs where no fishing or take of marine life is allowed except for scientific research. The MPA at HMS is bounded on both sides by state marine conservation areas that allow recreational fishing and the harvesting of kelp biomass to feed cultured abalones. Students taking kelp forest ecology classes taught at HMS by UCSC and HMS faculty can monitor fish and kelp populations both inside and outside of the state marine reserve to evaluate the impact of recreational fishing and kelp harvesting (see Figure 1), a win–win scenario for the courses and the regulatory agencies. In addition, UAF’s “Subtidal Ecology” course collects data that are loaded into the ocean Biogeographic Information System (oBIS; http://www.iobis.org/) database, which is publically accessible and allows any user to search distribution of marine species from all of the world’s oceans. The oceans increasingly are considered the last places on this planet with the ample resources needed to support our growing human population. These resources are not just seafood, but also minerals, energy, and even potable water. Students in field courses such as the kelp forest ecology courses noted here should become better-informed citizens, regardless of whether they • 141 pursue a career in science. Accordingly, they will form a pool of educated citizens to serve not only as scientists working in laboratories around the world, but also as policy makers, business leaders, and voters who become involved in issues related to our interactions with the natural world. With a better appreciation of all that natural history teaches about complex ecosystems (obtained by participation in field courses), they just might find a way to attain a more balanced approach to human ecology and a steady-state, sustainable future. CONCLUSIONS Kelp forest and subtidal ecology courses in which students use scuba and are literally immersed in an ecosystem have been offered successfully and continuously for over 40 years. Students emerge with an appreciation of natural history, the mother lode of science as a way of knowing about the world. There is a strong rationale for teaching university-level field courses: students with such a broadened world view are far better equipped with the critical skills they need, now and in the future, to deal with the multiple crises faced by human populations and the ecosystems that support them. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Michael A. Lang, Roberta L. Marinelli, Susan J. Roberts, and Phillip R. 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