Question: @Edward what is the most fascinating thing you have done in your career

Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

Hi nannymoo 🙂

This is a hard question and really made me think (so its a really good question to ask!)

I’m not sure there is one thing that stands out so I’ll list a few:

1. A while ago we did a study showing how cod in the Irish Sea was being overfished. This led to us being invited to a special scientific meeting that would advise the EU on how to manage cod stocks across Europe. Our work was discussed at the meeting alongside other similar studies and we had to draft a recommended plan of action. The EU fisheries ministers then acted on this and set up a new management recovery plan for cod across all of Europe. This whole process was fascinating – not because of the science but because of the way the science led into the politics and decision making process (and it was interesting how decision makers often ignore the bits of the science that they don’t like!)

2. Some of the studies we are doing at the moment on coral reef fish are fascinating. I am not an expert on coral reef fish but I am lucky to work with some colleagues who are and they teach me about their behaviour. A lot of the details about their life history are still unknown and we are working to try to address this. I find this whole topic fascinating.

(Copied from an earlier post):
Clownfish like Nemo ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocellaris_clownfish and other similar coral reef fish – like Dory the Blue Tang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracanthurus_hepatus) have what is known as a ‘bi-partite’ (2-stage) life history. The eggs are laid on the coral reef but when they hatch the tiny baby clownfish (known as ‘larval’ fish) leave the reef and head out to the open ocean (the ‘pelagic’ environment). The reason they do this is because if they stay on the reef they’ll very quickly get eaten by bigger fish (which can include their own parents if they are unlucky!) The baby fish then live for a few weeks out in the open ocean eating plankton (tiny bugs and organisms that live in the water). Once they reach a certain size they then need to get back to a coral reef to ‘settle’. This settement involves a process known as ‘metamorphosis’ where the fish actually physically change (e.g. they go from see-through to having colour) – this is a bit like when tadpoles change into adult frogs. Unfortunately for the baby fish there is a very short time limit for them to do this – if they don’t find the reef in time then they’ll die!

The key problem we are interested in is how do the baby larval fish find a coral reef to get back to when they need to settle? Clearly they are only very small and people used to think it was just random whether they would return to a reef (e.g. if they were lucky enough to find a favourable current in the sea). However, recent work by my colleague Steve Simpson (and a few other people) have shown that the larval fish actually seem to respond to the sound of the coral reef (which is actually very noisy – fish ‘talk’ to each other all the time using croaks and ‘burps’!).

We have done some theoretical simulation work showing how important it is that they respond to sound and navigate towards it – this can greatly increase their chances of surviving. One of the things we are now interested in is whether the baby larval fish navigate to the coral reef as a group or as individuals – if we can determine this then it could have big implications about how we should manage and maintain coral reef ecosystems. We have a PhD student studying this problem at the moment – in fact he is about to go off to Indonesia for 2 months to study fish in their natural environment (while I have to stay at home unfortunately!).

3. Finally, its not something I’ve done as such, but something I find fascinating is watching young researchers start to become independent scientists themselves. I supervise a number of PhD students and I like to see how they develop and learn as they do their research project. Its been great to be on I’m a Scientist and see how the 3 PhDs guys in the Ecology zone (Jess, Zara and Nicolas) are able to talk about their work and share their enthusiasm for science!