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.- 1 iHntj^ttaLi. .A." IS V OCTOBER 2002 VOLUME 111 NUMBER 8 FEATURES
PLAINS SONG The ecological role of the American
bison, at home on the range.
BY DALE F. LOTT
TRICKLE-DOWN THEORY, ANDEAN STYLE Irrigation techniques good enough for the hicas make even more sense today. BY PAUL TRAWICK
COVER In Yellowstone, a snow- covered bison faces the onset of winter. THE INTERPRETATION OF GENES STORY BEGINS Biologists who have viewed the genome as a blueprint for the organism ON PAGE 44
are rediscovering the environment's role in development. PHOTOGRAPH BY BY JENNIE DUSHECK JEFF VENUGA 1 DEPARTMENTS
6 UP FRONT The Big Picture 8 LETTERS 10 CONTRIBUTORS 12 AT THE MUSEUM Tern, Tern, Tern
HENRY S.F. COOPER JR. 16 MUSEUM EVENTS IN OCTOBER 28 SAMPLINGS STEPHAN REEBS 30 FINDINGS Getting a Head in the World ALEXANDRA BELY AND GREGORY WRAY 34 UNIVERSE Let There Be Dark NEIL deGRASSE TYSON 38 ENDS & MEANS Can Nature Be Declawed? MARLENE ZUK 66 BIOMECHANICS Lip-O-Suction ADAM SUMMERS 68 OUT THERE Starry Weather CHARLES LIU 70 THE SKY IN OCTOBER JOE RAO 74 THE NATURAL MOMENT A Sudden Death PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID WELLING 76 REVIEW Sifting Truth From Pelee's Ashes STEVEN SOTER 79 BOOKSHELF 79 nature.net Shifting Ground ROBERT ANDERSON 80 ENDPAPER Bites of Passage NATHAN WELTON
Visit our Web site at wuw. natmalhistory. com SHffOTD NOT BE ATTEMPTED B
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^SHW HISTORY OCT 14TH-16TH AT 9PM/8C 18TH CENTURY VOYAGE - 21ST CENTURY ADVENTURE CHANNEL. WHtRE THE PAST COMES ALIVE,.
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NATURAL HISTORY 10/02
UP FRONT
The Bia Picture
Working at Natural History magazine for eighteen years has been nothing Ellen Goldensohn Editor in Chief less than a re-education for me, not because it immersed in me new Rebecca B. Finnell Maire Crowe Executive Editor Managing Editor scientific findings (though it did that, of course) but because it slowly and surely revised my view of the world. I suspect that the magazine, being based Thomas Page Designer on (and named for) a remarkable scientific discipHne, has this effect on many Board of Editors readers. Science narrowly conceived can amount to little more than T. J. Kelleher, Jenny Lawrence, Vitcorio Maestro, manipulating the natural world; natural history offers instead an encompassing Richard Milner (on leave), Judy Rice, Kay Zakariasen (Pictures) and exhilarating way of understanding that world and one's place in it. The Michel DeMatteis, Avis Lang Associate Managing Editors field of natural history, in other words, is more than the sum of its parts. Thomas Rosmski Assistant Designer Looking at the world through Natural History's lens—through the eyes of Flora Rodriguez Picture Coordinator anthropologists, astronomers, biologists, geologists, and paleontologists Carol Barnetce Editorial Coordinator regularly brings one face-to-face with a world of complexity, deep time, and, Merle Okada Assistant to tlie Editor all, above constant change. For me, the view through that lens was so Kirsten L. Weir Contributing Editor compeUing that it reshaped my daily reality. I no longer live only in the here Erin M. Espelie, Graciela Flores, Marisa Macari, Interns and now. And I no longer live securely within my own skin. I am aware that mastodons once walked where I walk, that the seemingly solid ground under my feet has frozen and thawed (and wiU re-freeze and re-thaw) over eons. I am Mark A. Furlong Publisher aware that I live on a drifting continent. Many dry, cold lands once lay under Gale Page Consumer Marketing Director warm, shallow seas. so ago, trees in Not long green grew the Sahara; further Judy Lee-Buller General Manager back in time, the badlands of the American West were verdant rainforest. I take Denise Clappi Director of Manufacturing quite seriously the notion that I am not an individual, a being tightly packaged Susie Chien Associate General Manager in my own skin, but rather a colony of cells, perhaps more like a jellyfish or a Edgar L. Harrison National Advertising Manager sponge or a coral reef, the host to a universe of bacterial symbionts. I have Sonia W. Paracore Senior Aaount Manager learned that the perfect flesh and bone of a new baby is made of recycled Donna M. Lemmon Advertising Production Manager elements released stars. in the ancient explosions of Rainon E. Alvarez Circulation Manager
In the pages of Natural History investigators from many discipHnes have Michael Shectman Fulfillment Manager deflated our human pretentions to uniqueness: archaeologists have informed us Maria Voipe Promotion and Graphics Director that our hominid ancestors may well have had run-ins with perhaps a dozen Gladys Rivera Assistant to the Publisher quite similar species on the plains of Africa; molecular biologists have reported Monique Berkley Advertising Coordinator that viruses and parasitic segments of DNA have intruded themselves into our Advertising Sales Representatives jVeii' yorl^-Metrocorp Markenng (212) 972-1157 genome and made themselves at home there; anthropologists have Chicago—Jerry Greco & Assoc, (847) 925-9300 Delroil—John Kennedy & Assoc. (313) 886-4399 demonstrated that such "cultural absolutes" as the nuclear family are actually West CoiB(—Auerbach Media (818) 716-9613 highly variable and of recent, local vintage. Biogeographers and ecologists, Totonto—^American Publishers Representatives Ltd. (416) 363-1388 Atlanta and Miami—Rickles and Co. (770) 664-4567 physicists and climatologists have connected us and every other living being National Direct Response—Smyth Media Group (646) 638-4985 with the elements. Developmental geneticists have revamped the For subscription information, call (800) 234-5252
(viidiin U.S.) or (515) 247-7631 (from outside U.S.). nature/nurture debate by explaining that the environment can act through For advertising intbrmation, call (212) 769-5555. genes to shape the individual organism. And throughout the magazine's history, field naturalists in the Darwinian tradition have provided other scientists with essential data—observations of whole organisms evolving within whole systems.
Nuiiira! Hblcry (ISSN 0028-071 2) is published montlily, except for combined issuer in Magazines, too, evolve and change. Although I leave the editorship as of this July/August and December/Januiiry, by Nanirai History Magazine, Inc., at the American Museum of Natural History, Central P.irk West at 79th Sneet, New York, NT 10024. I issue, am confident that Natural History will expand its reach and breadth E-mail: [email protected]. Natural History Magazine, Inc., is solely responsible for edrtor- ial content and publishing praedces. Subscripdom: S30.0O a year; for Canatla and all other under its new and skillful editorial stewardship. I know that my successor, countries; S40.00 a year. Periodicals posuge paid at New York, N.Y., and at adtlitaonal mail- ing otFices. Copyright ® 2002 by Natural History Magazine, Inc. AH rights reserved. No Peter Brown, who was editor of the admirable publication Tlie Sciences, will part of this periodical may be reproduced without written consent otNaiura! History. Send subscripdon orden and undeliverable copies to the address below For subscripnon irtforma- enjoy shaping, and being shaped by, the legacy of this century-old magazine. don, call (800) 234-5252 or, irom outside US, (515) 247-7631. Postmaster; Send address changes to Nnfrinrf History. P O. Box 5000, Harlan, lA 51537-5000. Printed in die U.S.A. —Ellen Goldensohn IMPORTED ENGUSH GiN 47.3% ALCjVOL., 100% GHAiN NEUTRAL SPIRITS, SCHlEFFEUN & SOMERSET CO., MEW YORK. N.Y. © 2002 GUINNESS UNITED DISTILLERS £. VINTNERS AMSTERDAM 8.V. —
NATURAL HISTORY 10/02
LETTERS
Meteors and Magnitudes Neil deGrasse Tyson Pennsylvania just two and over the wall. But little a matter of a few I found Alan Burdick's REPLIES: When I read the weeks earlier. The within
"Now Hear This" column article, I, too, was puzzled blighters had made their weeks she focused her on noisy meteors ("Psst! by the 63 billion tons. A nests in the sand on the escape efforts on one corner Sounds Like a Meteor," review of my calculations playground. The children of the pen. There she was
7/02-8/02) especially revealed a simple and I watched one bring in able to gain a purchase on a interesting, because years conversion error in units. a cicada and were bolt end, about three inches ago I saw and heard a very The correct number is impressed with the strength off the ground, with the bright meteor while 630,000,000 (630 miUion) of these amazing wasps. I claws of her right (and camping on a beach in tons. Thanks for looking regret to say that I killed only) rear foot. By pulling
Florida. It came out of the over my shoulder. one before I found out with her front legs and west over a thick covering how underaggressive they pushing with the rear one, of Australian pine trees. Knock, Knock really are. After this, I'll she got her center of gravity
Burdick mentions pine In Adam Summers's leave them alone. Now, if I up to the top of the board. needles as an example of "Biomechanics" column can only find that back After many tries, she small objects that can act as about sperm whales ("Fat issue of the magazine so I managed to topple out. transducers for a meteor's Heads Sink Ships," 9/02), can read up on them. Fortunately we were electromagnetic waves. he addresses the question of Lisa Pasquale watching her at the time,
In the same issue's why a whale would seek State College, Pennsylvania or she might have escaped "Universe" column, in a out a collision with a ship. romp through chemistry's According to historians, Ninja Turtles periodic table ("Cosmos on whalers once called sperm H. Robert Bustard's the Table"), Neil deGrasse whales "carpenter fish" description ot the I cf ^A<^; Tyson claims that "every because of the knocking tortoise that learned second of every day, 63 noise they made. We now to escape over a billion tons of fast-moving know the noise is used in wooden barrier 1 hydrogen atoms are turned echolocation. Whales may ("Endpaper," 9/02) • ! into helium as they slam have sensed the hammering gave me a sense of I together within the of the ship's carpenter at his deja vu. We have a 15,000,000°K core of the never-ending task of Russian tortoise
Sun." I believe this estimate keeping the wooden vessel that did the same of the mass of hydrogen seaworthy. Perhaps the ship thing, even though \ » atoms is two orders of was somehow perceived as a she has just a stump
magnitude too large. Every competitor, and that's why of a left rear leg (we ', second, about 600 million the whales attacked not just call her Stumpy).
tons of hydrogen are once but kept at it. During warm
converted into 596 million Priscilla Gadzinski weather, we kept
tons of helium as the Wliite Riverjunction, Vermont her outdoors for a difference in mass while in a four-foot-square
4 million tons—is converted Spare That Cicada Killer enclosure, with 1x6 boards into the surrounding
into energy. These figures I saw the September along the sides, bolted to neighborhood. (Her are consistent with the Sun's "Letters" and began a mad 4x4 corner posts. Stumpy predecessor, a Russian known luminosity and with search for the preceding could hook her forefeet on tortoise named Speedy, Einstein's famous mass- issue with Joe Coelho's the top edge of the board, escaped just that way.) energy equation. story on cicada killers but since she was only Edward Groth III
Robert Fleck ("Findings," 7/02-8/02). I about six inches long, we Pelham, New York Embry-Riddle Aeronautical had been introduced to did not think she had either University cicada killer wasps at a the strength or the leverage Natural History'5 e-mail
Daytona Beach, Florida campground in to get her entire body up address is [email protected]. Explore
miracles \ )C '^ and **js!< s^mHA, ir-^jk mysteries PRIEST Kd.SE t«k* ii^ in the only ft magazine 12/99-1/00 of its kind- for just $25!
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' ^^S^5B*bi 10 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02
CONTRIBUTORS
"It's hard to imagine," writes Dale F. Lott ("Plains Song," page 44), "but before East Africa became safari land, rich adventurers went on safari on the Great Plains." Lott
(foreground), a bison expert and a professor emeritus of wildlife, fish, and conservation
biology at the University of California, Davis, has had a lifelong connection with the nearly endless acres of America's breadbasket. He was born on western Montana's National Bison Range (of which his maternal grandfather was the superintendent) and
spent the first six years of his life there; when he was ten, his family bought a ranch three miles away that had once been owned by his paternal grandfather. Lott majored in
English as an undergraduate before turning to the behavioral endocrinology of rodents as
a graduate student; it wasn't until he became a thirty-year-old assistant professor looking for a fieldwork subject that he once again turned his attention to bison, which at the time had scarcely been analyzed. His book about the species, American Bison: A Natural History,
^ was published last month by the University of Cahfornia Press.
"I like to put things together," says Jennie Dusheck ("The Interpretation of
Genes," page 52). In 1973 she built a reflecting telescope with a nine-inch mirror that she ground and polished herself By the time she was in graduate school, in the 1980s, she had moved on to motorcycles, rebuilding the engine
of a trashed 1973 Norton Commando, which she customized to fit her
"relatively short stature." Today, she says, the telescope and bike sit in the garage gathering dust, while she spends her time fitting ideas together.
Dusheck and co-author Allan J. Tobin are currently revising their award- winning college-level biology textbook. Asking About Life.
Paul Trawick ("Trickle-Down Theory, Andean Style," page 60) first got involved in water management issues as an
undergraduate in the 1970s, when, as a representative of the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group, he fought
a plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam on the Rogue River. He later earned
a doctorate in anthropology from Yale University for his research on the contrasting irrigation practices followed by diverse communities in the Peruvian Andes. As someone who has worked
periodically for both the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, Trawick is
familiar with the call for reform in the handling of water resources. He suggests that poHcy makers in Peru and elsewhere have much to gain from an examination of the irrigation procedures and wk M related customs that some of the Andean communities have maintained since ancient times. An " ^B "' M assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky, Trawick is the author of The ^Bk jdu Strugglefor Water in Peru: Comedy and Tragedy in the Andean Commons (Stanford University Press, IH& i^H October 2002).
For David Welling ("The Natural Moment," page 74), the quick strike of a rattlesnake on a jay was a bit of serendipity, giving him an opportunity to capture
the scene and its aftermath. But it also came as something of a shock, "especially,"
he says, "since I had walked around the bush where the ratder was hidden just fifteen minutes prior to the strike." A nature photographer since 1988 and a professional one for the past four years, Welling grew up in Los Angeles, Reno,
and Las Vegas. He counts as his favorite subjects "anything with fur, feathers,
scales, or breathable skin (amphibians)" but adds that one of his greatest experiences was photographing the mountain gorillas in central Africa's Pare
National des Virungas in the late 1980s. For sixteen years Welling has been active
as a volunteer at a facility in the United States that rescues and cares for wild animals. For this inonth's photograph, he used a Nikon F5 35mm camera, a lens
with a teleconverter, and a Fresnel lens for fiU flash. 1 ^^O^o^
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AT THE MUSEUM
Tern, Tern, Tern By Henry 5. F. Cooper Jr.
Since 1969 Helen Hays, the tern lady of Great Gull Island, has helped conserve thousands ofseabirds. F ^l predators, except for the great black-
backed gulls near Great Gull, which have learned to capture the terns in the
air and swallow them whole. But things can go wrong, and these tern colonies might easily dis-
appear, as they once did on Great Gull. In the nineteenth century, plume hunters slaughtered the birds for their
feathers, then popular for ladies' hats; 40,000 skins were taken in one year. But the coup de grace occurred in 1897, just before the start of the Span- ish-American War, when the army began building Fort Michie to guard the eastern approaches to Long Island Sound. Eventually, 500 men moved onto the seventeen-acre island; granite riprap and concrete fortifications in- vaded the sandy beaches and meadows
Hays and friends in their natural habitat where terns scraped out their nests. In 1949, when the government ceded the
May 22 I joined a small south have been eliminated by relent- island to the Museum, most of the Ongroup from the American less human development. fortifications were destroyed, and the Museum of Natural History Terns are about two-thirds the size terns slowly began coming back.
in a motor launch at Niantic, Con- of gulls; a roseate tern is a litde longer By 1966 the colony was large necticut. We chugged across Long Is- than a common tern and a little more enough and stable enough to study,
land Sound to Great Gull Island, a bird elegant, with a whiter body (contrast- and Helen Hays (self-described as "the
sanctuary jointly operated by the Mu- ing more sharply with its black head), a ornithologist, not the actress") has
seum and the Linnaean Society of longer tail (extending beyond its folded spent every summer on the island New York (an ornithological group wings), sometimes a blacker bill, and a since then. Soon after taking over in
dedicated to natural history and con- faint, rosy blush on its breast. Listed as 1969, Hays made a name for the pro-
servation). Great GuU is a low rock- an endangered species by the federal ject by documenting the effects of
pile of an islet and the most successful government since 1987, roseates breed PCBs and other toxins on the bird breeding ground for common and in large numbers in only two other population (thin-shelled eggs and de- roseate terns in North America. About places, Bird and Ram Islands, oft" the formed chicks) and by lobbying suc- 17,000 pairs of commons and more coast of Massachusetts. The terns feed cessfully for the reduction of environ- than 1,800 pairs of roseates breed there on the abundant fish (sand eels and but- mental contaminants.
every summer, arriving in early May tei-fish, for example) that are chased by At a slender wooden jetty with an
and departing with their young in Au- such sport fish as bluefish and striped off'-putting sign reading Research Sta-
gust. This colony is the only one with bass to the water's surface, where the tion—Do Not Land, the short, cheer- a growing population (especially of terns, which can't dive more than a few ful, energetic-looking Hays caught our roseates), partly because breeding feet underwater, can catch them. The rope and guided our group's boat in. As grounds on Long Island and farther three islands are also relatively free ot she led us through the ruined fortifica- Quotesmith.com makes it fast and easy to find tlie lowest-priced insurance from the highest-rated companies
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tions of Fort Michie, with hundreds of their long trip. Most of the roseates perbacks, a gull skeleton, a wall clock crying terns soaring and swooping come from the coast of Brazil; the with birds marking the hours and
overhead, Hays explained that she had commons come from there as well and bird songs for chimes, and straw hats gotten into ornithology because of her also from the coast ot speckled white with wish, when she was at Wellesley Col- Argentina—wintering tern droppings and lege in the 1950s, to do fieldwork, and grounds discovered by topped with long- the only job available was studying Hays and her associates stemmed cloth flow- ruddy ducks in Manitoba. After getting during several expe- ers—worn to deflect a master's in ornithology from Cornell ditions undertaken in dive-bombing terns, University, she came to the Museum in the past decade. which always attack
1956. When a friend took her to Great What was once the highest point. GuU to see the terns. Hays knew she the fort's mine-place- (Hays recounted how did not want to be among solitary ment and detection she and her helpers ruddy ducks anymore; she wanted to center now serves as had originally worn
be in the social swirl of this colony. office, bird-banding pith helmets until Hays arrives on the island during laboratory, bird-pro- they realized that the
the last week in April to watch the cessing room, kitchen, birds were bending
terns come in. This year, a group of dining room, and sit- their beaks on the about forty flew over the island on ting room. The detri- A visiting common tern from hard hats.)
