MEETINGS & WORKSHOPS BOOKS & VIDEOS
COMPARISON OF BIOLOGICALOCEANOGRAPHY: TERRES ,C AN EARLY I--hSTOR¥, 1870 TO 1960 MARINE ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS By Eric L. Mills A WORKSHOP on this subject 1989,378 pp., $42.50, Cloth, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. was held in 1989 with partial National Reviewed by David J. Carlson Science Foundation support. The re- In the mid-nineteenth century, biologists dence), the initial biological oceanographers port (copies available from J. Steele) studying the oceans were mostly interested were male (Sheina Marshall of the Scottish discusses the various problems, lo- in discovering deep-sea organisms. Today Marine Biological Association laboratory gistic and conceptual, in making such biological oceanographers pay most atten- and Penelope Jenkin and Marie Lebour of the comparisons, but its main conclu- tion to processes in the surface ocean. In his Plymouth Laboratoryare notable exceptions). sion is that we should have work- latest volume of oceanographic history, Mills introduces us first to Victor Hensen, a shops or summer schools that focus published by Cornell University Press in its German biochemist, anatomist and physi- on specific topics where interactions History of Science Series, Eric Mills de- ologist who turned his attention to marine between the different sectors would scribes the period from 1870 to 1960 during subjects when nascent Germany formed a be most fruitful. A recent meeting of which focus shifted from deep-sea natural commission for the study of its seas. Hensen the Steering Committee (J. Cohen, P. history to upper ocean plankton dynamics recognized that small planktonic organisms Dayton, T. Kratz, S. Levin, R. and when, as a result, biological oceanogra- were important components of marine sys- Ricklefs and J. Steele) proposed that phy evolved and separated from marine bi- tems but more importantly felt that their three topics be selected from the re- ology. Although the history is titled Bio- abundance could be determined systemati- port--patch dynamics, long-term logical Oceanography, the book" s primary cally and accurately. He eventually developed data sets and analysis of community topic is the progressive understanding of and calibrated plankton nets to be lifted structure. Each of these would be the plankton dynamics in relation to chemical vertically through the water column. Hensen focus of a workshop/school lasting and physical oceanographic factors, a topic was followed by Karl Brandt who, with four weeks, with about twenty-five relevant, perhaps instructive, to many present- colleagues of the so-called Kiel School (alter to thirty participants. The intent would day oceanographers. Dr. Mills also touches Kiel University), first determined that nitro- be to compare data sets and methods on historical patterns of promotion and re- gen and other nutrients could limit phyto- of analysis across the terrestrial, muneration of oceanograpbers, of ship avail- plankton growth and recognized geographi- freshwater and marine sectors. The ability, and of private, federal and institutional cal patterns evident in plankton abundance output would be research methods, support for oceanography, issues that pro- data collected by Hensen. (One of Brandt's ideas and applications. The present voke and perplex us still. colleagues, Hans Lohmann, also showed that tentative plan is to hold the first of The inception and evolution of biological Hensen's nets failed to collect nanoplankton these workshops on patch dynamics oceanography--distinct from marine biol- and developed centrifugation and filtration in summer 1991 with S. Levin, T. ogy by its attention to process rather than techniques to improve collections.) The work Powell and J. Steele as the organiz- organism and destined eventually to separate of the Kiel School was extended in Norway ers. We wish to learn the level of from general ecology because of its attention by H.H. Gran. Gran described spring blooms interest, especially at the graduate to fisheries, its early need to invent and apply in Norwegian coastal waters (the Kiel group student and post-doctoral level. mathematical models, and its operation had not recognized ornotemphasized blooms Please contact any of the organizers largely at institutes dedicated to oceanogra- in their data), documented vertical with your ideas and opinions: S. phy-occurred mostly in northern Europe. inhomogeneity (which had been obscured by Levin, Center for Environmental There, increased populations, diminished Hensen's vertical tows), understood (with Research, 345 Corson Hall, Cornell agricultural resources, and improved fishing the help of A. Nathansohn, a German University, Ithaca, NY 14853-2701, technology had most affected fisheries, and physicist) the importance of vertical mixing (607) 255-4617; T. Powell, Division trained observers and experimenters were in supplying nutrients and controlling phyto- of Environmental Science, Univer- available from non-marine disciplines in the plankton growth and described and then sity of California, Davis, CA 95616, European university system. Because most measured (using light and dark bottles ) the (916) 752-3026: J. Steele, Woods instructors and students in that system were compensation depth--that depth where en- Hole Oceanographic Institution, men (and severely well dressed if photo- ergy gained by photosynthesis balances the Woods Hole, MA 02543, (508) 548- graphs of sea-going attire are accurate evi- energy spent in respiration. These and other 1400. El efforts led eventually to the work of G. Atkins and H.W. Harvey at the Plymouth David J. Carlson. College of Oceanography. Oregon State University, Oceanography Administration (England) Laboratory who improved meth- Building 104, Corvallis, OR 97331-5503. [ CONTINUI(D ON I+OWI(R PAc;t~ 62 ]
