Isabella Bouvard

1/14/19

Core Biology 10H|Block C-Odd/Mr. Ippolito

Current Event #13

Rehm, Jeremy. “Floating Seabirds Provide a Novel Way to Trace Ocean Currents.” Science News, 10 Jan. 2019, www.sciencenews.org/article/floating-seabirds-provide-novel-way-trace-ocean-currents.

For this week's current events, I reviewed the article “Floating Seabirds Provide a Novel Way to Trace Ocean Currents” By Jeremy Rehm. This article primarily describes how scientists are beginning to use birds in order to determine ocean current velocities, instead of using the traditional radar, floating buoys or autonomous underwater vehicles. This study was conducted in large part due to sea regions not being accessible to the utilization of these mechanisms. Even if this may not fully replace the collection methods that scientists have been using, it can lighten the weight of expensive technology. “I don’t think it’s going to replace the various instruments we use,” says Evan Mason, a physical oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It was just interesting to see what we might find.” In order to go about this study, Mason and his colleagues used seventy-five Scopoli’s shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea), a seabird found in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, with GPS tags. They tracked their movements in the Balearic Sea off of eastern Spain. Even though the birds did not spend as much time on the water: the researchers determined ocean currents, winds or both drove the animals’ direction comparing wind and water velocity information with the way birds drifted. Such calculations were found to match up well with satellite and buoy-derived data of winds and surface currents.

Although this aspect was not covered in much depth, the effect on society is covered in large part by certain details in this article. At one point, it describes how the use of traditional radar, floating buoys, or autonomous underwater vehicles can affect the climate, ecosystems and the movement of important seafood. By using birds, scientists are not doing as much harm to the environment as they would be by using the original methods. They are simply taking natural components of the water without doing much disturbance to other variables that can affect the data as a whole. What I mean by this is that by using birds they will be able to gather more information without doing potential harm to the communities of other organisms. Researchers will also have the ability to gather more information on the behavior and movement of animals and how ocean characteristics change with time and location. This can eventually open new doors to additional scientific studies and theories.

In general, the article was very concise and understandable. I found it very easy to comprehend the topic and was overall very interested in what the author was explaining. Additionally, I feel as if the author organized the main ideas of the review very nicely. However, I feel as if Rehm could’ve gone into a little more depth in certain areas, as it was hard for me to understand the initial collection instruments that scientists had been using prior to that of the birds. Also, the author could’ve described more of the environmental and ecological effects as well, which would help the reader get a better idea of why this study was conducted in general. These small additions would improve the article greatly, and describing certain terms can be an easy fix for the author.