May 5 and the birds began landing on tus of more than thirty Argentina is identified by an The banding would
May 7, a little later than usual. By years of ongoing bird- orange tag on its right leg. not start until the first
the time of our May 22 visit, about watching is impres- chicks hatched, but half of the expected 24,000 or so terns sive: shelves of canned food, lots of Hays was already setting up blinds had arrived, bright and chipper and battered pots and pans, maps, note- from which the birds could be ob- ready for courtship displays despite books, bookcases crammed with pa- served during the daytime for the
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300-584-6460 next six weeks. We headed toward the A week or D.vo later, when almost chronous in their behavior than ever east end of the island, spreading out m 12,000 breeding pairs are on the island, before—arriving, nesting, and depart- a line across the meadow, heads down, the egg laying, hatchmg, and observing ing closer together. You'd think, after looking for eggs. In April a small trac- would be in ftiU swing, and Hays's team the number of years we have worked tor had been used to disc-harrow (as many as thirty people during the on the island, we would know every- much of the poison ivy, bittersweet, height of the season) would be busy thing, but fortunately that is not true, bayberr^', and grass cover, leaving the banding the young, trapping adults on and there are still things to discover." soil soft and free of vegetation. In the their nests, and entering the information past, grass, bayberr^; and other weeds into their computerized database. Heniy S.F. CooperJr., a former staff u/riter had taken over most areas used by the As we were saying good-bye at the for the New Yorker, has been visithig the nesting conunons. In 1981 meadow jetty, Hays said she was looking for- Museum since he was four years old, when voles (Microtiis pennsylvanicus) were ward to the next few weeks and added, his father sat him in a cavity of the reintroduced for lawn-mowing pur- "Last vear the terns were more svn- Willamette meteorite. poses. The voles successfiiUy devoured the grass, but soon afterward, inedible weeds crept in, with the result that the vole population crashed. Hence, har- rowing proved more effective than
\-oles for removing invasive species. From time to time, we stopped our egg search to put up blinds—tall, ta- pering wooden frames covered with canvas that overlooked all the nesting concentrations of common terns, as well as smaller structures (which looked like outhouses) placed around the periphery for keeping track of the roseates. When the first egg was dis- covered, we broke ranks to inspect it; it was slightly elongated, golf-ball-size, and camouflaged with dark green mottling on a light green field. Placed in a plastic bag and suspended from a pocket scale, the egg weighed in at twenty-two grams. Its shell was then numbered with a felt-tip pen and re- turned to the nest, which was marked by a numbered tongue-depressor Norway-The Perfect Change of Place. stuck in the ground. Great Gull's tern whether it's the pristine beauty and tranquility chicks should have a long Ufe: the old- est common tern tracked by Hays's of our fjords, the vivid reminders of our Viking project recently celebrated its twenty- heritage, or the natural warnnth of our people, sixth birthday, and the oldest roseate is twent)'-five. there's not a more enchanting place for a The project has also found that both vacation than Norw/ay For more information, kinds of terns tend to be monogamous,
and the longest documented pairing to call Discover Norway' at 1-866-6-NORWAY (866-666-7929), or visit
date is twelve years. Terns normally lay www.visitnorway.com/us. three eggs each spring, a day apart, and
don't sit on the nests until after the sec-
ond egg is laid. (The first egg hatches in about twenty-three days.) Norway Norwegian Coastal Pure Escape Scsndiiuvar Airlno Voyage A 16 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02
MUSEUM EVENTS IN OCTOBER
INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE MUSEUM Scott Weidensaul. Portrait Room, Lipschutz. Advance registration only. Lecture 10/2 (Reports From the Field 3:00-4:30 RM. Rose Center classroom, 6:30—8:30 P.M.
series): "Peterson Field Guides: The Panel 10/15 (Hot Topics in Science & Lecture 10/21 (Distinguished Authors in
Legacy." Ornithologist Noble S. Proc- Culture series): "Urban Archaeology: Astronomy series): "The Biggest Bangs."
tor, Southern Connecticut State Uni- An Examination of Slavery and the Jonathan I. Katz, Washington University
versity. Orientation Theater (fourth African Presence in the Northeast." in Saint Louis. Space Theater, Hayden
floor), 7:00-8:30 p.m. Moderator: AMNH anthropologist Planetarium, 7:30-9:00 RM. Lecture 10/3 (China Survey series): David Hurst Thomas. Panelists: Michael Course 10/22-11/19 (four Tuesdays, ex- "Enduring Themes of Chinese Philos- L. Blakey, New York African Burial cept 10/29): "Virmal Universe." Hayden
ophy." John S. Major, China Institute Ground Project; Cynthia Copeland, Planetarium instructors Carter Emmart,
senior lecturer and former director of New-York Historical Society; Gerald F. Brian Abbott, and Ryan Wyatt. Ad- the Asia Society's China Council. Sawyer, Connecticut State University. vance registration only. Space Theater, Kaufrnann Theater, 6:30-8:00 P.M. Kaufinann Theater, 7:00-9:00 RM. Hayden Planetarium, 6:30-8:30 RM. Exhibition reopening 10/5: "The Butter- Lecture 10/16 (Reports From the Field November's Celestial Highlights 10/29:
fly Conservatory: Tropical Butterflies series): "Peterson Field Guides: Con- Space Theater, Hayden Planetarium, Alive in Winter." Hall of Oceanic servation and Renewal." Biologist John 6:30-7:30 RM. Birds. Through 5/26/03. C. Kricher, Wheaton College, Massa- Course 10/28-11/25 (four Mondays): Lecture 10/8 (Hot Topics in Science & chusetts. Orientation Theater (fourth "Using a Telescope." Don Neill, Culture series): "An Evening With floor), 7:00-8:30 RM. AMNH research fellow Advance regis- Oliver Sacks." Neurologist Oliver Lecture 10/17 _(China Survey series): tration only. Rose Center classroom, "China in the 20th Century." Renqiu 6:30-8:30 RM. Yu, State University of New York, Course 10/29-12/3 (six Tuesdays): Purchase College. Kaufmann Theater, "Fundamentals of the Cosmos." Hay- 6:30-8:00 RM. den Planetarium instructor Stephanie Lecture 10/22: "Rosalind Franklin: L. Parello. Advance registration only. Dark Lady of DNA." Franklin biogra- Rose Center classroom, 6:30-8:30 RM. pher Brenda Maddox. Kaufrnann The- Course 10/30-11/20 (four Wednes-
ater, 7:00-8:30 RM. days): "Stars, Constellations, and Leg- Lecture 10/30 (Reports From the Field ends." Consummate amateur astrono-
series): "Search for the Golden Moon mer Hank Bartol. Advance registration Bear." Naturalist Sy Montgomery. only. Space Theater, Hayden Planetar- Kaufinann Theater, 7:00-8:30 RM. ium, 6:30-8:00 RM.
ASTRONOMY & COSMOLOGY IMAX MOVIES Sacks discusses his recently pubhshed Course 10/3-11/14 (six Thursdays, ex- Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa and
memoir. Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a cept 10/31): "Scientific Revolution." Pulse: A STOMP Odyssey. Samuel J. and Chemical Boyhood. LeFrak Theater, Hayden Planetarium instructors Steph- Ethel LeFrak Theater; daily screenings 7:00-9:00 RM. anie L. PareUo and Ryan Wyatt. Ad- fi:om 10:30 A.M. through 4:30 RM. Lecture 10/10 (China Survey series): vance registration only. Rose Center "Chinese Literature." Zhang Xudong, classroom, 6:30-8:30 RM. The American Museum of Natural
New York University. Kaufrnann The- Lecture 10/7 (Frontiers in Astrophysics History is located at Central Park West
ater, 6:30-8:00 p.m. series): "NASA's New Horizons Mis- and 79th Street in New York City. For Performance 10/13: Singer Yoojin sion to Pluto: A Mission to New Fron- listings of events, exhibitions, and
Chung performs Korean p'ansori, a form tiers." Alan Stern, Southwest Research hours, call (212) 769-5100 or visit
of folk art opera and epic storytelling. Institute. Space Theater, Hayden Plan- www.amnh.org. Space Show tickets, Kaufinann Theater, 2:00-3:15 RM. etarium, 7:30-9:00 RM. retail products, and Museum member- AMNH Book Club 10/13: Vie Ghost With Course 10/7-10/21 (three Mondays): ships are also available online. To make
Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Tliink- "Choosing a Telescope." Amateur as- reservations for programs and events,
ing, and the Search for Lost Species, by tronomer and astrophotographer Peter caU (212) 769-5200.
—
P A iNr A JVS.. A
fkt anfL less /raueleJ"
Photos: Panama Tourisi Board Panama
Home to 10,000 varieties of plants and almost 1,000 species of birds—more than in North America and Europe combined
Panama is a birder's paradise.
the countr)''s most famous inhabitants:
tlie resplendent quetzal, widi its tliiity-
inch-long iridescent blue-green tail
featliers, and the harpy eagle, an unusu-
ally laige and powerftU raptor and tlie
country's national bird. Deep in the astonishingly large Darien
National Park, a biosphere reserve witli
seven life zones, you will find dozens of
endemic species and clusters of green, £'2l scarlet, blue, and yellow macaws. Here
THIS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY and its you stand a good chance of spotting Panama City's value to the; diverse ecosystems—from highland such rare birds as the chesmut-fironted cloud forests to lowland rain forests to macaw and red-throated caracara. world of commerce and ,<
coastal estuaries offer some of the At Volcan Baru, the cottntry's most vis- — trading was first recognized best birdwatching in the world. No\'ice ited national park and its highest eleva- by Spanish explorers over four and experienced birders alike are gtiar- tion, catch a gUmpse of the quetzal or
Canal, explore its anteed sightings of a multitude of toucan. Near the Panama . centuries ago. In addition to species, many of them rare and beau- Pipeline Road, which passes through the place in jiistoiy, Panama City is, tiful, ranging from small songbirds to rainforest of the Soberania National Park also known as one of the most large predators. and is home to 380 species including tro-
Millions of Neotropical migrants gons, caciques, woodpeckers, and many modern cities in Latin America. pass through Panama in the spring more. In the Panama Canal, visit And it retains its prominence and fall, and it's possible to see a win- Barro Colorado Island, home to the tering grosbeak sharing the same tree Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. boasts 560 with a keel-billed toucan. The Panama Canal watershed banking centers. For the best birding, head to the bird species including tlie rufescent tiger rainforest, where you may spot two of heron and chesmut-mandibled toucan. SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION West VirsEinia
With more than 80,000 acres of state parks and 100,000 acres of forests,
West Virginia offers a natural, peaceful setting for watching its native wildlife.
t-paROM THE POTOMAC Highlands tains, valleys, forests, lakes, and stieams. From wood and waterfowl to raptors in the northeastern part of the A variety of community groups as well and osprey, the wonders of wildlife
- state to the New River Valley in as educational programs at most state await in Wild and Wonderful West the south, West Virginia is home to parks aie available to help guide both the Virginia. For more information and a hundreds of species of birds that find casual observer and serious watcher plan free travel guide, call 1-800-CALLWVA sanctuary amid its breathtaking moun- an adventure to remember. or check out www.callwva.com.
Sparrows, kingflsheis and bald eagles
are among the countiess species that grace our mountain-kissed skies.
Take a trip to more than 45 unique birding areas in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.
1-800-CALLWVA FREE TRAVEL GUIDE www.callwva.com —
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Worcester County, Maryland
N \VORCESTER count)' in Maryland. Stop anywhere Count)', a bird- along the road in Worcester County,
ing A'acation is a look around, and you'll see an chance to experi- abundance of birds. To help you keep ence an unspoiled track of sightings, you may print out a wilderness. Located brrdwatching map from http://www.visit on Maryland's lower worcesterorg/birding/birdmap.html. eastern shore, this State and national parks in the
small comit)' didn't county offer camping, nature trails, ha\e a road to the and guided tours. The wetiands of the
I mainland untill952. Pocomoke River State Forest and Park
Perhaps as a result, the naairal beauty are a sanctuary for birds: more than Garrett CoUxNty, Maryland of its native landscape remains unchanged. 127 species have been cited. Look for Worcester Count\'"s ecological di\ersity flocks of bald eagles, which roost in Tucked in the Allegheny Plateau of you'll find a barrier island, a cvpress the Pocomoke Cypress Swamp on the Appalachian Mountains of swamp, centuries-old forest, tidal wet- Hickor)' Point Road. And at Assateague
western Maryland, Garrett County lands, and secluded fields, all easily Island National Seashore, try the "Life ofiFers visitors a chance to reconnect with accessible—makes it home to an of the Marsh Trail," which courses its nature. This county's seven scenic lakes, impressive variety of birds, bodi resi- way through salt marshes where you protected forests and parks, open fields dent and migrator)'. can spot many wetland bird species and grasslands, and bo^- ^vetlands pro- Over 350 bird species have been and enjoy the panoramic view from vide opportunities for naaire-oriented recorded, more than in any other the observation deck. activities in ever)' season. And because of its high ele\ation, Garrett CountA' harbors breeding birds rarely encountered els^ where at this latitude. Visit here to see birds usually spotted onh' in Canada, the
Great Lakes, and ±e Northeastern states.
Fall, when Garrett County is ablaze mth colors, is a perfect time to visit Disco\er the hermit thrush as you hike through shady maple and hemlock groves, or encounter bobolinks in golden ha)fields and northern waterthrush in subarctic swamplands.
In the heart of the county lies Deep Creek Lake, Maryland's largest freshwater lake. Enjoy some birding from the per-
spective of a boat on this man-made lake, near the town of Wisp. From Herrington Manor, embark on a naairalist-led ha^ride
through Garrett State Forest to a beautiflil
overtook above the brilliant foliage. Or fol-
low the meandering trails of Swallow Falls
State Park, nine miles north of Oakland, where the Youghiogheny Ri\'er flows through shaded rocky gorges and creates
rippling rapids. Here, you'll see the spec-
tacular Muddy Creek Falls, a crashing 63-foot waterfall. SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
Charles County, Maryland Little St. Simons Island
• 1917, the rustic Lodge . . , at the Nanjemoy Creek Great UILT IN HARLES COUNTY IS only an grounds I
St. Island is a jtt hour away from Washington, Blue Heron Sanctuary. To glimpse at Litde Simons
' ^few!' D.C., but its natural beauty sets rare or endangered species such as reminder of a bygone era. Set
it apart from most suburbs. Siuiated on the Louisiana thrush, hike on the among the moss-draped maritime for- the coastal plain of southern Maryland, mile-long nature path over the wet- est, glistening marshes, and untouched Charles boasts an abundance of imde- lands of the Naval Surface Warfare miles of creeks, veloped areas, including 150 miles of Center's Watchable Wildlife Center, estuaries, and spectacular shoreline, acres of second- part of the Chicamuxen Wildlife beaches found on
growth forests, large and small lakes, Management Area (301-743-5161). Georgia's Littie Sl
ponds, and extensive wetlands. It is bor- For a change ofpace, rent a kayak, canoe, Simons Island, dered on the west and soutli by the or boat in Gilbert Run Park, in Naiijemoy the Lodge is a
Potomac River, on the east by the Creek (301-932-3470), and explore miles ;> perfect place to
Wicomico River, and on tlie north by of scenic marshes rich with wildlife. This i;& explore wildlife the Mattawoman Creek. Not sui-pris- winding aeek has many high banks that and enjoy the unhurried pace of
ingly, it is a haven for birds and bird- serve as nesting sites for bald eagles; coastal living. More than 280 species
watchers alike. Charles Coimty has the second largest of birds have been spotted on the
Visit the forests along Mattawoman population of bald eagles in Maryland. island. Thirty-seven species of shore-
to spot vibrandy colored songbirds or, Before you go on this outstanding birds forage and nest in its pristine early in the evening, to hear the call of birding trip, request a copy of the habitat. Located along die Adantic
barred owls. This fall, look for Charles Charles Count)' Bird Watchers Guide, Migratory Flyway, Litde St. Simons
County's official bird, the great blue available through http://www.charles- Island is a critical staging site for many
heron, in its traditional breeding county.org/tourism/brochures.html. of diese birds.
IsiAND Getaway Birding at its best. forDiscriminating Spot bald eagles as they fly Travelers free overhead at Friendship
Fa:-m Park. . . kayak through
Nanjemoy Creek while spot-
ting Great Blue Herons. . . or
listen for the Barred Owl along
Mattawoman Creek. Located along
the Atlantic flyway we host over 321
species for you to add to your list. ^jft i^-
Island Come to Charles Coimty - The Lodge on Little St. Simons Exclusive 10,000-acre Georgia island we'll be watching for you! paradise, 7 mile pristine beach, 280 bird species, recreational activities, regional cuisine and just thirty guests. Voted "Best CHARLES COUNTY Small Hotel in North MARYLAND America", 2000 Conde Nast x Readers' Choice awards. ^ www.explorecharlescomd.com 888-733-5774 • 912-638-7472 y wvwv.LittleS6imonslsland.com L 1 1 1 L h
. . , ,1 ST, SIMONS 1-800-766-3386 c , I Call foit: our Birding Guide: rental r- FREE Exdusive island , 1 a ^Tr^ available. IbLANU SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
SA\iFr Instruments Belize Lodge & Excursions
WHETHER YOU'RE bird- facilits' and tour operator based in watching at a local park, in remote southern Belize. your backward, or deep in a In October more than 500 species, feraway, tropical rainforest, a fine binoc- many of them migrants from the north,
ular is al\N'a)'s a necessity; Bird^vatchers flock to Belize, which is located on the
know that S^\ift InsQ-uments is a name Centi:al, Pacific, and Mississippi Flyways.
they can ti"ust and depend on for tech- You may glimpse such transients as the nical excellence. Swift has been a xeUow-bUled cuckoo, American redstait,
leader in die design and mannfacaire or mby-tiiroated hummingbird, along of Lnno\'ative bird^\'atching optics for witli die indigenous scarlet macaw, king the past fony years. viilaire, black catbird, or the keel-bOled toucan, Belize's national bird.
HE ENGUSH-SPE^AKING nation Wliedier you'd like to rough it and
of Belize boasts a great di\'ersit\- of spend a night deep in the heart ofan undis- 1 flora and fauna in a small, com- airbed jungle (accessible only via a four-
]iact aiea: lush mountains, dopical rain- hoiu" canoe trip), luxuriate in an upscale
forests and lowlands, coral and mangro\e lodge on a tiopical island paradise, or take cays and lagoons, and the world's second daily excuisions to remote Maya ruins fi^om largest banier reef. To explore this your own cabin nesded at the foot of the Caiibbean-CenQal American nation teem- mountains, Belize Lodge & Excursions
ing ^\^til wildlife, contact Belize Lodge & Limited can make it easy for you to experi- Excursions Limited, a miique ecotourism ence a tremendous vaiiety of habitats. P
The new 820 Swiu Audubon binocu-
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PocoNO Mountains, Pennsyi.vania
YEAR-ROUND RESORT just a With seven state parks and miles of varieties of trees, creating a blazing
short drive from New York Qty, hiking trails, acres of forests, and the landscape of red, orange, and gold, Pennsyivania's Pocono Mountains Delaware Water Gap National Recreation the Poconos are especially enticing in
offer wooded peaks and valleys, Area, the Poconos are a natural retreat the fall.
sparkling lakes, noshing rivers, and some and a favorite site for birds and birders For birders, a trip to the Delaware
of the loveliest waterfalls in the east alike. And with over one hundred Water Gap is always rewarding. More than 260 species have been sighted in this area, from American bald eagles soaring above the upper Delaware View America's symbol River, making their way southward, to -the bald eag/e-in Its natural the Louisiana waterthrush, which habitat, the Pocono Mountains. nests in caxdties in the banks of swift- Along the Upper Delaware River, running streams. Golden eagles are Pike and Wayne counties host less frequently sighted but are the largest population of bald recorded nearly every wnter In the eagles in the northeast. For your bottomland forests and ravines along
FREE Vacation Guide or for the river, look for a variety of warblers, immediate reservations, visit including cerulean, blackburnian, 800poconos.com. and black-throated green warblers, as well as acadian flycatchers and her-
For Eagle Watcher Etiquette, mit thrush.