O('EANOGRAPHY'N(IVEMBER'It~gll 6 I BOOKS & VIDEOS
A FRAGILE POWER: SCIENTISTS AND THE STATE
By Chandra Mukerji 1989, 253 pp.. $24.95, Princeton University Press
Reviewed by Andrew G. Dickson should. In her recent book, Chandra Mukerji, Her discussion focuses detailed attention What does the state expect for its research professor of Sociology at the University of on two seemingly different programs: re- dollars'? What intellectual and political com- California, San Diego, studies oceanogra- search funded by the U. S. Department of promises does a scientist make by seeking phers as paradigms of soft-money scientists Energy ostensibly to examine the suitability government grants or contracts? Do such at large (those who seek government funds to of the oceans as a site for the disposal of questions haunt you as you write your final further their research, not solely those whose nuclear waste and expeditions funded by the reports, your new proposals? Perhaps they salary depends on such funds) and concludes National Science Foundation to study sub- that most scientists delude themselves as to marine hydrothermal vents. She uses these as Andrew G. Dick,,,on. Marine Physical Laboratory, the extent of their individual scientific au- case studies to examine the relationship be- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA tonomy-that scientists have sold their tween scientist and state and dismisses as 92093-0902. "voice" for a mess of pottage. oversimplified the utilitarian concept that
BIOLOGICAL OCEANOGRAPHY" AN EARLY HISTORY, 1870 TO 1960 [ CONTINUED I'ROM PAGt" 61 ] ods for measuring nutrients, submarine light and analytical and sampling technologies, technicians and that oceanography in general and phytoplankton pigments, recognized the the national financial support and interna- has been very successful when it has been importance of thermally-induced stratifica- tional sampling programs, and the blooming able to attract talent from other disciplines. tion, and identified the role of grazers in and senescence of the Kiel and Plymouth One wonders, as we cut technician salaries to controlling phytoplankton blooms. Eventu- groups. The author's prose is clear and pre- reduce grant budgets and anticipate numer- ally, Gordon Riley at Yale and the Woods cise and figures and data are supplied in a ous retirements among senior oceanogra- Hole Oceanographic Institution used Ply- useful manner. A map would have been phers over the next five to ten years, whether mouth Laboratory intbrmation on nutrients, helpful to understand northern European our present system of attracting under- light mad grazi ng to develop (with H. Stommel coastlines and non-oceanographers might graduates from traditional science disciplines and D. Bumpus) mathematical models of wish lbr a glossary. Nevertheless, learning into employment or graduate training in physical and chemical controls on phyto- this hi story, being introduced to predecessors oceanography will provide sufficient diver- plankton and zooplankton growth over whose names may be familiar only from sity of talent and whether enough skilled Georges Bank. Mills contends that at that bindings of taxonomic guides or as parenthetic science undergraduates will be available from point (approximately 1960) most major appellations to scientific names, discovering any discipline. paradigms, sampling schemes and analytical the sources of our understanding, is an enjoy- In 1989, when this history of European techniques in use in biological oceanography able voyage. and American research on plankton blooms today were in place. One wonders whether It is also a voyage that provokes. We find in the North Atlantic was published, European development of fluorometric assays for chlo- ample precedent for grand programs imple- and American oceanographers were involved rophyll pigments by Yentsch and others mented to measure ocean processes thai in a major research eflbrt on plankton blooms should have been included among the fun- eventually deteriorate to uncertainty about in the North Atlantic. That the topic has damental developments, but otherwise Mills sampling efficiency, for radical changes in developed global import does not perforce seems to have given a thorough and accurate understanding as a result of analytical im- indicate that our understanding has expanded recounting. What is striking, and perhaps provements, for progress as a function of proportionally. Dr. Mills provides us a cause tbr reassessment, is that so much of ship availability, and for the evocation of valuable reference against which to check what we do today derives with clear lineage oceanic microenvironments to render non- our intellectual, logistical and analytical from a few investigators with whom most of conforming conditions or processes more progress. He also does us a considerable us share a common and, it must be said, a plausible. This history provides no explicit service, in a pleasant manner, by supplying somewhat narrow geographical and cultural lessons or remedies, but reminds us that we in us with oceanographic history that most of us heritage. 1990 are not so unprecedented as we suppose failed to get as part of our education, by re- Mills charts for us the exchanges of in- nor so heretical as our reviewers contend. It introducing us to our intellectual forebears, formation during these ninety years of re- also reminds us that since the start of oceano- and by reminding us of the excellence and search, the character of the investigators and graphic research we have been dependent on limitations of our heritage. [21 their laboratories, the development of ideas the expertise and energy of oceanographic
62 OCEANOGRAPH Y.NOVEMB ER. 1991I