My first answer when asked who I am is typically, “I’m a natural historian”. For my academic colleagues and my students, this statement evokes a look of uncertainty because this term evokes an image of a Victorian naturalist or Monk collecting rocks, plants, or animals and describing them in detail, and maybe the differences within and among. So here is the long-winded explanation that goes with my natural historian self-moniker.
I’m a professor of biology, forestry, and environmental management, and very clearly ensconced in the world of modern science. I am an academic studying animals (fish and invertebrates) and their habitats (rivers, lakes, coastal zones). I sit in a Department of Biology most days. As a biologist, I’m in a community that has spent 50+ years divorcing itself from its “natural history” legacy (see for example Rickleff 2012 ) as the community pushed very aggressively to be a “hard science”, sometimes referred to as physics envy (e.g., Egler 1986 ). For my biology colleagues and students who are well-trained a.k.a. indoctrinated, claiming to be a natural historian is tantamount to heresy. As an aside, check out interesting read on science as a religion by Manson (2016) and the many references therein. Back to my colleagues and students, surely you must be an “ecologist”, even if you lower your position in the community by using the adjective “applied” ecologist because much of your science relates to answering questions that need answers today (e.g., Curry and Devito 1996; Monk et al. 2011, Freedman et al. 2012; Lento et al. 2018; O’Sullivan et al. 2019 ). The term “applied” when used in the academic, biological sciences community is considered the lowest of castes because it is not “theoretical” to which all biologist must now strive to achieve. Only theoretical approaches will advance of biology as a “hard science”; therefore, you are expected to do this for the community and your standing or rank is thusly judged. This is a legitimate predicament for my biology students, they know their boss has a very successful career, but how is that possible as a “heretic” and most importantly for them, “how will that impact me, my studies, and my career?”.
I also live in the academy of physical sciences, e.g., my NSERC Discovery Grant comes from the Geosciences group (NSERC Discovery is the pinnacle of recognition for Canadian academics). Describing my life is generally easy for these colleagues and students because they are not hung-up on a desire to be something else like my biology-type associates. The dilemma for this community is the view that biology is a “soft”, lower caste of science. How is it possible that a successful scientist could also be involved in such soft science, and for the students, “how will that impact me, my studies, and my career?”.
It is this apparent complexity of lives that confuses who I am to people outside science. I am a professor, which invokes the typical “you work eight months of the year as a teacher”, which is partially true (some professors follow that model). Once we dance around this for a few moments, I then get to describe what I “teach”. I sometimes say I’m a biologist which is generally understood – medicine right? I study fish, which is then quickly interpreted as “you are a marine biologist”, and some days I am. You explain that most of your work is in freshwater, but that only confuses people because to them fish and fish-like creatures on TV and movies are Jaws, Free Willy, Flipper, etc. You can’t often talk about invertebrates because these are, when you are lucky, just insects and they don’t live in water do they?, or they are seafood. Hydrology is easier to explain because I can talk about flooding and invoke the popular topic of climate change. Trying to explain that I study how water flows across and through landscapes is too deep, so how cutting down trees impacts stream temperatures is usually a good storyline.
Right now, my two biggest projects involve a large dam removal and the regional scale hydrology of New Brunswick (my province in Canada). Dam removal is pretty easy to understand, unless I get asked for more details because it is hard to explain in one sentence the breadth of my work from the ecology of fish, invertebrates, and macrophytes to the hydrodynamic modelling of rivers and engineering of fish passage. The regional hydrology study explanations are quickly consumed and transformed into a conversation lead by the questioner about the loss of buffer zones, too large cut blocks, poor forest roads, and always, industry is bad.
Which brings me back to my description of myself as a natural historian. I choose that description because I want to invoke the image of Charles Darwin or Charles Lyell. Not because they were great scientists whom I think I am like, they are way out of my league, but because their era’s detailed studies and description of the natural world is what I do. I’m interested in the very mundane, day-to-day structures and processes of the natural world, and what happens when we alter these. I sometimes use a battlefield analogy to describe my work, an analogy where many may aspire to be majors and generals leading the way, but somebody still has to do the dirty work in the trenches, on the beaches, and door to door, or I do grunt work.
I’ve described myself as an explorer too. I will go to the difficult places few or no others have gone before. Eventually others may follow as pioneers and settlers. I liked to turn over rocks as a kid because there are very intriguing things and creatures to discover. It turns out the same discoveries occur when you turn over the “rocks” of our science world. You discover that many of our modern ideas aren’t actually ours and we rarely care to acknowledge the science that came before us. Our studies of the hydrology of landscapes is rapidly expanding with amazing new tools such as remote sensing with large and fine scale maps of surface and sub-surface attributes and stable isotopes that give us an idea of water age. Long forgotten is the same work written eloquently by among others, Noel Hynes -A Stream and Its Valley (Hynes 1975 ), Tom Winter – Hydrological Landscapes (Winter 2001) , and Jack Stanford/James Ward - Hyporheic Corridors (Stanford and Ward 1993). And in the biological sciences, Charles Darwin wrote about many and arguably most of the new ideas proposed as “modern” biology theories (see among many reviews, Boero 2015).
So, the next time you hear me being asked “Hey Allen, what do you do?”, know that all of these many storylines are streaming through my head as I try to decide which is the most appropriate response for the situation. In the end, I remain a proud natural historian who is happy to use modern tools to explore nature, turn over rocks, get dirty, and find the best answers for today’s challenges today.
REFERENCES
Boero, F. 2015. From Darwin's Origin of Species toward a theory of natural history. F1000prime reports, 7.
Curry, R.A. and K.J. Devito. 1996. Hydrogeology of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) spawning and incubation habitats: implications for forestry and land use development. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 26:767-772.
Egler, F.E. 1986. Physics envy in ecology. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 67:233-235.
Freedman, J.A., R.A. Curry, and K.R.M. Munkittrick. 2012. Stable isotope analysis reveals anthropogenic effects on fish assemblages in a temperate reservoir. River Research and Applications 28:1804-1819.
Hynes, H.B.N. 1975. The stream and its valley. SIL Proceedings 1922-2010 19:1-15.
Lento, J., M.A. Gray, A.J. Ferguson, and R.A. Curry. 2018. Establishing baseline biological conditions and monitoring metrics for stream benthic macroinvertebrates and fish in an area of potential shale gas development. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 999:1-15.
Manson, M. 2016. “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.” Harper Collins.
Monk, W.A., D.L. Peters, R.A. Curry, and D.J. Baird. 2011. Quantifying trends in indicator hydroecological variables for regime-based groups of Canadian rivers. Hydrological Processes 25:3086-3100.
O'Sullivan, A.M., T. Linnansaari, and R.A. Curry. 2019. Ice Cover Exists (ICE): A quick method to delineate groundwater inputs in running waters for cold and temperate regions. Hydrological Processes 33: 3297– 3309.
Ricklefs, R.E. 2012. Naturalists, natural history, and the nature of biological diversity (American Society of Naturalists Address). The American Naturalist 179:423-435.
Stanford, J.A., and J.V. Ward. 1993. An ecosystem perspective of alluvial rivers: connectivity and the hyporheic corridor. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 12:48–60.
Winter, T.C. 2001. The concept of hydrologic landscapes 1. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 37:335-349.
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