Visit 800poconos.com During the fall and spring, many
and click on birds migrate along the river valley, Things To Do. and the Kittatinny Ridge is an especial-
ly important migratory conidor for raptors. Wild turkeys can be spotted in Pocono die Poconos' open fields, bobolinks and grasshopper spaixows breed in Mountains die area's grasslands, and waterfowl, shorebirds, and herons wade in its wet- 1-800-POCONOS lands. And the Poconos' deciduous (1-800-762-6667) forests harbor a wealdi of birds, rang- P E N N SY LVAN lA memories hsi a lifetime- | ing firom the scarlet tanager to die
Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau, Inc., 1004 Main Street, Box AM, Stroudsburg, PA 18360 iTiffed grouse. k 10/02 naTi llSTORY 27
Samplings
By Stephan Reebs
ACCOUNTING FOR TASTE People who OF A RIGHT MIND TO consider the carrion-eating habits of vultures FIGHT A male tree lizard is disgusting might want to stop reading right sunning itself on a rock by the now. The Egyptian vulture (Neophron perc- side of U.S. Highway 80 in New nopterus), not content with rotten meat, also Mexico. Suddenly a competitor, consumes cow and sheep feces. A good expla- another male, appears a few feet nation has been proposed for the odd diet. away. Never mind that this in-
Unique among vultures, the Egyptian sports a truder is in fact introduced by an bright yellow face. The color yellow in the ani- experimenter working behind the scene; tem- vide additional support for the idea that this
mal world comes from pigments called pers may still flare and a lateral display (the hemisphere plays the greater role in aggres- carotenoids, which vertebrates cannot synthe- lizard showing one side to its opponent) may sion. (Previous studies on Siamese fighting fish size and must therefore obtain directly from ensue, perhaps even followed by a charge. The and toads, as well as on humans and other pri-
stage is set for a study by Diana K. Hews and R. mates, have yielded similar results.) Drawing
Andrew Worthington, of Indiana State Univer- conclusions about human behavior from such
sity. Their objective: to determine if aggres- studies is always risky, but highway drivers
sion is controlled by one side of the brain more should perhaps try to ignore cars aggressively
than by the other. Their results: lizards that passing on their left (don't succumb to road
spotted the intruder with their left eye were rage!). Far better instead to look for lizards
more likely to present with their left side, and sunning on the right side of the road. ("Fight-
lizards that displayed with their left side were ing from the right side of the brain: left visual
twice as likely to charge. Since information field preference during aggression in free-
from the left eye is processed first in the ranging male tree lizards [Urosaurus ornatus],"
brain's right hemisphere, these findings pro- Brain, Behavior and Evolution 58, 2001)
NEW NARCS? Another animal could soon cups filled with bedding material (only one of
join sniffer dogs in the business of contraband which was scented with a simulated cocaine their diets. A recent study by 3. J. Negro, of detection. Rats have good noses, too, and as powder) yielded a correct-hit rate of 95 per- the Dofiana Biological Station in Spain, and demonstrated by James Otto, of the University cent. Although field trials were not run, the
colleagues shows that though bones and car- of Baltimore, and Michael F. Brown and William team suggests possible advantages of rats over
rion contain few yellow pigments, cow dung Long III, of Villanova University, they can be dogs: (1) rats can squeeze into tight hiding
and sheep droppings have a fair amount of the trained not only to recognize the smell of illicit places; (2) rats do not form strong social bonds
stuff. The biologists looked at blood plasma in drugs, prohibited foodstuffs, and dangerous with humans and wouldn't need specific human
captive vultures and found that carotenoid explosives (as previous workers have found) handlers nearby; (3) rats are inexpensive to
concentration was low in birds that were fed but also to search actively for those odors and breed and maintain, and large numbers can be
on cow meat but went up after the menu was adopt a particular pos- trained through auto-
switched to cow dung. Perhaps, the investiga- ture when the search is mated systems; and
tors suggest, the bright yellow face that re- successful. The scien- sadly, (4) rats might be
sults from eating feces signals to potential tists taught rats to seen as expendable and
mates or rivals that its owner is an especially stand on their hind legs could be called upon in
fit individual. After all, any bird able to thrive if they detected the dangerous situations
on a diet that includes an item that is low in smell of cocaine and involving the detection
nutrition and likely to contain lots of parasites also outfitted the ani- of explosives and
is apt to be in very good shape. ("Coprophagy: mals with a harness and long cable designed to buried mines. ("Training rats to search and
an unusual source of essential carotenoids," "report:" their posture to a computer. Labora- alert on contraband odors," Applied Animal
Nature 416, 2002) tory trials in an arena containing twenty-five Behaviour Science 77:3, 2002) 28 MATURAI H!STOR\ 10/02
SOUNDS LIKE TROUBLE in Africa, ter Dobler, and K. Eduard Linsenmair, of the Univer- SEWAGE TREATMENT Aphids are well
restrial animaLs respond in one of two ways to sity of Wurzburg, played a recording of a sa- known for their production of honeydew, a sug-
advancing savanna fires: by burrowing into the vanna fire to reed frogs that were peacefully es- ary liquid excreted in great abundance by these
ground or running for their lives. For those tivating in Ivory Coast's Comoe National Park. sap-feeding insects. Free-living aphids need
who try to flee but aren't very fast, a Little fore- Eighteen out of twenty frogs listened for a few not worry about waste disposal: they can flick
warning can mean the difference between life minutes and then took off in the direction of the honeydew away, give it to ants that "tend"
in exchange for the privilege of eating . tall trees or dense bush at a them
a forest edge (these critters are their waste, or simply move on to another o I good climbers, and tall struc- feeding location. But for aphids living inside
protection from plant galls, the risk of getting stuck or even I tures offer
I ground fires). None of the drowning in their own sticky waste is quite
I frogs reacted to white noise, real. For more than a century scientists have
I and only six moved in response known that gall-dwelling aphids solve this
- to the fire sounds played back- problem with water-repellent wax. Special
ward. Why do the frogs spend glands near the insect's anus produce a pow-
precious moments listening
before they leap toward
safety? Perhaps, the biologists
suggest, the frogs want to
make certain that the crackling
sounds are fire and not dry
sticks breaking under a large
animal's footsteps. Scientists
and death. One such animal is the West African already knew that various nonhuman animals
reed frog (Hyperoiius nitidulus). In summer, use smoke, heat, and visual information to per-
reed frogs cling to grass stems or dry leaves. ceive distant fire, but this is the first example
They remain motionless to conserve water, but of acoustic detection. ("Frogs flee from the
the sound of distant fire can rouse them to ac- sound of fire," Proceedings of the Royal Society
tion. German biologists T. Ulmar Grafe, Stefanie of London B 269, 2002)
dered wax that coats the honeydew droplets,
creating little hydrophobic marbles that can be EXPERIMENT OF THE MONTH pushed along and kicked out of a gall through
When attacked by a in the dark mud. a tiny opening. Aphid wax also coats the inner
predator, a group of When a natural surface of the gall, which has become the
animals often be- predator (a clapper focus of recent research. Nathan Pike and col-
comes more com- rail) or a simulated leagues at the University of Cambridge have
pact as each indi- one (a person) ran observed that this waxy wall-covering resem-
vidual tries to reach toward a flock, bles a bed of microscopic needles. Some of the
the relative safety of the center. Well docu- the crabs scurried about but always ended up needles adhere to the honeydew marbles,
mented in vertebrates, this so-called selfish forming a tighter aggregation. So strong was adding to their waxy coat. But the needle tips
herd effect has now been reported for an in- the pull of the center, with its "promise" of also keep the honeydew drops from sticking to
vertebrate, the fiddler crab (Uca pugilator). greater safety, that the crabs farthest away the wall. This significantly improves the ease
Equipped with a video camera, Steven V. Vis- from the predator also rushed to join the with which the aphids move the marbles
cido and David S. Wethey, of the University group, even though this meant moving to- around, making for efficient sewage transport.
of South Carolina, ventured onto the mud- ward the source of danger. Obviously, for ("How aphids lose their marbles," Proceedings
flats of a small tidal creek to measure the co- wary crabs, living on the edge is not con- of the Royal Society of London B 269, 2002)
hesion of crab flocks before and after an at- sidered a viable option. ("Quantitative
tack. They mapped the position of individual analysis of fiddler crab flock movement: Stephan Reebs is a professor of biology at the
crabs relative to a reference grid system evidence for 'selfish herd' behaviour," Ani- Universite de Moncton in New Brunswick, Canada,
made of white golf balls placed strategically mal Behaviour 63, 2002) and the author of F]sh Behavior in the Aquarium
and in the Wild (Cornell University Press). .
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FINDINGS
Getting a Head in the World
When the naidid worm
reproduces, it grows a new
frontfor its hack half
and a new tail for its front.
By Alexandra Bely and Gregory Wray
'W' 'W' "T^ peer down at the tiny I /I / worm wriggling under the
r V lens of our microscope. Four A naidid worm is about to split into two. Note the two sets of eyes (black dots).
black eyes peer up at us: two from the Below: The act of separation (green and blue indicate new growth).
creature's head and two fr-om its . . . other
head. Two-headed worms are common muscles and stomach, and even its in our lab, and they're common outside lunch are plainly visible to anyone who
the lab as well. If you've ever scratched cares to look. Also hard to miss, of ^sooococoiJKmi)
the surface of a sUmy rock in a pond or course, are its two heads, complete ^socococcoMxiniii) stream, you may even have taken one of with two pairs of eyes, two mouths,
these ininiature beasts home with you, and two brains. One head is just where ^onrariimiiMicooOT
tucked away under your frngernail. you would expect it, at the front end of
The bizarre worms we study are the animal. The second head is right in
called naidids. They are members of the iTuddle of its body.
the phylum Annelida, the group that Two-headed naidids are not abnor- dids develop five or more at once, ulti- includes segmented worms such as mal mutants; rather, they are average mately breaking up into an equivalent leeches, tube worms, and the familiar worms that happen to be in the process number of worms. This curious mode
earthworm. Although naidids are of reproducing by a method known as of reproduction has arisen in several widespread and abundant in ponds, paratomic fission (or paratomy). Grow- groups of annehds. How such an un-
streams, marshes, and other freshwater ing a second head \n the center of its usual reproductive method may have
pools, we know relatively Httle about body is a naidid's first step in propa- evolved has been the subject of our re-
them, in part because of their size. gating itself Just in front of this head, search for several years.
Most are tiny; members of the largest new tail segments develop. The worm Annehds are certainly not the only
species grow to about the size of a eventually splits into two complete ani- members of the animal kingdom with
toothbrush bristle. A naidid's body is mals (hence the term "fission"), one unconventional reproductive habits.
nearly transparent, allowing easy view- with the old head and a new tail, the Take Hydra, a genus of freshwater inver-
ing of its inner workings; its bilobed other with the old tail and a new head. tebrates that commonly inhabit lakes
brain, its pulsating blood vessels, its But why stop at two heads? Many nai- and ponds. With one end of its body at- —
tached to a rock or to submerged vege- than 6,000 miles long—roughly the the location of cells in which the two tation, a Hydra waves its tentacles in distance from San Francisco to Paris. genes were being expressed—specifi- search of tiny aquatic prey, which it Given that reproduction is the cur- cally in the new heads and tails grow- captures and stuffs into its mouth, lo- rency of evolutionary success, naidids ing in the middle ot reproducing cated at the center of it5 ring ot tenta- are clearly doing something right. But worms. In other words, these two cles. To reproduce, a Hydra t^'pically how does an animal become capable ot genes, typically involved in the devel- forms a bud that grows from the side of reproducing this way? New molecular opment of sexually produced embryos, its body. The bud develops its own tools have made it possible to study the are also involved in the development of mouth and set of feeding tentacles but genes involved in this unorthodox new tissues during paratomic fission. shares a gut, and hence its food, with its manner of generating offspring. We were dehghted with our results, parent. Like a naidid, a Hydra eventually The worm we have been studying but we wondered how in the course of splits into two or more complete indi- is a delicate little naidid called Pristiiia evolution these genes came to be ex- viduals that go their separate ways. Icidyi. Rearing this species has proved pressed during paratomy. It is difficult
Sea anemones such as the pink- to be surprisingly easy and inexpen- to imagine paratomic fission arising in tipped surf anemone, which is common sive. Like most naidids, Pristina are one giant evolutionary step, in which a along the Pacific coast of North Amer- detritivores that ingest fine sediments whole suite of genes (including ortlio- ica, have a particularly dramatic mode and scrape diatoms and algae from dentide and engrailed) would simultane- of reproduction. Opposite ends ot the rocks and aquatic plants. In the labora- ously have acquired the ability to be anemone slowly crawl away from each tory, we housed worms in glass bowls deployed in the middle of a worm's other, creating a tug-of-war that ulti- filled with spring water and added body. It seemed likelv that intermediate mately causes the animal to tear itself in a few paper towel pieces as a two. Each half then regenerates the part substrate for them to crawl that was lost, making the behavior an on. For food, the worms were eftkient, if peculiar, way of procreating. content with a century-old
And the list continues—sea stars that lab recipe (originally devel- split in half, marine ribbon worms that oped for growing organisms break up into dozens of small pieces, such as Paramcciitm) that con- sponges that fragment. AH these crea- sists of boiled hay and wheat tures propagate by an asexual method grains. In this simple micro- known as agamecic reproduction: ofl- cosm the worms flourished. spring are produced by a single parent, With our subjects now in and no gametes (eggs or sperm) are in- hand, we began our genetic volved in the process. Although cer- studies by invesrigating homeo- tainly not common, this kind of repro- box genes, which in many duction has evolved numerous times animals play important roles and in disparate kinds of invertebrates. during embryonic develop- With the ability to reproduce aga- ment. Specifically, we wanted metically, the would-be parent has no to learn where and when two Like a naidid, a hydra reproduces asexually, developing need to find a mate. Even a single nai- such genes orthodentide and a bud that will eventually split from its parent. did worm that makes its way to a new engrailed—are turned on, or environment has the potential to expressed, during paratomic fission in steps were involved. Some evidence quickly populate the entire body of Pristina. To find out, we had a power- suggested that the process by which water it inhabits. A well-fed naidid can ful chemical technique at our disposal, some animals regenerate lost or dam- reproduce every two or three days. As- which causes cells to change color in aged body parts might be related to the suming that the average worm repro- the presence of RNA copies of the process of paratomy. As long ago as duces every three days, in just three genes. Such copies would only be pre- 1916, French zoologist Lucienne De- months it could in theory be the proud sent if the genes were turned on. horne noted that the distribution and progenitor of more than a billion off- After several days of painstakingly movement of naidids' cells during spring! Viewed another way, if that av- transferring our ininute, nearly invisi- paratomy bore a striking resemblance erage one-centimeter worm did not ble worms from one chemical solution to that seen during regeneration. We spHt after consecutive rounds of fission, to the next, dark blue patches began to were therefore eager to find out what after three months it would be more appear in the naiciids' bodies, revealing was happening with our two homeo- 32 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02
box genes while regeneration was taking place.
Pristina worms, it turns out, are great regenerators. When we removed the anterior or poste- rior end of a worm, the remain-
ing piece grew a new head or tail within just a few days. We found that during regeneration, the ex- pression patterns of the orthoden-
ticle and engrailed genes were al-
most identical to the patterns Many vertebrates, including geckos, can regenerate lost body parts, such as a tail. In a
seen during paratomy. In worms handful of invertebrates this trait has led to reproduction by fission.
forming a new head or tail either
by regeneration or by paratomy, both neHd regeneration, much of it from the Fortunately, the two genes we stud- genes were turned on in regions of the early 1900s, we found that most worms ied have been examined in the em- developing nervous system. Addition- can regenerate missing segments, but bryos of a closely related annelid
ally, in worms developing a head by ei- only a small proportion are able to re- group, the leeches. Although leeches
ther process, orthodentide was turned on produce by fission. Moreover, with just neither regenerate nor undergo para-
at the tip of the new head as well as m a single known exception, all annehds tomic fission, their embryos are very
the foregut (specifically in the pharynx, capable of fission can also regenerate (a similar to those of Pristina's. When we the muscular "throat" of the worm). pattern that seems to hold for many compared our Pristina findings with
The resemblance between regenera- other invertebrate groups as weO, in- the published data for orthodentide and
tion and paratomy, then, is not merely cluding flatworms, sea anemones, and engrailed in leech embryos, we were superficial but extends to the underly- starfish). So we believe that in annehds, pleasantly surprised. In leech embryos,
the ability to regenerate came just as in our fissioning and regener-
first and may even have been a ating naidids, orthodentide was ex- necessary prerequisite for the pressed near the tip of the head and m evolution of fission. the foregut, and both genes were The next question we turned on during the development of wanted to explore was whether the leech's nervous system.
regeneration is completely novel Evolution, it seems, is fond of recy-
or whether it, in turn, is based chng. Genes that control embryological
on yet another process, such as development were co-opted to play a
embryogenesis. To find out, we role in the regeneration of body parts, compared gene expression dur- and the abOity to regenerate was subse- ing paratomy and regeneration quently critical to the evolution of
with that in a developing em- paratomy. Countless questions remain, bryo. In this new endeavor, our of course, regarding the ways in which Painted sea stars and other starfish regenerate Pristina worms proved uncoop- the astonishing diversity of reproduc- missing arms—in this case, four out of five. erative. Naidids are able to re- tive modes has evolved. As our httle produce sexually, but they do so Pristina worms have shown us, the an- ing genetic machinery. Indeed, during very rarely in nature, and the environ- swers may be lying humbly underfoot, paratomic fission, a naidid behaves as if mental cues that prompt an individual beneath a slimy pondside rock just
it were broken in half (even though it to switch from asexual to sexual repro- waiting to be turned over. has not been damaged), regenerating a duction are not known. Despite our ef-
new tail for its firont end and a new head forts to manipulate our naidids' lab en- Alexandra Bely, a postdoctoralfellow in mol-
for its back end. Given the extensive vironment to simulate what might be a ecular and cell biology at the University of
similarities between regeneration and natural trigger for sexual reproduc- California, Berkeley, ti'ill soon be an assis-
fission, an obvious question is. Which tion—such as a change in day length or tant professor of biology at the University of
process came first in the course of evo- temperature—our worms continued to Maryland. Gregory Wray is an associate pro- lution? Reviewing the literature on an- reproduce only by fission. fessor of biology at Duke University. • /
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UNIVERSE Let There Be Dark
To keep the cosmos in view, sky watchers mustfight to keep the Earth
from being enveloped in a fog of artificial Ught.
By Neil deGrasse Tyson
tk strophysics reigns as the most \\L/^ t-\ humbling of scientific disci- -Z. A- phnes. The astounding breadth and depth of the universe deflates our
egos daily, and we are continually at the mercy of uncontrolled forces. A simple cloudy evening—one that would stop no other human activity—prevents us from making observations with a tele- scope that can cost $20,000 a night to run, regardless of the weather. We are passive observers of the cosmos, acquir- ing data when, where, and how nature
reveals itself to us. To know the cosmos requires that we have windows onto the universe that remain unfogged, un- tinted, and unpolluted. But the spread
of what we call civilization, and the associated ubiquity of modern tech-
nology, is generally at odds with this
mission. Unless something is done
about it, people will soon bathe the
Earth in a background glow of light
that will block all access to the frontiers of cosmic discovery. The most obvious and prevalent form of astropollution comes from streetlamps. All too often, they can be
seen from your airplane window dur- rendered much of the world's real estate City, is more efficient in its inefficiency ing night flights, which means that unsuitable for astronomical research. At by nearly a factor of five.
these streetlamps illuminate not only a 1999 conference entitled "Preserving The astrophysicist's dilemma is not the streets below but the rest of the the Astronomical Sky," participants that Hght escapes into space but that
universe. Unshielded streetlights, such rightly moaned about the loss of dark the lower atmosphere supports a mix- as those without downward-facing skies around the globe. One paper re- ture of water vapor, dust, and pollutants shades, are most to blame. Municipali- ported that inefficient lighting costs the that bounce some of the upward-
ties with these poorly designed lamp city of Vienna $720,000 annually, Lon- flowing photons back down to Earth, housings find themselves buying don $2.9 million, Washington, D.C., leaving the sky aglow with the sig-
higher-wattage bulbs because half the $4.2 million, and New York City $13.6 nature of a city's nightlife. As cities lamplight points upward. This wasted million. Note that London, with a become brighter and brighter, dim ob- Hght, shot forth into the night sky, has population similar to that of New York jects in the cosmos become less and less visible, severing urban dwellers" Outdoor Lighting Code reads as access to the universe. though the mayor, the chief of police,
It's hard to exaggerate the magni- and the prison warden were all as- Discover the most enjoyable and hassle-free tude of this effect. A penlight's beam, tronomers at the time the code was way to travel through Europe aimed at a wall across a darkened dm- passed. Section 1 identifies the intent Unpack only once ing room, is easy to spot. But gradually of the ordinance: brighten the overhead light, and watch how the beam gets harder and harder Tlie purpose of tliis Code is to proi'ide to see. Under light-polluted skies, standards for outdoor lii^litiiio so that flizzv' objects such as comets, nebulae, its use docs not uurcasoiiably iinciferc and galaxies become difficult or im- u'itli astrououiical observations. It is tlie
intent of this Code to encourage, A marketing executive wanted tinvugh the regulation of the types, kinds, construction, installation, and to project her company's logo uses of outdoor electrically powered onto the Moon. I explained illuminating devices, lighting practices Take a deluxe Uniworld cruise on why this was a bad idea. and systems to conserve energy without Europe's legendary rivers away from decreasing safety, utility, security, and crowded highways. Visit great cities and possible to detect. I have never in productivity while enhancing nighttime my charming medieval towns and watch a property within the hfe seen the Milky Way galaxy from enjoyment of fairy-tale world of castles, vineyards and within the limits of New York City, jurisdiction. quaint villages float by. Cruise onboard and I was born and raised here. If you Europe's newest and most luxurious observe the night sky from light- And after thirteen other sections that ships. Enjoy spacious cabins with picture drenched Times Square, you might see give strict rules and regulations govern- windows and elegant one-sitting dining. a dozen or so stars, compared with the ing citizens' choice of outdoor lighting, All shore excursions are included. thousands that were visible from the we get to the best part, section 15: Choose from 35 cruises, 7 to 21 days. same spot when Peter Stuyvesant was From only $1998 incl. airfare hobbling around town. No wonder It shall be a civil infraction for any ancient peoples shared a culture of sky person to violate any of the provisions lore, whereas modern peoples, who oftliis Code. Each and every day China The expansion of electrically lit cities during the twentieth century As you can see, by shining light on created a technology fog that forced an astronomer's telescope you can turn astronomers to move their hilltop ob- a peace-loving citizen into a Rambo. servatories from the outskirts of towns Think I'm joking? The International to remote places such as the Canary Is- Dark-Sky Association (IDA) is an or- lands, the Chilean Andes, and Hawaii's ganization that fights upward-pointing Mauna Kea. One notable exception is light anywhere in the world. With an designed Kitt Peak National Observatory in opening phrase reminiscent of the one Choose from our expertly deluxe escorted tours, 10 to 19 days. Arizona. Instead of running away from painted on Los Angeles Police Depart- Stay at deluxe hotels and cruise the spreading and brightening cir\' of ment squad cars, the IDA's motto says on the majestic Yangtze onboard the Tucson, fifty miles away, the as- it all: "To preserve and protect the ships of Victoria Cruises, the only U.S. tronomers stayed and fought. The bat- nighttime environment and our heri- based cruise line in China. All meals tle is easier-won than you might think; tage of dark skies through quality out- ore included, plus performances all you have to do is convince people door lighting." And, like the police, and cultural highlights. that their choice of outdoor lighting is the IDA will come after you if you From only $1898 inc. airfare a waste of money. In the end, the city transgress. gets efficient streetlamps and the as- I know. They came after me. Not a See your travel agent or call tronomers get a dark sky. Ordinance week after the Rose Center for Earth 800-226-6208 No. 8210 of the Tucson/Pima Countv and Space first opened its doors to the UNIW©RLD www.uniworld.com 36 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 I a call public, I received a letter from the physics of reflection angles endows the A few years ago got phone IDA's executive director, scolding me fuU Moon with more than ten times from a marketing executive who wanted for the upward-pointing lights embed- the brightness of a half Moon. This to light up the Moon with the logo of ded in the pavement of our entrance moonglow also greatly reduces the her company. She wanted to know how plaza. We v^^ere justly accused—the number of meteors visible during a she might proceed. After slamming plaza does have forty (very low meteor shower (though clouds would down the phone, I called her back and wattage) lamps that help delmeate and be worse), no matter where you are on pohtely explained why it was a bad idea. illuminate the Rose Center's granite- Other corporate executives have asked clad arched entryway. These lights are A cell-phone conversation me how to put into orbit mile-wide partly functional and partly decorative. between two astronauts luminous banners with catchy slogans The point of the letter was not to written across them, much like the sky- on the Moon would he blame the bad viewing conditions writing or flag-dragging airplanes you a bright spot in the radio sky. across all of New York City on these see at sports events or over the ocean itty-bitty lamps but to hold the Hay- from a crowded beach. I always threaten den Planetarium accountable for set- Earth. So never wish a full Moon upon to send the light police after them. ting a good example for the rest of the an astronomer who is headed off to a Modern life's insidious link with parts of world. I am embarrassed to say that the big telescope. True, the Moon's tidal Hght pollution extends to other lights remain. force created tide pools and other dy- the electromagnetic spectrum. Next at But all that's bad is not artificial. A namic habitats that contributed to the risk is the astronomer's radiowave win- full Moon is bright enough to reduce transition from marine to terrestrial life dow to the cosmos, including micro- the number of stars visible to the un- and ultimately made it possible for hu- waves. In modern times we are awash aided eye from thousands to hundreds. mans to thrive. Apart from this detail, in the signals of such radiowave-emit- Indeed, the full Moon is more than most observational astronomers, espe- ting devices as cellular telephones, 100,000 times brighter than the cially cosmologists, would be happy if garage-door openers, keys that trigger brightest nighttime stars. And the the Moon had never existed. 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To eHminate interfer- lose the bragging rights it now enjoys. without an atmos- ence, the geographic areas surrounding Furthermore, Subscriber Benefits the protected observatories should also phere to scatter sunlight, the Moon's be kept clear of human-generated radio daytime sky is almost as dark as its • One-year subscription to signals of any kind. night, so everybody's favorite stars Natural History magazine The most challenging problem may hover visibly in the sky, right alongside • Free one-time general admission of be that the farther an object is from the the disk of the Sun. A more pollution- pass to the American Museum Milky Way, the longer the wavelength free place has yet to be found. Natural History • at and the lower the frequency of its radio On second thought, I retract my Discount on purchases signals. This phenomenon, which is a earlier callous remarks about the Museum shops • car rentals cosmological Doppler effect, is the prin- Moon. Maybe our neighbor in space Discount on HERTZ cipal signature of our expanding uni- will one day become the astronomer's nationwide verse. So it's not really possible to isolate best friend atter aU. website: a single range of "astro" frequencies and Visit our assert that the entire cosmos, from Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astropliysicist, is www.naturalhistory.com nearby galaxies to the edge of the ob- the Frederick P. Rose Director ofNeu' York servable universe, can be served through City's Hayden Planetarium and a visiting To place orders or for subscription this window. The struggle continues. research scientist at Princeton University information, call 1-800-234-5252. 38 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 ENDS & MEANS Can Nature Be Declawed? Ecofeminists may be substituting one stereotype for another. By Marlene Zuk stood outside the door of the and then asked the man Hemuseum, barefoot, very tan, his name. and wearing only a faded pair "Wing Bamboo," of cutoffs. He was clutching a large bird he said. to his chest. The bird was barely alive, I paused. It was its eyes shut, its black-and-white feath- southern California, ers moving slightly. "Can you help it was the 1970s, and him?" said the young man, staring while people hopefully at me. Having finished my named Rain- undergraduate degree, I was working bow and Run- in the vertebrate zoology research mu- ningwater seum at the University of California, were common Santa Barbara, and such requests were place in the food not uncommon. Sometimes we took co-op, you usually care of injured birds in the museum didn't see them in the until they were ready to fly away. museum, donating dead Not this time, however. I pointed birds. Should I write "Bamboo, out that the bird, which I identified as a Wing"? "W. Bamboo"? Was it all common loon, was too far gone to be one word? In the end, 1 wrote it down predisposed to Kke the merging of the helped but that I'd be happy to take it just as he'd said it, and told him to put two. But invoking examples from the for the museum's collection. Stuffed the bird on the table. He gazed at it and natural world in the service of a cause, birds were used both as research speci- put it down, but only after clutching it no matter how worthy, is at best a risky mens and for teaching. By painstak- a little tighter and intoning, "Goodbye, venture. My own experience studying ingly examining taxidermy mounts brother loon." animals has led me to believe that such during my vertebrate zoology course, I Since then, I have thought about the "nature-based" ideologies are hkely to had learned how to identify many of encounter several times. Wing Bamboo, be seriously out of sync with the realities the local species; I was now learning like niany people, wanted to use an of nature itself. how to prepare specimens myself, and emotional connection with animals to One version of ecofeminism holds firesh material was always welcome. forge an ideological link with nature. that women have more "connections The young man was horrified. One recent such impulse comes from to the primal," as Mary Morse, author How could I be so callous when the the ecofeminist movement, which con- of Women Changing Science, puts it. poor creature was still aUve? While we nects two goals: ending inequality be- This behef is not new, of course. Be- were arguing, the loon died in his tween the sexes and solving environ- cause of their reproductive and care- arms. After a little more persuasion, he mental problems by changing the human giving functions, women have been agreed to donate the bird to our collec- relationship to the natural world. It rose traditionally regarded as less cerebral tion, and I started the paperwork. Skins to prominence in the 1980s, associated and more physical, and therefore more are always more valuable if information with animal rights and radical environ- "natural," than men. But instead of re- about their collection is kept with the mental movements in the United States jecting this viewpoint (with its deni- specimen, so I noted the date, the place and Europe. As both a feminist and a grating implication that women are on the beach where it had been found, champion of enviromnental causes, I was incapable of detached analysis), eco- — — feminism embraces the idea ot the studying these birds, Swedish ecologists so sensational that it appeared in "Rip- emotional, spiritual female who, by Bengt Hansson, Staffan Bensch, and leys BeHeve It or Not!," an illustrated virtue of her gender, is better equipped Dennis Hasselquist, of Lund Universits', feature usually reserved tor two- than a man to attain a deep under- noticed something peculiar: primary headed calves and 500-pound balls of standing of the earth. A related idea females were three times more Hkely to string. Presumably, the bluebird find- (also far from new) is that women are lose their eggs to predators than were ing was deemed extraordinary be- naturally more peace loving and less secondary females. To find out why, cause reality did not conform to the aggressive than men and are therefore the scientists performed an ingenious stereotype—killer bluebirds were bad better suited for making the world experiment. They placed plasticine enough, but female killer bluebirds more compassionate. The popular for- eggs in artificial nests in the warblers" were the stuff of nightmares. mulation of this view is that if women territories and compared the marks left Females and males compete over ran the world, wars would end, gtm in the clayhke surfaces with marks the same things: resources that make control would be unnecessary, and we it more Ukely an indi- would all cooperate to achieve com- Invoking examples from the natural world vidual's genes w'lH be mon goals for the good ot society. passed on to the next in the service of a cause, no matter how I hasten to point out that many generation. Some- (perhaps most) feminists are as uneasy worthy, is at best a risky venture. times, m this compe- as I am about the idea that women can tition, a given female save the planet snnply by virtue of made by known species of birds and will do better if females around her being women, or that if women are mammals. From the distinctive nibbles cannot reproduce. In the case ot dwarf not inferior to men, they must be su- on the fake eggs, Hansson and his col- mongooses and a variety of other perior to them. Along with other sci- leagues deduced that the embryos ot mammals, including some primates entists, I am particularly skeptical primarv' females in each territory were such as marmosets, dominant females about the claim that female humans being destroyed, not by prowling rats exert so much control over the Uves of have a less aggressive nature than or snakes, but by other reed warblers subordinates that the subordinates be- males, enabling us to empathize with specifically, by secondary' females in the come physically incapable of producing other organisms. Presumably, this same territory. This behavior on the offspring, their estrous cycles stilled. compassion is part ot human nature, part of secondary- females increased the From an evolutionary standpoint, this and we share it with other animals likelihood that they would gain more is indeed a fate worse than death. where else, after all, could it have male parental care and thus improve the The champion practitioners ot fe- come from? But is there anything survival odds for their own chicks. In male brutality, however, come from the wrong with this idea? If we look at Darwinian terms, it makes perfect species in which females rule in a other species in the animal kingdom, sense, yet avian infanricide is hardly an monarchy so absolute that insubordina- can we conclude that the idea of the example of pacifism (or sisterhood) tion is seldom tolerated. I am talking gender female is well founded? among females. about the social insects, among which Take, for starters, a bird known as Such cases of female competition females comprise the vast majority of the great reed warbler. Migrating each and aggression have been noted in individuals in the colony, and males spring from Africa to Europe, this spe- many birds and other vertebrates. Even play a smaO but crucial role by fertiliz- cies settles in reed beds of lakes to that classic symbol of cheery optimism, ing the next generation of queens. breed. The male may attract more than the bluebird, turns out to have a dark Strife appears at several levels: In one female to settle on his territory. If side. Ecologist Patricia Adair Gowaty, honeybees, the first queen to emerge this happens, he allocates his help with studying eastern bluebirds in the south- from her pupal cell may kill the others the offspring according to a first-come, eastern United States, found that fe- as they Ue in their virginal wax cham- first-served principle: the first, or pri- males were so aggressive they some- bers. Or the female workers may indi- mary, female he mates with gets a times fought to the death (see "Bluebird rectly rebel against the queen's repro- greater share of fatherly aid in the form Belligerence," June 1985). Bluebirds ductive tyranny by manipulating the of fetching insects for the babies. So Ute build nests in holes that form in dead number of males or females they rear in ot wasps, fe- is good for primary females—unless tree smmps. In nature, Gowaty pointed the hive. In many species they lose their clutch of eggs to a out, such nest sites are quite Hmited, males battle fiercely for superiority predator or to some other disaster, in and it is therefore logical that females when a colony is founded. These bat- which case the male turns his attention battle fiercely over them. She was taken tles—resulting in limbs lost, antennae to other females on his territory. While aback when her discovery was deemed torn from their sockets, wings shredded ^1 40 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 by mandibles—are among the most vi- comparisons between males and fe- female, antinature attitudes that em- cious in the animal kingdom. males. Males are aggressive, females are phasize domination and objectivity at Another notion common among passive; males are exploratory, females the expense of harmony. The scien- ecofeminists is that thousands of years are nest builders and caregivers. The tific revolution of the modern era thus ago our species lived in benevolent first problem with such categorizations paved the way for what Mary MeUor, societies that worshiped temale deities, is that "male" attributes are too often a prominent ecofeminist author, calls venerated female quahties, and were the ones deemed necessary for worldly "a disenchantment of Nature." The closely in tune with the natural world. success. This division has been bad for question of whether science has sepa- According to this view, only when women, because it associates them with rated us too much from the natural male-dominated, Judeo-Christian phi- characteristics not held in high esteem. world emerged with the nineteenth- losophy took over did humanity begin Thus women are tempted either to century Romantics, and this separa- to be divorced from the earth. (This counterclaim that they, too, are warriors tion or lack of it affects how we think idea gets involved with another feminist and explorers or to keep the duaHsm in- both about other organisms and about issue, body image, since some of the tact by celebrating the very qualities science as a way of knowing. Mary support for such a scenario comes from that were denigrated (a goddess-woman Morse states flatly that science "sanc- comfortingly plump. Stone Age female rejoices in her earthy nature). tions domination of both nature and figurines that supposedly represent the But the dualism itself is flawed. women," a view echoed by writers good old days before we had to worry Yes, selection has acted differently on such as Carolyn Merchant, one of the about celluHte and tight jeans.) males and females of all animal spe- founders of modern ecoteminism. As numerous anthropologists have cies. The behaviors that benefit your Even the prominent MIT science his- argued, considerable doubt exists about average female wasp are different from torian Evelyn Fox Keller has drawn the reality ot a sexually egahtarian past. those that benefit the average male parallels between what she character- But why search for a model of temale- izes as the controlling dominated society in primordial com- Even that classic symbol of cheery behavior of scientists munities? Nature provides us with sev- and such mental dis- optimism, the bluebird, turns out to have eral examples of female-dominated eases as paranoia and societies in the here and now, and I for a dark side: killerfemales. obsessive-compulsive one would not want to live in any of disorder. While hardly them. A land of milk and honey—at wasp, and the same holds for bluebirds consigning all scientists to the psychia- least the honey part—seems to come at or pipefish. I, like many other scien- trist's couch, Keller does suggest that the expense of having your head ripped tists, have made a living out of explor- "a science that promises power and the off by another female. ing those differences, and I have no exercise of dominion over nature se- Of course, we hardly need to doubt that they are there, manifested lects for those individuals for whom model a female-friendly world after m different ways under different cir- power and control are central concerns. the behavior of wasps or honeybees. cumstances. Gender-related selection And a science that conceives of the But that is precisely my point: looking often means that the sexes are in con- pursuit of knowledge as an adversarial tor support in nature for cooperative, flict, and that males and females com- process selects for those who tend to loving females is just as foolish as pete not only among themselves but feel themselves in adversarial relation to looking for support for an animal with each other. But it does not mean their natural environment." Or to use equivalent of Ozzie and Harriet. Al- that the differences are fixed, with the trendier term, we scientists are all though it is good to debunk the myth males and females of every species "control freaks." of the passive temale, and good to possessing the same extreme values As a scientist, and particularly as one look for positive images of women in for masculine and feminine character- who studies animal behavior, I find al- nature and art, substituting one stereo- istics. We should debunk the stereo- most touching the faith that nonscien- type for another will only defeat the type of the passive female not because tists have in my ability to control and feminist goal of equality and, what is aggressive female bluebirds are more predict natural phenomena. Let me tell worse, can prevent us from learning our style but because it is wrong and you a secret: it's a mess out there, with about what animals really do. because it prevents us from acknowl- "out there" being the natural world we But as numerous psychologists have edging that female bluebirds fight. are all supposed to be trying to keep noted, people Hke to divide the world Some feminists believe that science under our thumbs. The suggestion that into opposites. And nowhere is the us- itself is a fundamentally flawed under- we control nature contains the implicit versus-them litany as pervasive as in taking; because it is founded on anti- assumption that we already understand it, an assumption that becomes more idea of the "noble savage," a concept site, does the cricket host die (see and more wildly incorrect the longer that idealized every member ot Homo "Overhearing Cricket Love Songs," by we work on natural systems. It is not sapiens unexposed to the corrupting in- Daniel Robert and Ronald R. Hoy, that we never learn anything; it is just fluences of civilization. If nature is June 1994). that finding one small piece ot the puz- automatically pure and good, what to I have dissected hundreds of crickets zle invariably suggests other puzzles, make of predarion? What to make of over the past several years, and when I each wdth thousands of pieces lying in langurs that kill their young, of the cute discover a maggot, white and pulsating, their own boxes underneath the one little squirrel that is transformed into I am always shocked and amazed. we are working on at the moment. When I lecture on this re- Most of the scientists I know find the We need to talk not simply search, I tell audiences that world more complex than nonscienrists everyone, scientists and non- about our relationship to nature do. If you do not really look at some- scientists alike, should open thing, it is easy to oversimplify it. but about nature itself. up an insect and see a para- This is why Mellor's concern with sitoid at least once in their disenchanted nature is so puzzHng to hawk flesh? If we are not supposed to lives. The audience always laughs, but I me. Why should close observation and dominate nature or one another, what am not entirely joking. It is worth see- asking questions about how something of domination within nature? ing something horrific because it forces works rob that thing of its vibrancy or However reluctantly, most of us rec- you to reexamine that warm, fuzzy its capacity to inspire awe? Nature is ognize that wolves, too, must eat, and teehng about nature. I am not suggest- much more enchanting to me now sometimes they must eat Bambi. The ing that we eschew Romanticism only than it was when 1 knew less about it. wolf slitting the throat of a deer is at to make up some equally self-serving Carolyn Merchant's suggested alter- least reasonably quick about it. Preda- story about cruelty and the law of the native to a science-dominated society is rion may seem unpleasant but is some- jungle. Nature is no more inherently a "partnership ethic that treats humans times a necessity. But it gets worse: evil than it is inherently good. I just (including male partners and female what to do about parasitoids? want to make sure that while we dis- partners) as equals in personal, house- Parasitoids are both parasites and cuss our relationship with nature, as hold, and political relations and hu- fi-ee-Uving predators; they spend part of feminists or as anything else, we actu- mans as equal partners with (rather their lives inside another animal and ally talk about nature itself and not sim- than controUed-by or dominant-over) part on their own. Some of my research ply about the relationship. nonhuman nature." This sounds fine, concerns one of these, a minuscule fly In the ecofeminist anthology Re- but for myself, I wouldn't recommend that hears a male cricket calling to at- weaving the World, Brian Swimme entering a partnership with someone I tract a female and homes in on him. writes, "My own hope is that what is knew only slightly. I doubt that any The fly then deposits sticky httle lar\'ae happening in our time is the emer- self-respecting ecofeminist would think on and around the male. In minutes, gence of the common myth necessary of sharing a household with a perfect one or a few will bore a hole through for us to feel and act as kin to every- stranger or of starting a business or rais- the outer skeleton into the cricket's thing." This is well and good, except ing a child with one. What kind of body. The larvae feed and grow until, that It takes us back to Wing Bamboo parmership can we have with creatures after about a week, two or three mag- and his kinship with the loon. What we know little about? And how can we gots may occupy the entire body cavity. does it mean to feel and act as kin? At get to know them if scientific study is From the outside, it looks hke a cricket, best the statement is vague, at worst rejected as a controlling patriarchy? If walks like a cricket, and—until the end misleading. It tells us something, per- we simply rely on feelings of connec- is quite near—even talks like a cricket, haps, about Wing Bamboo. But it says tion with ammals but don't know how able to produce the deceptively cheerful nothing about the loon. they breathe or reproduce or find food, chirps that signal summer. Except for we have learned more about ourselves this brittle shell, however, almost all the Marleiie Zuk is a professor of biology at the than about them. cricket flesh has been converted into fly. University of CaUfornia, Riverside. Tliis The risk of rejecting the study of Finally, the larvae have grown enough essay is adapted mth permission from her nature is that we will ideahze it. If we to shatter a hole in the side of the sriU- most recent book, Sexual Selections: What mythologize animals (not to mention Uving host, burst through, and dig into We Can and Can't Learn About Sex plants, protozoa, and bacteria), we vwU the soil, where they pupate and eventu- From Animals, pubUshed by the University have merely put a new D.vist on the ally emerge as adult flies. Only then, of California Press. © 2002 Tlje Regents eighteenth-century, Rousseauesque when it is no longer useftil to its para- of the University of Cahfornia. TODAY A vehicle whose only emission is pure water TOMORROW TOYOTA company at the forefront of Enjoy driving with From the car technology comes yet another again hybrid the window down automotive breakthrough; the world's first commercially available, hydrogen-powered vehicles. These revolutionary SUVs use an advanced fuel cell to generate power. And remarkably, their only emission is water. That's right — pure water. To prepare for limited launch later this year, Toyota tested more fuel cell prototypes than any other automaker. Our fleet was subjected to an extraordinary range of conditions, from the desert to the city. So that no matter where it's driven, the only difference between a fuel cell vehicle and a emissions. normal car is the distinct lack of vehicle in Our hope is that one day every the world will be as environmentally advanced. Who knows? In the future, the be only effect felt from driving a car could the wind in your face. www.toyota.com/tomorrow — 44 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 Plains Song Bison and life on the ''••^%^c- "American Serengeti' By Dale F. Lott After decades offield observation, zoologist Dale F. Lott turned to literary portraiture to capture what i he had seen. What follows are sketches from Lott's American Bison, a hook that captures far more of the natural and cultural his- toiy of the bison and of the Great Plains than one would find in a purely sci- entific monograph. Rang- ing over the animal's life and death, as well as its grade. His right horn slips into the earth and cuts a neighbors and its protectors, horizontal groove. He glances up to the top of the these sketches address the slope six teet above the road, makes a second overarching question that groove with his left horn, glances up again and Lott says has always driven his work: without seeming to gather himself—leaps to the How do bison get on in the world?—The editors top of the cutbank, lands upright on all four feet, A prehistoric and calmly surveys his new view. My fmger is stiU North American I Bison Athletics on the shutter button, and I still haven't pressed it. < bison effigy i I'm watching a mature, one-ton bull standing of unknown < alone on a dirt road on the National Bison Range. Social Relations provenance. i He's the only buffalo around, and I have set up my BuUs test the urine of cows, seeking the ones about Plains tribes J movie camera, so I'm vi^atching him through the to enter estrus. When they fmd one, they are likely probably began Iviewfinder—fmger on the shutter button—wish- to try to spend the next few hours with her. That's hunting buffalo ing, as a man with a movie camera wiU, that the not easy to do. Pre-estrous cows become restless around a.d. 1300, subject would do something footage-worthy. He breaking away from a tending bull and running perhaps prompting stands broadside to the road's line of travel, his front through the herd. A running cow attracts bulls, and the creation of feet at the bottom of the cutbank where the road is a string of them are soon following her, just as a tail such objects. in a trougli sliced through a low hill to ease the follows its comet. When she stops, they gather and "' "•'li.r'^iiwgSir^'^' - quickly sort out who among the present company and a little sideways, dust spurting from beneath A stampede gets to stand by his cow. his skidding feet. Suddenly a foot catches on a stretches to the Most fights involve hooking uppercuts or a rock and he trips and falls onto his side. The horizon in a cautious locking of horns or shoving head to younger bull strikes down and forward with his lithograph done head, ending when one animal signals submis- horns, slamming them into the old buU's flank in 1862, when sion and the winner lets him go. But not always. and hooking right and left. The curves of his millions of bison This time the bulls hurl themselves at each horns make most of the contact and deliver bruis- still roamed other, elongating their bulky bodies into ani- ing, possibly rib-breaking, but not fatal, blows. North America. mated battering rams as they launch themselves Then the tip of one horn plunges through skin Twenty years for the first blow. Their heads come together and muscle and into his opponent's abdomen. later, only about with a terrific shock. It ripples through their Only one horn penetrates, and it penetrates only a thousand bodies in a visible wave. I once saw a bull somer- once, but the wound will be mortal. remained here. saulted backward by such a charge: 2,000 pounds The younger buU ends his attack and returns to Athptcd fivin American of bull flipped upside down like a lawn chair in a his cow. In a few minutes the old bull will rise to Bison; A Natural History, by Dale F. Lolt, gust of wind. walk away. He will graze again, drink again, sleep published by the Uiiii'cmly The bulls lock horns and push hard, their again. But an infection will send matter oozing of California Press. Copyright © 2002 Vie hooves plowing soil as each tries to drive his op- down his ribs in a few days, and in a few weeks it Regents of the University ponent back. The old bull is pushed backward will kill him. of California. — 46 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 Youth a wonderful adaptation to being born in plain sight On the National Bison Range, calves are born in on a prairie with wolves about, but it makes the call April and May. The snow has melted and the earth is a challenge to keep in touch with—like a ball that warming. The vibrant green of new grass growth is never stops bouncing. eclipsing the browns of the grasses dried over the The bouncing baby bison doesn't bounce aim- winter. The golden yellow ot arrowleaf balsamroot lessly. It bounces toward something big and close. and the purple of lupine contrast intensely with the Mom is big and close, and the ball usually bounces new grass. I have watched dozens of calves emerge her way. But sometimes it trxes its eye on some other into this idyllic world. It's a setting to encourage re- bison that passes by and rushes after it. Then mother laxation, even lassitude—I feel it, but the calves don't chases both of them down and retrieves her young. seem to. Take the one I'm watching just now. A calf a few months old that loses its mother will at- Within a minute or two, as soon as his mother has tach itself to anything large and moving. An orphan freed him from the membrane that surrounded him calf followed Captain Meriwether Lewis one after- Prairie fires in the womb, he begins a frantic struggle to get to noon as he walked west beside the Missouri River. whether caused his feet. He gets halfway up several times and falls by lightning or foi-ward, backward, and sideways. I think, "Take it The Neighborhood hunters— burn easy, little one, rest a minute. There's no rush." But Ah, family! With all its ideaHzed connotations of quickly across a the brain that has guided calves to adulthood for safety, nurturing, tenderness, altruism, loyalty, and sea of grass, thousands of generations knows better. The calf love, the very word warms us and so warms our bringing new hasn't got a minute to spare. Wolves may arrive any feelings toward the wolf. Wild dogs, especially the growth and, in second. A late winter storm could drop six inches of big wild dogs, are famously family oriented, and the past, snow tonight, and winter returns in a tew months. wolves are no exception. Hunting parties are made attracting bison. An hour-old calf can scamper pretty well. This is up of families collaborating in the hunt, sharing in the kill, and, if the pack has pups at home, carrying food to them in their stomachs. Family is valuable and so is valued. Among dogs, the faiTiily that preys together stays together. Still, wolt social life little re- sembles the American dream family. Idealized A black-footed American family life is about happiness. Wolf fam- ferret, left. This ily Hfe is about survival and reproduction. In most predator stalks circumstances, each family stakes out and defends black-tailed dozens of square miles to hunt in. Trespassmg prairie dogs in wolves will be challenged, pursued, perhaps killed. their burrows, There are affectionate greetings and nudging below. and grooming among pack members; they even share food. But life within the pack is intensely, even relendessly, structured, and all attempts to de- viate fi-om the estabhshed order are punished se- verely. Relationships are adjusted through physical, sometimes deadly, force. It puzzles me a bit that we I once saw 2,000 pounds of bull flipped upside down like a lawn chair by a gust of wind. nature-loving Americans, who for the most part treasure pohtical equaHt\', have such affection for an animal whose social organization is basically a cruel despotism. There's no equaUty among wolves. One member of each dyad will be the tyrant, and the other will be the tyrannized. No human has ever seen a ferret at work in a bur- row that a prairie dog dug. What we can see only in our imaginations must also take place in the prairie dog's nightmares. Is the dog awakened in its pitch- sideways for miles, making the world ten feet away black burrow by a presence—sound? smell?—and if invisible at high noon in a blizzard. Cattle, de- so, is it ready to resist or escape? Or is it taken in its scended from wild stock native to warmer, calmer sleep? In either case, the unseen presence tmds the climes, turn their backs on this onslaught and drift prairie dog's throat and opens it. The dog's body, until a fence or another barrier stops them. There denied breath and blood, quickly becomes a meal, they remain imprisoned until either they or the to be eaten on the spot. Or perhaps it is dragged winds die. out under the prairie night sky to a nearby ferret An individual buffalo is affected little by these burrow, where two or three young nightmares wait kinds of winds. Yet to bison as a species, winds to be fed. made a big difference. Warm chinook winds from over the mountains to the west created the first The Four Elements open pastures as winter waned. But the most im- On the Great Plains, they say, trees lean east and portant wind for bison was one they never felt: the people lean west. Wind tilts every aspect of Great polar jet stream. This jet stream marks the northern Plains weather. Spinning winds become tornadoes. Hinit to warm, moist air pushed north from the Vertical winds pile up thunderheads. These nega- Gulf of Mexico by Bermuda highs, and it some- tively charged clouds may connect to earth via fire- times creates low-pressure, storm-inducing areas. starting Hghtning and may release either hail or re- In the past, when warm, wet air from the Gulf freshing rain. Winter winds blow snowflakes of Mexico saturated the plains, grass grew abun- years, lightning alone caused the fires. But several thousand years ago, people began to burn the prairie—often with buffalo in mind. Sometimes they used the flames to drive the bison someplace for easier and safer killing by people on foot. Sometimes they burned the grass so that new growth would attract bison to a more convenient killing place. Fire interacts with grazing. In the mixed-grass prairie, the grass known as little bluestem presents grazers with an in-your-face defense: stiff tillers, or stalks, that a grazer must push through to get to the green leaves. Bison avoid little bluestem with tillers, but fire removes these stalks. Bison graze the new- growing little bluestem as readily as they do other grasses. The fire that consumed little bluestem's de- fenses thus helped this grass's competitors, through the mechanism of bison grazing. The grasslands are as much creatures of the grazers as the grazers are creatures of the grasslands. Bison affect the composition of plants on the plains in two ways. First, they wander. When they had the whole prairie to wander over, particular patches of grass probably had two-year rests fairly regularly, especially because bison chose areas In 1923, the dandy, bison ate heardly, and the populations rose. where grasses were growing most vigorously. tallgrass prairie But sometimes for a year or so the jet stream was When the tallgrass canopy is grazed off, sunlight of what is now well to the south, bringing dry air over the plains. reaches the earth and the shorter plants do better. South Dakota's Every five to ten years, eastern Montana endured Wind Cave (as it does today) fifty or more consecutive days m There's no equality among wolves. National Park, the growing season without rain. The grass would In every pair, one is the tyrant, above, became a retrench; the bison dependent on it would suffer. refuge for bison. It seems hard. For each buffalo the shift in the other the tyrannized. weather meant hunger, less chance of reproducing, more chance of dying. For the bison as a species, it There are fewer individuals of more species after meant a shrinking population. But the dry years grazing—just as after fire. But grazing-stimulated were what kept the prairie a grassland. If every year growth in the western short grasses tends to eclipse were wet, trees would grow, the grass would go, other, smaller plants. Grazed short-grass prairie has and the bison would foUow. That's not to say that more individuals of fewer species. those who suffered in the droughts did so for the Second, bison don't just take away. They give greater good of bisonhood; they were just unlucky. something back: fertilizer. From a prairie plant's But their bad luck was an inescapable part of the point of view, urine is a bath of nitrogen dissolved boom-and-bust cycle of all temperate grasslands. in water—the answer to its prayers. The grasses' And it's the bust part of that cycle that ensured that leaves and stems would have eventually decom- the minerals from their bones nourished a grassland posed and returned the nitrogen to the soil, but covered with living bison and not a woodland only after a longer delay and in a form that the plant haunted by their ghosts. would spend more energy using. Bison are drawn to the close-cHpped, nitrogen-rich grass growing The wind-rippled grassland whose surface undu- around colonies of black-tailed prairie dogs (which lates fi"om horizon to horizon strongly evokes a graze the same few square yards every day), and sea, but it's a sea that can burn. For millions of they leave a disproportionate amount of their diges- — rive by-products there, transferring nitrogen from lowed in an instant by a boom that would reach any Now that the the rest of the prairie soil to prairie dog towns. ear within half a mile. prairie habitat is Bison don't just graze and eliminate on a prairie; Nearly every wild thing fears the unknown and largely lost, they also wallow. Wallowing probably gets rid of flees from it. It's a reasonable rule of thumb. If the bison live in some insects, possibly reduces the bison's heat load, unknown thing was not deadly dangerous, you've more marginal and certainly alters 75 to 150 square feet of habitat wasted a bit of time and energy. If it was deadly habitats, such for the prairie plants. Wallowing also lays the soil dangerous, you've saved your Hfe. The possibility of as the woodlands bare and compacts it. The compacted bowl of soil one huge payoff Uke that justifies a lot of small in- of Wind Cave holds rainwater, creating a microenvironment in vestments. Call it the lottery principle of predation National Park. which seedlings that are otherwise rare in taUgrass prairie—sedges and rushes—can grow. Some of these seeds are blown in by prairie winds; others are carried there in the coats of the wallowing bison perhaps picked up in another wallow. The Hunt Be a bison. A bison cow on the run, adrenaUne soaring, heart racing, hooves flying. On the run from what? From whatever the bison all around you are fleeing. Running with the herd has meant safety for thousands of generations. But not this time. This time the predator is man, and unlike all the other predators, he wants you to notice him before he is beside you, wants you not to lag behind the running herd. This morning, men waved and shouted as they approached the herd and started the cows and young bulls around you running from them, and as you ran with the herd, more men rose to the left and right, guidmg the running herd down a frinnel of strange sounds and movements. This predator has turned your ancestor's hard-earned knowledge of predators to its own advantage. It has turned your best defense into a deadly weapon. Your escaping will be the death of you. But that's not what your phylogeny whispers, and so you follow the cow in front to. . . . Suddenly, where she ran, there is only empty ground, and in a moment, not even that. The plain has ended mid- stride and you are running in space. Your feet flail at the sky as your body tumbles; then your breath is gone and your ribs and spine are breaking as the cow behind you falls on you, the way you fell on the cow in front. Your body becomes part of the maimed mass at the bottom of a cMS. Bison react to things they can see, hear, or smell that seem dangerous. The stand hunter—so called because he pursued standing bison—nullified smell by coming from downwind. He crawled on his belly and kept his distance. But then he fired his .50-caHber Sharps rifle. A sudden cloud of black smoke rose on the crest of the hill where he lay, fol- 50|naturai history 10/02 prevention. It's sometimes called the life-dinner in the Carolinas and lived in every state east of the principle. The predator's dinner is at stake; the Mississippi but Connecticut, Rhode Island, New prey's life is at stake. Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. The openings Why, then, did the herd stand for the slaugh- in the woods where they grazed owed their exis- ter? Perhaps because the rifle's report filled the ear tence to active management by Native Americans too much like a thunderclap. A grazing herd is as using fire. indifferent to thunder as it is to the rain that usu- There were stiU some buffalo left in Kentucky ally follows. They simply graze on, their ears filled when Daniel Boone explored there in the late with thunderclaps and their coats filling with rain- 1760s. But their numbers were shrinking in the drops. Thunderclaps signaled rain, not death, and land behind him. This eastern population withered maybe that's why, while the rifle boomed, they and vanished under pressures tamiliar to wildlife bi- a mortality hunters grazed on. . . and died. ologists today: combination of — of aU races killed them for the table—and shrinking Decline and Fall habitat. Europe's diseases spread like a great confla- Many of North America's buffalo were already gration among the Native Americans, killing many, gone by the time the notorious hide hunt started shattering communities, disrupting their habitat on the Great Plains. When Europeans came to management. Without regular fire, woody plants North America, bison reached the Atlantic coast invaded the meadows, displacing the grass. The combination of more firearms and less fire sent the governinent, where herds of elk and buftalo would eastern bison population on a long, slow slide to be protected in perpetuity. Catlin was writing more obUvion. By 1833, a little more than 200 years after than thirty years before Yellowstone became the the Pilgrims landed, there were no bison left east of world's first national park. And he was extolling the beaut\' of the Great Plains biological community, Imagine your best defense not the spectacle of geysers, boiling mud, and rivers Bison shake running in dramatic canyons they had worn the earth when turned into a deadly weapon. through thousands of feet of rock. Cathn was way they stampede, Escape becomes the death of you. ahead of his time. and shape it The federal government already owns large where they the Mississippi. But from the Mississippi River to short-grass and mixed-grass tracts, and many more walk. But they the Rocky Mountains, from the future El Paso to of both are for sale. A grassland park in the United have a hazy the future Edmonton, a vast sea of grass was still States is possible and would not even be difticult to future, clouded grazed by millions of bison. The bison, however, accomphsh. We and our prairie heritage deserve, by the threat of were soon to prove finite. need, and surely will someday have at least one domestication George Catlin, who traveled, wrote about, and Great Plains National Park. Catlin called for one in and by a painted the plains between 1832 and 1839, pro- the first part of the nineteenth century. Perhaps we shrunken posed a Great Plains park, created by the national can have one early in the twenty-first. D gene pool. 52 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 I The Interpretation The ^^expression" of a genome is best understood as a dialogue with an organism's environment. That dialogue, not the genes alone, determines which ant becomes a queen, which fish becomes a male. of Genes By Jennie Dusheck ~W" ^ r "'e sometimes think of the environ- % W / ment as "out there," a place sepa- \/\/ rats from us, a place we can enter and W W leave at wiU. But the environment is, quite smiply, the context for all of life; it is what makes us what we are. Plants in dry soil grow deeper roots than those in wet soil. Turtle eggs be- come male or female depending on temperature. A fish may become female in one social environment, male in another. Genes not only direct, they also take orders. In a sense, our genes are the means by which the environment regulates our development. Everything about us—from the shape of a toe to the shape of a protein, from the year we enter puberty to the amount of stress hormone we re- lease when another car gets our parking space—is a manifestation of an ongoing conversation between genome and environment. This conversation started biUions of years ago, when life began, and goes on every minute of our lives. Yet, strangely, it's a conversation to which most biologists turned a deaf ear for decades, starting in the 1940s, when the focus of biological research became over- whelmingly genetic. We've all read or been told repeatedly that genes provide a "blueprint" for the body, that genes "program" development, that we are "products of our genes." A 1996 introductory Leopard frogs biology text used by more than half of all college {Rana pipiens) biology majors in the United States asserts: "An in duckweed. organism's development is largely determined by The common the genome of [the fertihzed egg] and the organi- herbicide zation of the cytoplasm of the egg cell." No men- atrazine causes tion is made of any influences outside the egg. eggs to develop How did biologists come to snub so thoroughly in the testes of one partner in the developmental conversation? male tadpoles of The answers lie deep in the political and scientific the species, history of biolog)'. Decades before the advent of making them genetics in 1900, biologists sought to understand incapable of heredity by studying development, the process by reproducing. — — — 54 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 which organisms take shape from seem- 1970s, biologists interested in the effects of envi- ingly formless fertihzed eggs. Indeed, ronment on development, survival, and repro- for the first experimental embryolo- duction worked primarily in ecology, agriculture, gists, the most obvious place to look for conservation biology, and related fields. answers to the mysteries of heredity was As developmental biologists increasingly focused not deep in the genome—an entity on how genes "determine" phenotype, they turned whose existence they barely sus- to just a handful of "model" organisms that would pected—but within the environment ot reproduce rapidly and easily, primarily in the labo- the embryo. During the latter halt of ratory. Studies of the development of sLx animals the nineteenth century, biologists nematode worms, Drosophila firuit flies, zebra fish, showed, for example, how different African clawed frogs, domestic chickens, and house color morphs of the same butterfly spe- mice—formed the basis for nearly all we know Soviet biologist cies resulted from changes in temperature. Others about the genetics of development in animals. All (and Stalinist examined the effects ot ion or nutrient levels on de- six share certain traits, such as rapid development ideologue) velopment or looked at how environmental factors and early sexual maturation, that tend to minimize Trofim Lysenko, such as temperature could determine sex. the effects of environment. above, thought Then, in the early twentieth century, a conflu- the environment ence of discoveries and new technologies turned the The biological focus on mice alone shaped an attention of most biologists to genetics and physiol- andfruit flies tended to obscure organism. Western ogy. Increasingly, in the West, biologists saw every scientists held individual as a self-contained unit whose study environmental effects. a view just as could answer virtually every biological question. extreme: their Developmental biologists focused their attention on Jessica Bolker, an evolutionary developmental experiments with laboratory experiments in which the 'role of the biologist at the University of New Hampshire, has phenotypically environment was deliberately eliminated. argued that biologists, in choosing organisms little inflexible In the Soviet Union, however, biologist Trofim affected by the environment, have unwittingly rein- organisms Lysenko believed that environment determined forced assumptions about the primacy of genes. All fruit flies, below, phenotype—that is, all of an organism's observable six of these lab organisms give molecular genetics among others attributes, both structural and functional. As a stu- the answer it expects, namely, that genes rigidly led them to dent, Lysenko had been laughed at by geneticists; program development, independent of the environ- virtually ignore once he rose to power, he denounced old acquain- ment of the embryo. As Bolker says, "Most of our developmental tances and even mentors. Under Stalin and models are small and fast and hardwired. . . . And so plasticity in all Lysenko, an entire generation of Soviet geneticists we think of development as being hardwired." species. was exiled or murdered. Those who survived fled But in the past decade biologists have come to to Europe or to North or South America. realize that development is far from hardwired; Biologists in the West recoiled violently from instead, organisms show enormous developmental Lysenkoism. Many had lost personal friends in the plasticity. Very recently, a new field of study—called purge or were themselves expatriate Soviets who ecological developmental biology, or eco-devo had fled. The very idea that the en- has emerged. Eco-devo examines how developing vironment influences phenotype be- individuals integrate environmental and genetic in- came associated with the worst aspects formation, as well as how this process of integration of Stalin's bloodthirsty reign, with influences the direction of evolution. Communism, and with left-wing poli- A basic tenet of eco-devo is that individuals with tics in general—but not with science. the same genes can turn out difierendy, depending In the 1940s and 1950s, a handful of on the environment in which the embryos find Europeans and Americans attempted themselves. This plasticity, however, is not a general to reintroduce environmental consid- trait covering everything an organism does and is. erations into developmental biology Instead, plasticity itself varies across traits and species. but met with little success. The molec- Sonia Sultan, of Wesleyan University in Middle- ular genetics revolution of the 1960s town, Connecticut, has studied plasticity in four swept up many of the brightest young closely related species of buckwheat in the genus minds. Throughout the 1960s and Polygonum. One of the four produced different-size leaves in response to changes in light intensit)-. whereas another species did not adapt to Hght at aU. Sultan has also shown that a species that is plastic with respect to one trait, such as leaf size, may show Httle plasticity with respect to another. Her four species of buckwheat differed in the magnitude, direction, and timing of plasticity in traits as varied as leaf size, root length and form, and rate of photosynthesis. These differences corre- sponded roughly to the ecological distribution ot the plants. For instance, the generalist species Poly- goiniiii persicaria was quite plastic. It reproduced well in poor conditions (doubling its leat tissue in low light, for instance) but did better than the other three species in environments rich in Hght, water, or nutrients. By contrast, P hydropipcr, a more special- ized species, showed far less plasticity. In poor, shady conditions it increased leaf rissue very litde, and it only slightly increased its reproductive output—as fi-uit flies express them. These genes constitute a The desert measured by the number and size ot its fruits—even sort of gene "cascade," with one gene coding for a "plague" locust in the most resource-rich emdronments. The species protein that in turn regulates the next gene. In sol- has two apparently could not take advantage ot a bonanza. diers, the first five genes are expressed normally, just environmentally Clearly, the environment somehow influences as in the winged queens, but the most downstream influenced forms. the genetic pathways that guide the development of gene in the cascade is not. So at the last moment, At low population the phenot^'pe. British biologist C. H. Waddington genetically speaking, the soldier ants shut off wing densities the considered how that might happen. He found that formation. In the workers, wing tormation is inter- insect is green, two distinct triggers—one environmental and one rupted farther upstream in the gene cascade. with small wings genetic—can activate the same molecular pathway Sisters in an anthill are 75 percent genetically and legs; at during development. In the 1940s he was struck by identical. But whether they become soldiers, work- higher densities the fact that ostriches hatch with calluses on their ers, or queens depends not on any differences in its colors become chests and abdomens, in just those places where their genes, but on a set of environmental switches. mottled and contact with the ground later abrades the skin. Skin At the first switch, the right light and temperature brighter, and its that is rubbed regularly becomes thicker and cause the ant embryos to release a burst ofjuvenile appendages tougher as skin cells prohferate, as a glance at our hormone, setting them on the path to becoming larger. heels and toes will confirm. But our own calluses queens. Otherwise they become soldiers or workers. are triggered by the abrasion itself Waddington suggested that in ostriches, the trigger for making calluses had been transformed from an environ- mental switch to a genetic one—a process he called "genetic assimilation." Such developmental switches can be found any- where in the network of genes involved in the formation of a trait. Ehab Abouheif now at the University of Chicago, has demonstrated this idea beautifully in wingless ants. Most ant species have When a species several castes. Plicidolc inorrisi has four: two with of social wasp wings (queens and males) and two wingless (soldiers attacks red-eyed and workers). The network of six genes that regu- tree frog eggs, lates wing formation in these ants does the same some of the eggs thing in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). And the save themselves winged ant castes express the six genes controUing by hatching wing formation in almost exactly the same way as prematurely. 561 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 At a second switch, a protein-rich diet can trigger Another Silent Spring? another pulse ofjuvenile hormone, turning the em- bryos into soldiers; on a poorer diet, they become That frogs are disappearing all over the world is hardly news. But workers. Both switches operate by means of a hor- that minute amounts of a common herbicide can demasculinize mone, but the triggers that throw the switch—food, frogs was front-page news for days last spring, thanks to the work temperature, and Ught—are purely environmental. of developmental biologist Tyrone Hayes, of the University of Cal- In three other ant species, Abouheif found, ifornia, Berkeley. Atrazine, considered harmless because it breaks wing formation was interrupted at a different point down in a few days, is the most commonly used herbicide in the in every caste. He concludes that although the net- world. Farmers make up for its rapid breakdown by applying it in work of genes for wing formation is evolutionarUy huge quantities. In the United States alone, farmers spray more stable—conserved in various insects over some 300 than 60 million pounds of it each year, on corn, soybeans, and million years—ants can turn off wing formation other crops. Rivers and streams in agricultural areas may contain anywhere in the network. Making wings is a con- 100 to 2,300 parts per billion (ppb). The ubiquitous herbicide servative process, but not making them is a flexible even falls in rainwater— 1 ppb in non-agricultural areas and up to one. Abouheif hypothesizes that such evolutionary 40 ppb in agricultural areas. flexibihty may be a general characteristic of organ- Early laboratory studies showed gross malformations in amphib- isms that have more than one form. ians exposed to atrazine, but this effect occurred only at concentra- The idea that traits can be controlled by multi- tions that animals in the wild would rarely encounter. Investigators ple triggers, both endogenous (originating within did not look for subtler effects, so atrazine was declared safe for the the organism) and exogenous (originating outside environment, and the safe level for drinking water was set at 3 ppb. it), is generaHzable and useful. The more medical But Hayes's lab has shown that doses as low as 0. 1 ppb turned male investigators understand the triggers that instruct Xenopiis laevis tadpoles into hermaphrodites, with three ovaries and juvenile brain cells to multiply and form healthy three testes; doses of 1 ppb reduced the size of muscles of the larynx, new brain tissue, for example, the more success which frogs depend on to call and attract their mates. they may have turning on this activity in adults Hayes and his coworkers backed up their lab study with a drama- tic field study of leopard frogs (Rana pipiens). Starting in California, Without symbiotic bacteria, the biologists drove east across the United States, collecting tadpoles neither mice nor squid and water samples from Utah to Illinois. The wild frogs were being hit even harder than their lab cousins: nearly fully formed eggs con- nor humans develop normally. taining large amounts of yolk were found in the testes of male tad- poles. (Normally, eggs do not develop in tadpoles of either sex.) whose brains have been damaged (ultimately, with a And the more atrazine in the water, says Hayes, the worse the mal- drug that mimics the endogenous trigger). And un- formation. derstanding exogenous triggers in development can How can a chemical manufactured to kill plants by interfering help identify which synthetic compounds are hkely with photosynthesis have such profound effects on animals? Atrazine to wreak havoc on humans and other organisms is a potent endocrine disrupter because it boosts levels of an enzyme when released into the environment. that normally transforms testosterone into estrogen. The result in The mechanisms for these triggers wlU almost male tadpoles is dramatically reduced testosterone levels and elevated certainly Ue among the signaling molecules (hor- estrogen levels, an effect Hayes and his colleagues measured in both mones and neurotransmitters, for instance) that cells R. pipiens and X. laevis. use to talk among themselves. Signaling molecules Biologists have known for years that amphibian numbers are appear to be the means by which an organism con- dropping precipitously, with populations winking out one by one. verses with its environnrent, both during early de- Yet no single cause seemed to explain more than a few regional de- velopment and throughout life. Other molecules cHnes. Hayes's work suggests a major contributing factor in the eighty called "heat-shock proteins" also seem to act as countries that use atrazine. Beyond that, his work suggests the im- switches that can decrease or increase plasticity, es- portance, when evaluating potentially harmful molecules, of looking pecially when an organism is under stress. at the internal morphology of developing embryos. Endocrine dis- As we have seen, signals from the environment rupters may be capable of destroying entire populations and species, can be physical: temperature, Ught, pressure, abra- but such compounds wiU not necessarily reveal their effects through sion. They can also be molecular (when, for ex- extra legs or other malformations obvious to a layperson. ample, a compound that mimics a hormone alters gene expression) or social. Social milieus can in- nate the squid's body so that it does not appear to Left: Predatory predators as a conspicuous dark silhouette against midges alter the the brightly lit surface of the ocean. development of The immature Hght organs of a young squid de- the water flea velop a field of ciliated cells, which help draw Vib- Daphnia rio in from ocean water, as well as a series of deep cucuUata. In the pockets, or crypts, in which these bacteria will live. top sequence, a Within just a few hours, the new arrivals induce the water flea cells of the light organs to swell and to grow tiny, exposed to these hairlike microvilli. These changes help the bacteria predators flourish within the Hght organs. Young squid raised develops a long, experimentally in water without Vibrio don't re- pointed "helmet" ceive the right molecular signals and thus fail to go and a spiky tail; through normal development. in the bottom Invertebrates aren't the only organisms to have sequence, a coevolved with bacteria. Mammals and other verte- water flea grows brates are walking ecosystems. We humans nor- in the absence of duce many fish to change from male to female and mally carry hundreds of kinds of bacteria in our predators. back again. Take the Japanese goby Triinina oki- mouths alone. And these symbiotic organisms are lunme. If the resident male in a group leaves or dies, not merely the inevitable result of living in a mi- one of the group's females can become a male. But crobe-ridden world. Colonizing the body soon if a larger male then shows up, the recently remod- after birth, they are in fact essential for normal de- eled "he" reverts to a "she." Such transformations velopment, as has been shown in laboratory studies can take place in as Httle as four days. of mice raised in sterile environments. Develop- The development of some animals is influenced ment of nearly aU the major organ systems is aber- by predators. A substance released by predatory rant in these "germ-free" mice, says McFaU-Ngai. dragonfly larvae causes wood frog (Rana syhetica) The Hning of the intestines, for instance, appears to tadpoles to grow smaller than usual and to develop a have evolved to interact with bacteria. A few days deeper tail musculature (which seems to enable before mice are weaned, when bacteria normally faster swimming and sharper turns). To efl^ect these first appear in the gut, the intestinal cells cover changes, the dragonfly larvae need only be in the themselves with a sugar called fiicose, on which water; they needn't actually be attacking the tad- some symbiotic bacteria can Hve. If none of the As the caterpillar poles. SiiTiilarly, the tiny water flea (Dapluiia aiadlata) right bacteria show up, the fucose disappears. But if Nemoria develops a large protective "helmet" darwiniata feeds, when predaceous larvae of the Chaoboms it adopts the fly are present in the water nearby. And color of its host Daphnia is a predator in its own right, plant. The white capable of inducing changes in its prey: insect, far left, is green algae. Chemicals released by graz- feeding on the ing water fleas cause the algae to give up pale flowers the single-celled life and form colonies. of Ceanothus Relations between symbioric bacteria velutinus, an and their hosts are another major strand evergreen shrub of the eco-devo tapestry. The most de- in the buckthorn tailed work in this area comes from the family; the same laboratory of Margaret McFall-Ngai at caterpillar turns the University of Hawaii, where biolo- purple-red, left, gists study codevelopment in the squid when it enjoys Euprytnna scolopes and the luminescent Amelanchier bacterium Vibrio fischeri. The bac- aim'folia, a terium guides normal development of relative of apples the squid's Hght organs, which illumi- and roses. — 58 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 Some of the most disturbing news on endocrine disrupters recently emerged from the laboratory of Tyrone Hayes, a developmental endocrinologist at the University of CaHfornia, Berkeley. Hayes's lab showed that minute amounts of atrazine, a nearly ubiquitous herbicide, can derail reproduction in nat- ural populations of leopard frogs by causing males to make eggs (see "Another Silent Spring?," page 56). Why is the study of eco-devo blossoming now? One reason is concern over the increasingly obvi- ous effects of endocrine disrupters. Another, say several investigators, is the infectious zeal of devel- opmental biologist Scott Gilbert, who in the past two years added a chapter on eco-devo to his best- selling developmental biology textbook. Gilbert recently published an influential review article in the journal Developmental Biology describing and naming the new field, and organized, with Jessica Bolker, a symposium on the subject. Converts to eco-devo, who come from every area of biology, are extraordinarily enthusiastic. All the enthusiasm in the world wouldn't have sufficed, however, without the major advances in genetics of the past decade. Abouheif's research on developmental switches in wingless ants is a good ex- ample of how developmental genetics (including the nrany studies already done on fruit flies) provided the When a school of the right ones do show up, they induce the gut cells basis and tools to do eco-devo. The new tools scalefin anthias to make more fucose. "The host tissues" writes which include polymerase chain reaction, a tech- (Pseudanthias McFall-Ngai, "are poised for interaction with nique for multiplying traces ofDNA, and microarray squamipinnis), the symbiont." Germ-free mice, which never en- analysis, a method for simultaneously studying the above, lacks a counter their coevolved symbionts, need 30 per- expression of tens of thousands of genes—are en- male, the cent more calories to live than do mice with a full abhng scientists to ask and answer whole new sets of dominant female complement of gut bacteria, because vertebrates questions. Many bacteria that Hve in animals, for turns into one generally depend on such bacteria to help digest instance, cannot be cultured in the lab, and they (mauve fish with food and even to synthesize vitamins. occur in numbers too low to detect by conventional yellow flanks). One of the best-known examples of how methods. Only recently, with the advent of micro- Right: The queen environment can influence development comes array analysis, have biologists been able to sample and and worker ants from research on endocrine dis- characterize whole conrmunities of shown here rupters—molecules in the envi- microorganisms, whether in the are sisters ronment that bind to receptors mouth, the gut, or the soil. and 75 percent that normally link to the body's Just as important as the new genetically own hormones. Some of these technologies is an increasing em- identical. molecules are natural substances, phasis on cross-discipUnary work. Their obvious such as the plant estrogens in Hayes recalls that when he was in differences arise soy-based baby formula and graduate school, biologists knew out of differing other soy products. Many others everything about the genetics of diets, which lead are human made, including the plastic stabilizers Xenoptis laet'is, the African clawed frog, but little to a cascade of in baby bottles, pacifiers, dental sealants, plumb- about the animal itself. "Everything was so special- genetic effects. ing pipes, and gallon milk jugs, not to mention ized," he says. Now he sees entire fields as tools to dispersants used to spread pesticides or to keep ask larger questions: "I used to think of endocri- the spots off dishes in dishwashers. nology as a field, and now I think of it as a tool to understand something else, to understand biology." selective pressures form the phenotype over Ecological developmental biology may lead to evolutionary time. fundamental changes in the way biologists think. Hayes points out that leopard frog populations For example, an assumption of standard evolu- have now been exposed to atrazine for some forty tionary theory has been that genetic differences years, long enough for selective forces to have rigidly determine the relative success or failure of changed their biology. "Effectively, we've done a Calluses usually organisms. But phenotypic plasticity implies a pretty' awful experiment," says Hayes, who specu- form only when degree of play, or looseness, in selection processes. lates that a population of frogs living in a pond with external abrasion Biologist Philip Yund, ot the University of high levels ot the herbicide might evolve toward turns on the right early metamorphosis and delayed sexual maturit\'. genes, but Both environmental and genetic If they can get out of the pond soon enough, he ostriches hatch reasons, their gonads could complete development with calluses on triggers can activate the same away from the influence of the atrazine. In the their abdomens molecular pathway. fixture, Hayes will be looking for signs that leopard and chests. frogs are evolving in response to this herbicide. Evolution can Maine, says that when biologists better under- Just as our emaronment is the context tor how we "genetically stand how environmental information is incorpo- become who we are, we are also the context for the assimilate" an rated into developmental processes, they will have development of other organisms—a conversation of environmentally a much more sophisticated understanding of how which we are only now becoming fuUy aware. D induced trait. 10/02 NATURAL HISTORY 61 JK s we looked out over a vast basin in the indigenous vOlages, this communitv' was largely Mk southern Peruvian Andes, I asked my host able to resist the takeover of its lands. A visitor in ^^^ the reason for the terracing I saw all around 1704 marveled at how the villagers operated their m M me. "The field always has to be flat so that own gold mine so that they could pay the tribute the soil will absorb all the water," Eusebio Quispe owed to the Spanish Crown directly, v^-ithout hav- told me. This was just the sort of straightforward ing to acquire money by selling crops and other lesson that an anthropologist hopes to learn through goods to outsiders, as most Andean people did. ethnographic fieldwork. What about conserving Present-day residents of the lower valley—Spanish- the soil, minimizing erosion? That was another speakers who trace their descent Ixom the original benefit of terracing, Quispe acknowledged, but ev- colonists—regard Huay- idently he considered it secondary; and also obvi- nacotas's inhabitants as ous. The important point was that in this rugged purely "Indian," ex- environment, you cannot irrigate efficiently unless ceptionally tough and you radicaUy alter the landscape. proud, and they say that I had come to the remote village of Huaynaco- the villagers have main- tas to study its system of irrigation and water man- tained many of their agement, planning to compare it with others in the Inca traditions up to the same province. Quispe spoke to me in Quechua, present day. the language of the Incas, and although I did not The reputation is yet realize it, the tradition I would learn about in well deserved, but the his vUlage dated back centuries, to the Inca empire history turns out to be and even earher. But I could already see that the more complicated than sculpted landscape was very old. The village sits at this. Huaynacotas is a place where people have Scarce but an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet, in the midcDe ot struggled to hold on to their indigenous identity carefully a mountain bowl that tilts southward, facing out and their peasant way of life while maintaining apportioned over cliffs that plunge down to the banks of a river some control over the direction and pace of irrigation water far below. The stairways and zigzag footpaths I change, but it is not a backwater relic of the dis- from two alpine hiked up on my way to the community were cut tant past. The villagers are part of the modern springs enables into the stone clifts and mountainsides, clearly in world and are comfortable migrating to and deal- the villagers of ancient times, and the terracing represented count- ing with its urban centers. The Quispe family, for Huaynacotas to less generations ot hard work. example, like nearly all the other households m stretch the Huaynacotas has a reputation for being a re- this village of 1,080, has one foot in Huaynacotas maize-growing markable place. Although Spanish colonists and one in Arequipa, the third largest city in season to nine founded setdements along the river in the lower Peru, and the Quispes depend on both ways ot months, just part of the valley, establishing their haciendas, or life for survival. Two family members live and enough for their agricultural estates, on land taken from nearby work in Arequipa; they receive tood crops from staple crop. Trickle-Down Theory, Andean Style Traditional irrigation practices provide a lesson in sharing. BYPAULTRAWICK — 62 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 Canal cleaning in the village to help lower their Huaynacotas, cost of living and, in turn, send above and right, cash remittances back home. is an annual Nevertheless, the people of communal affair, Huaynacotas have preserved their a combination traditional means of conserving of hard work, and sharing water for several hun- drinking, dred years, and I was fortunate to feasting, and start my research in such a community. I set out to doubted the accuracy of these early descriptions prayer. learn primarily by doing, helping the Quispes and in part because after five centuries of change, there other families irrigate their parcels of land and, appeared to be little consistency in Andean irriga- most of all, accompanying the village's water dis- tion practices in different locales. ^ tributors on their rounds as they measured out the Huaynacotas has two main water sources (large 5 water and saw to it that the resource was used prop- alpine springs), two reservoirs for accumulating erly by each household. These experiences showed their output at night, and two separate networks of I " me that physically controlling water is one thing, conserving it and maximizing its availability is an- In the rugged Andean terrain, other, and sharing it effectively among people without generating conflict is still another. I was you cannot Irrigate efficiently very interested in all three, but especially in irriga- unless you terrace the fields. tion as a social and moral challenge. The local tradition of water distribution is based on the concept of equity, or fairness. As I ultimately canals to carry the water down to the fields. Each came to understand it, this amounts to the notions network serves roughly 500 acres, and archaeologi- that everyone has a right to a proportional share of cal studies indicate that much of this land has been this vital communal resource, provided they fulfill under continuous cultivation for at least a thousand the corresponding duties to the community, and years, dating back to an early Andean empire that everyone should be affected by the prevaihng known as the Huari. The fields—each of which, as scarcity in the same basic way. Interestingly enough. a rule, comprises several levels of terracing—range In another the sixteenth-century chroniclers Garcilaso de la in elevation from 10,000 to 13,000 feet. Some of Andean Vega and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala empha- the highest fields are primarily rain-fed rather than community, a sized the principles of proportionality and fairness irrigated and are devoted to tuber production; the woman mounds in their brief descriptions of what they said was the others are intensively cultivated with maize (the vil- sod and rocks to Inca system of water management. I had not looked lagers' primary staple food) and various other sub- divert a flow of very closely at their accounts before I began my sistence crops. irrigation water. fieldwork, but when I set about writing up my re- The village is made up of three extended kinship search a few years later, I inunediately noticed this units known as ayllus, whose members generally and other striking parallels. Modern scholars had have small plots of land scattered throughout the ir- — rigated territory. This the frosts that come at the end of the growing sea- pattern is probably the son. All sectors under production at a given time result of a long history are irrigated, however, and water reaches every par- of intermarriage be- cel, before the process begins again at the top of the tAveen the three groups, sequence. Each complete cycle takes two to three along with the gradual months, depending on seasonal and long-term fluc- fragmentation ot land- tuations in the supply. Even at best, a field is irri- holdings through in- gated no more than three or four times a year. heritance and popula- Each reservoir refills overnight. The next morn- tion growth. Like all ing, the kauipu opens a wooden gate, releasing a Andean peasant vil- flow of water that provides about nine hours of lages, Huaynacotas in- daytime irrigation. A dam made of large rocks and cludes both large and sod sphts the stream from the reservoir and main small landowners, but canal in half The two separate flows, called rafeis, social and economic are diverted in this way through branch canals to stratification is much reach the fields. Each raki is considered sufficient to less evident than it is water about four-fifths of an acre (a standard-size in the large number ot field known as a topo) in roughly two hours. When provincial villages that the water flow is high, therefore, each raki irrigates were once closely con- about four fields per day. nected with the Span- Within each sector, the kampu allocates water ish hacienda tradition. shares to individual parcels of land in a fixed con- No family in Huaynacotas today has more than a tiguous order, starting at the bottom of the sector dozen acres of cultivated land, of wliich at most and proceeding upward, parcel by parcel. This con- seven or eight are irrigated. trasts with the practice in other villages nearby, es- Each of the two irrigation networks is overseen pecially those where irrigation is overseen by the by a water official called a kampu. The position ro- state. There the bigger landowners and those grow- tates each year to two different men from the vil- ing crops that state officials consider more valuable lage and is considered a form of obligatory service to the economy (alfalfa, for example, which is fed to the community (the men usually volunteer, al- to cattle being fattened for sale in urban markets) though sometimes under pressure). In September, are able to get water more often than anyone else, men prepare the fields with plows puUed by o.xen through both licit and ilHcit means. while women do the sowing. The kampu IRRIGAnON OF A TERRACED FIELD then routes the water to the various sec- tors of irrigated land, following a fixed se- quence that reflects the planting order and crop maturation times. The individual vil- lagers on the receiving end then direct the flow onto their parcels, one by one. In a normal year, rain falls almost every afternoon and evening throughout the rainy season, which lasts from January through April. Nevertheless, irrigation is essential, because at this high altitude, A typical maize requires nine months to mature. terraced field in The irrigation sequence is determined by Huaynacotas—shown the fact that some sectors are significantly here schematically colder than others, owing in part to alti- covers about four-fifths of tude but also to daily exposure to sun and an acre. Temporary dams wind. Maize plants sprout and develop direct the flow of water so that more slowly in such locations and have to the subdivisions {atus) on each be given a head start to protect them Irom terrace fill to the same depth. — 64 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 canals are Uned only with gravel, and a lot of water is lost because it soaks into the ground. Once the soil beneath has become saturated, however, the rate of loss decreases dramatically. Consequently, it is best to concentrate irrigation in one small area at a time, rather than jump around. In other Andean communities, most of whose traditions are quite different, the waste is much greater. Just as important, the contiguous pattern makes irrigation a thoroughly public affair. Everyone knows the order of distribution, and since adjoining parcels are Hkely to be irrigated on the same day, their owners are normally waiting and watching, A reservoir in The springs that supply Huaynacotas are the preparing their fields for irrigation, while their Huaynacotas most vulnerable ones in the valley to droughts, neighbors finish their turns. This routine monitor- stores which have happened with alarming frequency in ing provides restraints on theft, favoritism by water springwater the southern Peruvian Andes during the past thirty oflJicials, and other forms of corruption. that accumulates years. Water for irrigation is extremely scarce, even The system's transparency enables people to see overnight. under normal conditions. Nevertheless, conflict that under local rules and procedures, there is a di- During the day, over the resource is far less prevalent here than in rect Hnk between their own self-interest and the enough water is other villages in the province. The tradition fol- released from lowed in Huaynacotas ensures that people absorb By giving up the irrigation it into the the impact of shortages fairly equally and that the village canal uniform frequency of irrigation is preserved. It the of some fields, all landowners network to flows dwindle, the kampus get the consent of the share the hardship of a drought. irrigate as many conmumity to take some of the higher sectors of as eight fields. land in each hall of the system out ot production. Because all the faiTulies have land in these upper common good. This essential compatibility has en- sectors, everyone makes a sacrifice (not a small one) abled them to avoid the well-known "tragedy of for the common good. the commons"—the tendency of people to over- The way each parcel is irrigated also contributes exploit and abuse any resources that they hold in to maintaining a basic proportionality or equity common. Indeed, everyone in the village knows among people's water rights. Earthen ridges or not only the rules but even how to operate the en- dikes of a standard height—about fitteen inches tire canal and reservoir system, because the male divide the field into sections called attis, each cover- heads-of-household do this in rotation, serving as ing perhaps 200 square feet. The water is pooled in water distributors and sponsoring the yearly clean- these to the same depth over the entire surface of ing of the canals. the field, starting with the bottom terrace and Conducted on the 16th and 18th of August to working upward. Once all the attis have been fiUed, prepare the two halves of the system, the Yarqa irrigation is considered complete, and the flow Aspiy (Canal Cleaning) is an intensive communal must then move on to the next parcel and the next work project. The men carry it out in an atmos- household, with no duplication allowed. The phere of celebration and always under the influence kampti allows no departures from this arrange- of a lot of drink, softened somewhat by a special ment—such as the destruction of terracing and the meal prepared by the women. The distinction be- irrigation of slopes, wasteful practices that are com- tween work and play is completely blurred (it's lit- mon elsewhere in the highlands, especially in areas erally a work party). On the day designated for the formerly dominated by haciendas. cleaning of his half of the system, the kampu begins The contiguous sequence of distribution helps by making burnt offerings to the alpine spring and miniiTuze waste. My research assistant and best vil- saying special prayers to the mountain deities that lage informant, Jesiis Chirinos, who had already bring the rain, after which cane alcohol and corn done his stint as water distributor, filled me in on beer are consumed by everyone present. The men the reason. As in most highland communities, the then work and drink their way back down to the — village, shoveling silt out of the reservoir and re- moving rocks, weeds, and other debris from the main canal. Along the way, they say other prayers at the junctions with the secondary canals. The work is done so enthusiastically that half the irrigation system is cleaned, sanctified, and thanked from top to bottom m a single day. This kind of cooperation is made possible by a basic proportionahty in the maintenance duties that people must fulfill in order to preserve their water rights. Because large landowners derive a greater benefit, their contributions to the canal cleaning are required to be greater—in terms of labor, food, and especially drink—than are those of the smallholder majority. This contrasts with the situation in the villages lower down m the valley, and in many other places throughout the highlands today, where the large landowners contribute the same amount as any smallholder, usually by hiring someone else to work in their place—a practice generally not allowed in Huaynacotas. During the past several decades, the breakdown of communal work traditions elsewhere m the Andes and m many other parts of the world has been widely noted, but in my opinion, the main reason for it a lack of proportionahty and the resentment and conflict that this lack engenders—has never been fuUy appreciated. I believe that the water management system practiced today in Huaynacotas is the Inca system, just as the local people say it is. Studies done re- cently in other parts of the Andes show that this tradition has survived elsewhere as well. In fact, I think this type of system had emerged in various lo- Peru's government would now like to turn over Terraced fields calities and become widely estabHshed in the Andes responsibiliry for the operation and maintenance of surround the before the time of the Inca empire. Because the local irrigation systems—and even ownership of the Colca River, practices had proved to be effective and sustainable, resource itself—to local water-user groups, and it is which flows the Incas may have adopted them and even en- searching for a management model that will ac- to Peru's dorsed them as official poUcy. compUsh this shift without leading to a tragic out- Pacific coast. The national government in Lima would be come. Fortunately, Peruvian officials don't have to wise to foUow the Incas' precedent today. The Pe- look very far. The best pohcy alternative does not ruvian state has long been heavily involved in re- come from a Washington think tank or from some source management in many places, since it is tech- land-grant agricultural research institution in the nically the legal owner and steward of all of the United States, consultants that Peru has always country's irrigation water. But like other govern- turned to in the past for such models. It comes from ments in the so-called developing world, Peru's the Andes—from the Incas and their predeces- now faces downsizing because of heavy foreign sors- -and IS similar to the solutions worked out by debt. Organizations such as the International indigenous peoples facing the same challenge in Monetary Fund and the World Bank are urging other parts of the world. Because it works, the tra- Peru's leaders to get out of the business of managing dition has been handed down for hundreds of years, water, because the state's methods are seen as waste- reaffirmed and ratified by people who knew their ful, costly, and rife with conflict. very livelihood was at stake. d 66 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 BIOMECHANICS Lip-O-Suction With teeth in its lips and its mouth open to 180°, a hungry tadpole turns a scrape into a close shave. Story by Adam Summers ~ Illustrations by Shawn Gould Though the leap from frog to is nothing short of astonishing. (see illustration on opposite page). prince gets all the press, I would Plankton-eating tadpoles spend much Embellishing the disk, above and below argue that the metamorphosis of their time hanging motionless in the the beak, are close-set rows of tiny from tadpole to fi-og is just as water. Other kinds inhabit temporary teeth. Both beak and teeth are made of impressive—even more so when you ponds, where they dine on their fellow keratin, the stuff of fingernails and hair. think about how often it has to happen. tadpoles. But by far the most common (Except for their mouths, tadpoles tend The transfc)rmation fi-om frog to prince way of tadpole Hfe involves harvesting to look an awful lot alike, and the is no mean feat, requiring rapid weight algae and microbes from rocks and number and arrangement of the tooth gain, change of coloration, and some mud at the bottom of ponds. Tadpoles rows are important for determining minor rearrangement of facial features. that Hve this way have a broad tail, a what kind of frog a particular But poUywogs must grow legs, lose a wide, rounded body, and a pecuHar tadpole wiU become.) tail, and completely reconfigure their mouth totally unlike the familiar Richard Wassersug, of jaws and digestive tract to prepare for a smiling gape of a frog. Dalhousie University in life of eating fries. With a beak that looks a bit hke a Biologists have been fascinated with squooshed version of a parrot's beak, the frog's protrusile tongue for decades, the mouth of an algae-eating tadpole is but until recently the biomechanics of set in the middle of a floppy oral disk the tadpole's mouth was a mystery. There are more than 4,000 species of frogs, and the diversity of their tadpoles Hind leg bud Whether swimming from rock to rock to graze on algae or rising to the water's surface for a gulp of air, a tadpole propels itself with its long, undulating tail. . Nova Scoria, has devoted his career to and turns for the bottom. AH this vertebrate. The teeth then anchor the understanding tadpoles. He and his happens m not much more than a disk to the surface, while the beak nips colleague Masamichi Yamashita, of the hundred milliseconds, hardly time for off long pieces of algae. As the beak Insritute of Space and Astronaurical any but the luckiest predator to take closes, the rows of teeth perform a Science in Japan, recently described advantage of the situation. scraping operation on any shorter algae the biomechanics involved in two tasks Of course, the mouth is also for it missed. The operation resembles the for which tadpoles use their mouths: feeding. To get enough to eat, algae action of a multibladed shaving razor. breathing and feeding. feeders must forage quickly and As the rows of teeth immediately Early in its development a tadpole thoroughly, because surface algae bordering the beak start to scrape, breathes with gills. But as it starts the generally grow in a thin layer. Most those next in Hne remain anchored to transirion to froghood, it develops algae eaters, a diverse group that the algae until they sUp and follow lungs—forcing the tadpole to swim includes marine iguanas and some behind, scraping some algae and frequendy to the surface to gulp air. That makes simple breathing a dangerous busmess, because the average Beak Papillae tadpole can become a tast\' treat for any number offish, reptiles, and birds. Hence survival puts a premium on being able to rush to the surface, take a speedy swig of air, then dash back to the safety of the pond bottom. If you have ever watched a water strider scoot gracefiilly Tooth row across a pond, or floated a needle on the surface of the water in a I glass, you have observed surface When a tadpole eats, all parts of its oral disk come into play: the papillae provide tension: the "desire" of the friction to farilitate attachment, the beak snaps off long pieces of algae, and the molecules at the surface of a liquid to tooth rows —working like a multibladed razor—scrape off shorter bits of algae. stick to those below. For the water strider, this cohesion is a good thing; it enables the insect to walk on, rather cichlids and catfish, have fine, spatulate fijrther trimming the "stubble." As row than fall through, the water surface. teeth (made, like ours, of enamel and after row of teeth pops into action, the But for a tiny-mouthed tadpole in a dentin) that are used for scraping, as algal surface is shaved closer and closer. big hurry to take a breath, surface well as soft lips used for scooping up By the time the last rows have done tension is an obstacle to be overcome. and holding the particles of algae their scraping, the beak is completely High-speed video footage by loosened by the scraping. Tadpoles, closed, leaving the algae trimmings to Wassersug and Yamashita shows how rather than having separate teeth and be sucked in during the next chomp. the buUfrog tadpole manages the trick. lips, combine the two: the rows of tiny The tadpole performs six of these all- When the tadpole is not breathing, its keratin scrapers are embedded in the in-one chomps per second. oral disk is closed, folded into the floppy disk, which ser\'es as Ups. Some stream-dwelling tadpoles have shape of a half-moon. But as the Wassersug and Yamashita—once again more than twenty rows of teeth. The tadpole speeds close to the surface of using high-speed video, this time of extra rows may hold the tiny creatures the water, it flips the disk forward, tadpoles feeding on algae-covered glass in place during feeding, or perhaps throwing water away from its beak in sHdes—revealed the importance of the they ensure a closer shave—a possibihty the process. As the disk unfolds, Httle multiple rows. that might interest razor manufacturers, papillae at its corners stick up, further When feeding, the tadpole's first whose offerings so tar have been blocking the water from flooding in. task is to place its oral disk flat on the Umited to triple-bladed models. The unfolded disk is now flush algae-covered surface. To do this, the with the pond surface, with the beak Uttle frog-to-be opens its mouth to an Adam Summers is an assistant professor 180° projecting into the air just above it. astomshmg —the oral equivalent of ecology and evolutionary biology at the The tadpole opens its beak, takes a of a gymnastic spUt and, by a large University of California, Irvine quick gasp of air, slams the beak shut. margin, the widest gape of any (asummers@uci. edu) — — — 68 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 OUT THERE Starry Weather Partly cloudy, with a chance of flares? By Charles Liu is seething observation: brighter brown dwarfs Like all stars, the Sun a 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ball of heat, light, and magnetic molecules per cupfiil of air. appear to be too cool and dimmer energy. Some of this energy Interplanetaiy space, on the other hand, ones too hot. Some astronomers have regularly erupts from the Sun's surface, contains only a few thousand particles argued that the discrepancy comes forming beautiful prominences, loops, per cupflil. So the motion of ionized from assuming that brown dwarfs and solar flares. Particularly powerful particles dominates weather in space, have undifferentiated atmospheres, events eject millions of tons of protons while the movement of heat—hot and marred only occasionally by flares and electrons into space at millions cold air and water, flowing from place and prominences. This prompted of miles per hour. When such an to place—drives weather on Earth. Burgasser and his colleagues to create outburst points toward Earth, some of Weather patterns readily appear on any a model that assumes the top layers of this Sun-stuff arrives in our vicinity a planet with a steady energy source brown-dwarf atmospheres are patchy, day or so later, often causing auroras on Earth, that'd be sunlight—and a with thick clouds—laden with the northern and southern lights—as substantial atmosphere. droplets of liquefied metal-bearing the stream of solar particles crashes Stars have both abundant minerals and molten iron—floating into Earth's upper atmosphere. atmospheres and energy. This suggests atop an otherwise clear "sky." Sometimes the consequences are they should have planet-like weather. According to this hypothesis, the less innocuous; the particles' Recently a team of electromagnetic effects, for instance, astronomers, led by can overload power grids and damage Adam Burgasser at orbiting satellites. UCLA, has provided Public awareness of Sun-induced new evidence—what phenomena has increased as our Earth- appears to be Earth- bound lives have become ever more like weather in intertwined with cellular phones, the atmospheres of satellite TV, and other space-borne brown dwarfs technology. Scientists have even coined to support this a term for this stuff: "space weather." conclusion. (See my But the name is a Uttle imprecise, since column, "When a we're really talking about "star Star Isn't Born," weather"—the star being, of course, September 2002, our Sun. Whatever it's called, it about these so-called certainly doesn't seem to resemble the failed stars.) wind, clouds, rain, and snow that we're Just as the coils in familiar with down here. So, do stars a toaster glow have weather as we do on Earth? brighter as they heat Let's tackle this question by up, hotter brown thinking first about the difference dwarfs should be between terrestrial weather and space more luminous than weather. Down here, particles do cooler ones. Yet affect our weather—Hghtning, for infrared measure- example. But at sea level, Earth's ments show a atmosphere has a density of about one puzzling conflict The eruption of a prominence (orange-red feature at upper kilogram per cubic meter, or roughly between theory and left) hints at the roiling solar weather below. atomic Digital Technology Atomic accuracy in any U.S. time zone Atomic digital watcli l world has become a smaller place in the past Thefew decades. Transactions take place across the world in an instant. Ha\'ing a timepiece that can not only keep perfectly accurate time, but keep track of the time zones can be reaUy helpful and convenient. Now there is a watch that can scientifically give you the right time in all zones within the 2,000-mile radio signal range. If you travel—this watch is a necessity. 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It sets itself to the F-1 Mill Road 1998 Ruffin °S Fountain Atomic Clock using a working battery, it Colonial Heights, VA 23834 — 70 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 clouds obscure part of the brighter THE SKY IN OCTOBER dwarfs' light, leading observers to infer that the brown dwarf is cooler By Joe Rao than it actually is. As brown dwarfs age, they cool; the clouds on the Mercury rises ahead of the Sun all Nonetheless, this marks the start of a dwarfs turn into heavy, metallic month. It's best seen during the most dramatic and spectacular Martian precipitation. The sky then clears up, second and third weeks of apparition. By late August 2003, it will allowing more infrared radiation to October, just above the eastern be 208 million miles closer, appear escape and making the dimmer horizon about half an hour before more than six times larger, and shine brown dwarfs appear misleadingly sunrise. Also around this time, the some forty-six times brighter than it warm. The researchers' new model much dimmer Mars is nearby. The does this month. matches the observations well, two planets are closest on the 10th, suggestu:ig that weather is indeed at when Mars hovers less than 3° above Jupiter, m Cancer, the Crab, rises work on these almost-stars. and to the right of Mercury. Shining about five hours before sunrise early in Although brown dwarfs don't fuse at magnitude -0.3, Mercury reaches October. By the end of the month hydrogen into helium, they have a greatest elongation, 18° west of the when standard time resumes—it rises lot of other things in common with Sun, on October 13. Mercury at about 11:30 P.M. local time. The low-mass stars. So if brown dwarfs continues to brighten steadily Moon passes well north ofJupiter on have planet-like surface weather, thereafter; on October 27 it reaches the morning of October 2. there's a good chance that the magnitude -1.0. Also on this date. faintest stars do too. That's not the Mercury passes 4° north of the bluish Saturn is still prominent in the faint whole story, however. The plasma in first-magnitude star Spica, in Virgo. club of Orion, the Hunter. The planet the guts of stars carries tremendous appears in the east-northeast about amounts of heat generated during Venus starts the month low in the four hours after sunset on October 1 nuclear fusion, and it can swirl and west-southwest during evening and about ninety minutes earlier by flow as easily as heat does in Earth's twilight. It sets only about seventy month's end. At dawn, it stands high atmosphere. It makes sense to minutes after the Sun on the 1st and in the south-southwest. The Moon speculate, then, that stars might have about three minutes earher each slides 3° north of Saturn on the weather in their interior as well as evening thereafter. By the 13th, Venus morning of the 26th. near their surface. sets only half an hour after the Sun. Do we have anything to support Venus is now a narrow crescent, visible The Moon wanes to new on October this remarkable prediction? Yes, with a small telescope or even with 6 at 7:18 a.m. Less than two hours indeed. By combining nearly good, firmly braced binoculars. Look later, our satellite arrives at perigee (its six years of Doppler imaging data for the enormous slender crescent as position closest to Earth), 221,789 from the SOHO (Solar and soon as the planet appears, whUe it is miles away. Abnormally large ocean Hehospheric Observatory) satellite, still set against a bright sky. Because tides should result for a few days solar astronomers have now seen Venus is so brilliant (at magnitude -4.3), around the event. The Moon is at first tantalizing suggestions of horizontal it may be visible at, or even before, quarter on the 13th at 1:33 A.M. and wind patterns and cyclonic flows sundown. waxes full on the 21st at 3:20 a.m. deep below the Sun's outer layers. Of Last-quarter Moon occurs on October course, there's a great deal we don't Mars treads the dawn in early 29 at 12:28 A.M. EST. understand about this result. But October. It's in the east one and a half with more discoveries like SOHO's, hours before sunrise. By month's end, "Spring ahead, fall back." October astronomers may one day be able to it rises half an hour earlier in a fuUy 27, the last Sunday of the month, is forecast the imminent clearing of the dark sky. On the morning of the 4th, the day on which clocks must be set mysteries of stellar weather. the planet will be roughly 10° below a back one hour in most areas of the slender crescent Moon. The red planet United States and Canada. On this Charles Lin is an astwpliysicist with the also has a rendezvous with Mercury on date, the clock hour from 1:00 A.M. to Hayden Planetarium. He is also affiliated the morning of the 10th. At the 2:00 A.M. officially repeats. with Barnard College as a research beginning of October, Mars is 242 scientist in the Department of Physics million miles from Earth and, at Unless otherwise noted, all times are given and Astronomy. magnitude +1.8, is relatively dim. in Eastern Daylight Time. AMNH Volunteer Supports the MuiEUM^^^^^^^^ Future yvND Her Own Retirement " rowing up in New York, of course sonne of my earliest and happiest cinildhood mem- ories are of visits to tine Museum." Thus for Selma Wiener began a life that has been closely intertwined with science, including professional experience as a high school science teacher, a technician for medical research, and assistant to the editor of a major medical publication. Over the past few years, Selma has expressed her love for the Museum in several important ways. She strengthened her membership support by participating in the Patrons Circle. Joining the Museum's corps of dedicated volunteers, she became editorial assistant to the Director of the Micropaleontology Press. She also included a bequest the in her estate plan. to Museum Here are sample rates and benefits for one person with a $io,ooo gift: Most recently, she realized that a Ace Annuity Income Tax Annuity Charitable Gift Annuity would be a Rate Deduction Payment great way to give the Museum a 65 6.7% $3,446 $670 portion of her future legacy right 70 7.2% $3,827 $720 receive now and, in addition, an 75 7.9% $4-223 $790 annuity at an excellent rate. As 80 8.9% $4,652 $890 'ifh'''- Selma says, "The Museum refects wm- 85 10.4% $5,046 $1,040 my true interests, so I decided to put 90 12.0% $5,630 $1,200 my money where my mouth is." For more information, please call Please send information on: American that provide lifetime income. (800) 453-5734 or reply by mail to; O Gifts Museums Office of Planned Giving, American OAbequesttotheMuseum in mywill. 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Here the scene is a small pond in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, where photogra- pher David Welling set up his bHnd at dawn on a March day. Wildlife soon ar- rived, seeking water and the shade of a big ebony tree and smaller mesquite bushes. Among the visitors were a ground squirrel, cotton rats, cardinals, a pyrrhuloxia, a green towhee, and a trio of green jays. Brightly plumaged, these jays range just north of the Mexican bor- der, in areas such as Hidalgo County, Texas, home of sizable ratders. When the attack came, at niidmorning, it was a sur- prise to all but the snake. The green jay had simply been sitting on a branch as Welling took its photo. Il Then, says the photographer, the bird "hopped to another branch and was im- mediately struck by a rattler that was hiding in the bushes. I was so surprised by the action that I almost didn't get this image." The western diamondback rat- desnake held on as the bird, voiceless, beat the air yellow with its wings, one foot still grasping the perch, its face a small mask. With his bird portrait abruptly transformed into a drama, WeUing wielded his camera and captured both violence and beauty. The venom did its work m three or four minutes; the reptile then slowly devoured its prey whole. -Judy Rice Photographs by David WeUing — 76 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 REVIEW Sifting Truth From Pelee s Ashes How the real causes of a famous disaster, long misunderstood, became key elements in the modern science of volcanology By Steven Soter the morning of May 8, 1902, on sugarcane and rum. American in the past 10,000 years. The now- Onthe volcano Mount Pelee, on writer Lafcadio Hearn, who Hved there extinct Carib population even called it the Caribbean island of Mar- for two years, found it enchanting "the mountain of fire." But in 1902 the tinique, vomited a superheated cloud of "the quaintest, queerest, and prettiest people of Saint-Pierre could recall only gas loaded with dust and rock. The tur- withal, among West Indian cities, aU a single eruption, in 1851, and it had bulent cloud, impelled by its own stone built and stone flagged," adorned left the city unscathed. Memories of weight, raced down the mountain faster with palm trees, gardens, and fountains, that harmless event contributed to a than a hurricane, hugging the ground and "a population fantastic, astonish- false sense of security among some of and heading for the coastal city of ing," which he regarded as the hand- the older residents. Saint-Pierre, about five miles away. It somest in the West Indies. In 1902, In the week preceding the 1902 cat- blasted everything in its path and left a Saint-Pierre was also the bastion of a astrophe, the volcano had become in- blazing inferno. Within minutes, nearly white supremacy whose power was creasingly violent. To the accom- 30,000 people lay dead—crushed, in- being challenged by a popuHst opposi- paniment of thunderous explosions, the cinerated, asphyxiated by the scalding tion. Louis Percin, a Radical-Socialist crater sent hghtning-riven columns of gas. The victims included the governor lawyer, was running against Fernand ash towering above the city; a mantle of of the island and members of a "scienti- Clerc, a wealthy industrialist, in a highly fine volcanic ash settled over every- fic commission" assembled to assess charged election for a seat in France's thing; a steaming torrent of mud obHt- the volcanic threat. Only two people Chamber of Deputies, scheduled for erated a sugar refmery near Saint- within the city survived. May 11. But the inexorable natural Pierre, killing two dozen people; Founded in the seventeenth century, agenda of the volcano would render all telegraph cables connecting the island Saint-Pierre had been the cultural and that irrelevant for Saint-Pierre. to the outside world were severed. commercial capital of the French West Today we know that Mount Pelee The reaction of the authorities was Indies, with a prosperous economy bmlt has erupted catastrophically many times to prove disastrous. The mayor posted Left: The city of Saint-Pierre, Martinique, before the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelee. Above: The ruined city, after the eruption. jZ D^r~ I I If EXP! j t Why do top film production companies use our travel services to bring you the MINNESOTA WILD RICE ANTARCTICA most exciting natural hiistory films? $8.00/lbs 51bs Min. Purchase UPS Prepaid December 27, 2003-January 24, 2004 "Spirits of the Rainforest" $6.00/lbs 251bs Min. 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See our website at \u\^\:aihenapub.com Iquitos Peru www.ecoventura.com 78 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 a reassuring proclamation. The lead- analysis remained largely unknown from being apathetic or duplicitous, ing newspaper derided those who outside the French West Indies. Con- Governor Mouttet courageously tried were fleeing in panic. And on the sequently, most subsequent accounts of to cope with the crisis and paid with evening of May 7—the last for the the tragedy have relied on Thomas and his life. No evidence exists that the doomed city—Governor Louis Mout- Morgan-Witts, and the mythology pending election played any role in his tet's commission announced that continues to propagate. decisions. The election never threat- Saint-Pierre was not in danger. This year, marking the centennial of ened the French government in any Why had the government not evac- the disaster, three books retell the case, because the parties of both candi- uated the city? After the catastrophe, Mount Pelee story. In Volcanoes in dates in Martinique (an "overseas de- the fmger-pointing began. Fernand Human History, geologists Jelle Zeihnga partment" ot France) already belonged Clerc, who had gotten out of Saint- de Boer and Donald Theodore Sanders to the governing coalition. Pierre at the last moment, charged that cite the 1902 eruption as one with The real problem was that no one Governor Mouttet had instructions far-reaching effects. Their book is gen- on the island knew much about volca- from Paris to keep erally good on the noes, and no geologist in the world the population in La Catastrophe: Tlie Eruption of geology of volcanoes then knew anything about the kind of the city to avoid dis- Mount Pelee, the Worst Volcanic Disas- and the consequences eruption that Mount Pelee was about ruptmg the elec- ter of the 20th Century, by Alwyn of major eruptions; to unleash. The people of Saint-Pierre tions. A rumor Scarth (Oxford University Press) in their account of feared an earthquake, or an inundation spread that troops The Last Days of St. Pierre: Tlic what happened in from the sea, or streams of lava flowing had even prevented Volcanic Disaster Tliat Claimed Tliirty Saint-Pierre, how- down the river valleys. The death people from leaving. Tliousand Elves, by Ernest Zebrowski ever, they rely on cloud that actually burst from the vol- But with most of Jr. (Rutgers University Press) the wrong sources cano was beyond their ability to imag- the principals dead, Volcanoes in Human History: The and make a hash of ine. The tragedy of Saint-Pierre was the truth remained Far-Reaching Effects of Major Erup- the poUtics. more the result of ignorance and ap- obscure. Exploiting tions, by Jelle Zeilinga de Boer and In The Last Days pallingly bad luck than of incompe- the tragedy, several Donald Theodore Sanders (Princeton of St. Pierre, phys- tence or malteasance. sensational books University Press) ics professor Ernest After the disaster, the geologist Al- were rushed into Zebrowski Jr. also fred Lacroix came to Martinique to print in 1902, mixing fact and rumor uses some unreliable sources but at study the wreckage. After piecing to- with pure invention. least attempts to set the record straight. gether the evidence, he named the In 1969, Gordon Thomas and Max He gives a balanced and sympathetic phenomenon niiee ardeutc (fiery cloud), Morgan-Witts pubHshed The Day the description of bewildered authorities also known today as pyroclastic flow. World Ended, presenting it as a nonfic- out of their depth in confronting an When internal gas pressure disinte- tion account of the disaster. They unpredictable menace. Even it Gover- grates the viscous lava blocking a vol- blamed the tragedy on the apathy and nor Mouttet could have imagined canic vent, it can produce a cloud ot duplicity of the governor. Adding to what was to happen, he had no means hot gas fuU of dust and rock that spills the list ot ignored forewarnings from of evacuating 30,000 people. For dra- Hke an avalanche down the side of the the volcano, they reported that poison- matic effect, Zebrowski contrives de- mountain. Although eruptions of this ous centipedes and snakes had swarmed tailed conversations among the charac- type are not rare, none had previously over the outskirts of the city and that ters in the unfolding drama, a been studied. Lacroix 's book on Mount people had been dying from an epi- technique I found distracting. Pelee became a classic in the new sci- demic triggered by volcanic pollution. By far the best book in EngHsh on ence of volcanology, and the dangers All this, like much else in their book, the tragedy is La Catastrophe, by Alwyn are now well understood. Today, in part never happened. Scarth, formerly a professor of geogra- because of the Saint-Pierre tragedy, Thomas and Morgan-Witts loaded phy at Scotland's University ot Dundee. governments take very seriously the their narrative with melodramatic Basing his book on meticulous re- threat of an awakening volcano. fabrications, which so appalled Jacques search, Scarth has assembled the most Petitjean Roget, then president of the revealing and reliable testimony, to- Steven Soter, an astronomer in the Museum's Historical Society of Martinique, that gether with a collection of vivid pho- Department of Astrophysics, is researching in 1972 he pubHshed a detailed and tographs. He carefully probes and ex- seismic precursory phenomena and the geo- scathing critique to expose the non- poses "the lies and innuendos" that archaeology of ancient Helike, a Greek city sense. Unfortunately, his scholarly followed the disaster. We learn that far destroyed by an earthquake hi 373 B.C. BOOKSHELF nature.net Some of the tail's best reads involve Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Shifting Ground quests. Japanese explorer Daisuke Taka- Angola (Atlanric Monthly Press). hashi has written In Search of Robinson In Pacific High: Adivnturcs in the Sy Robert Anderson Crusoe (Cooper Square Press), about his Coast Ranges From Baja to Alaska (Island seven-year journey looking for traces ot Press), naturalist Tim Palmer investigates Having studied geology in the early Daniel Defoe's real-lite inspiration, how the estimated 36 million people 1980s, I have trouble imagining the Alexander Selkirk. In Search for the who inhabit this vast region have af- time, only a decade or so earher, when Golden Moon Bear: Science and Adven- fected its environmental health. Journal- plate tectonics—the unifying theory of ture in Pursuii of a A't'ic Species (Simon & ists Marq de ViUiers and Sheila Hirde our planet's inner workings—was not Schuster), naturalist Sy Montgomery describe diverse peoples and elemental generally accepted. Perhaps that's why I recounts her travels through Southeast forces of sand, wind, and weather in Sa- so enjoyed the Web site "This Dynamic Asia with evolutionai-y biologist Gary hara: A Naniral History (Walker Publish- Earth" (pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/ Galbreath and others. Andromeda ing). Anthropologist Ben Oiiove travels dynamic. html). The site's authors W Romano-Lax, sailing in a twenty-four- to the world's highest lake, which lies Jacquelyne Kious and Robert I. Till- foot boat with her husband and two beDi\'een Peru and Bolivia, in Lines in ing, both at the U.S. Geological Survey, children, obsen.'es the dazzling arrav of the Water: Nature and Culture at Like not only present a concise explanation natural Ufe in Searching for Steinbeck's Titicaca (University of California Press). of the theory, they also tell us a bit Sea of Cortez: A Makeshift Expedition In The Shaman's Coat: .-1 Natii'e History about the scientists who finally pieced Along Baja's Desert Coast (Sasquatch n/ Siberia (Walker Publishing), journalist it together. Books). Journalist Tony Horwitz, in Anna Reid \asits indigenous people of The site clarities the otten tuzzy Blue Latitudes: Boldly Goirig Wtere nine nationalities and finds their distinction between the older theory Captain Cook Has Gone Before (Henry identities strengthened since the collapse ot continental drift and its more recent ^ of Communism. Closer reincarnation, plate tectonics. Under to the "Historical Perspective," I discovered I home, American s Southwest is what inspires that the former had been around since I both Craig Childs, in 1596, when Flemish mapmaker Abra- I Soul of Nowhere: Travers- ham Ortelius recorded his beliet that ing Grace in a Rugged Land the continents had not always been tli (Sasquatch Books), and fixed in their present positions. And in r * . I Ellen Meloy, in The 1858, geographer Antonio Snider- I Anthropology of Tur- Pellegrini showed how the continents quoise: Meditations on had once fit together. Then there was LiUidicapc, Art, and Spirit the visionary German scientist Alfred (Pantheon Books). Lothar Wegener, who might have Outstanding refer- brought us the modern theory ot plate ence books include the tectonics decades betore the 1960s had Camera Man's Journey: J(//m;/ Dinwck's South, edited National Audubon Soci- he not perished in 1930 during a trek ice cap. by Thomas L.Johnson and Nina J. Root (University ety's Guide to Marine across the Greenland of Georgia Press) Mammals of the World Under "Plate Tectonics and People," (Alfred A. Knopf), illus- the authors touch on the hazards ot liv- Holt), signs on as a working crewman trated by Pieter Folkens; the Ency- ing on a restless planet—with its earth- aboard a replica of Cook's first vessel, clopedia of Marine Mammals (Aca- quakes, tsunamis, and volcanic erup- retracing the routes of the great naviga- demic Press), edited by William F. tions—but they also list benefits, such as tor who "helped to make the world Perrin, Bernd Wiirsig, and J.G.M. fertile soils, rich ore deposits, and geo- one." Finally, John Frederick Walker Thewissen; and the Encyclopedia of thermal energy. A world without plate journeys to war-torn Angola to find a Evolution (Oxford University Press). tectonics would be poor indeed. Hving giant sable antelope specimen and recounts some dramatic history in A These books are usually available in the Robert Anderson is a freelance science writer Certain Curve of Horn: Tlic Hundred- Museum Shop, (212) 769-5150. living in Los Angeles. — — 80 NATURAL HISTORY 10/02 ENDPAPER Costa Rica's La Selva Field Station is a gathering place would chiU the manic ants to a manageable speed. By gluing for some of tropical biology's most brilliant ininds. two long rubber hoses to the cap of a small flask fdled with Its research facilities, which give easy access to the crushed ice, I could create a vacuum in one tube by inhaling jungle, harbor lethal snakes, wild pigs, snapping turtles—and on the other. Thus equipped, I ran through the forest sucking mad scientists. The scientists happily spend their days pluck- up thousands of unsuspecting, benign leaf-cutting ants ing the wings off aerial insects and crucifying them on Sty- convincing myself that the contraption was uniquely suited rofoam boards, molding poison-dart frogs out of Play-Doh, to the task. Then I tried to collect the balas. These ants were or shooting climbing ropes mto the torest canopy with cross- so big (or so smart) that they could brace themselves against bows. I arrived at the station with little understanding of the Hp of the collection tube by stretching out their ap- what compelled this scientific tribe to seek increasingly pe- pendages. The Cryogenic Ant Sucker was doomed. cuhar forms of academic exercise. Instead, my comrades and I resorted to inserting a long I'd come to La Selva to work with the dreaded bala ant stick deep into a bala nest and thrashing madly. When the (Paraponera clavata), also known as the bullet ant. These in- furious ants charged up the stick, we'd smack it smartly . against the top edge of an ice-filled la ants carve up dinnej;' I chest, and the ants would drop inside. After they were chilled, we'd paint their motionless bodies psychedelic colors and return them to the forest. Early each morning for several weeks we ventured into the forest to perform our nest thrashing and ant painting, but the ants caught on to us. They began to chng to the stick, refus- ing to drop into the ice chest. Only at the stick's rebound did they release their tenacious grip, which made them into dangerous missiles. Inevitably, one of my colleagues fell victim to an ant sting that confined him to bed with Bites of Passage an ice pack, immobile, for thirty-six hours. A few days later another col- By Nathan Welton league succumbed to the same fate. One evening toward the end of our sects are inch-long behemoths whose stings feel like gun- study, we began antagonizing a new nest and couldn't figure shots. One finds them on trees throughout the jungle, ef- out why no ants were emerging. Then some ants darted out fortlessly toting the body parts of recently dismembered a back exit at my feet, and soon a moving blanket of black victims—grasshopper heads, frog legs, beetle thoraxes began crawling up my socks. By furiously jumping up and down toward large black holes in the ground. down, I dislodged all but one, which made its way to my Whether or not the primitive balas use a caste system to knee, clearly heading for my shorts. accomphsh their grim work was a mystery my colleagues Panicked, I tried to flatten it with my quadruple D-cell and I wanted to solve, and our mark-and-recapture flashhght, completely missing the mark but successfully methodology required us to handle the beasts. Our plan was bashing my shin. Although I eventually knocked the ant off, to collect arboreal toragers and underground nest tenders; my leg swelled horrendously, and I realized I might just as compare body lengths, head sizes, and weights; and then well have let the bala have its way with me. Still, in my mis- paint the foragers one color and the nest tenders another. If ery I was consoled; This was my initiation. I had joined the afterward we consistently spotted, say, green ants in the trees scientific tribe. and red ants on the ground, we would have found a caste. To collect the balas, I invented a masterfijl piece of equip- Nathan Welton will shortly receive a master's degree Jroni Boston ment I called the Cryogenic Ant Sucker, which, theoretically. 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