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When I grow up

Q: I would like to be a marine biologist when I grow up. What education do I need, where would I work, and what animals would I work with? (Laura, 5^th grade, Burke, Virginia)

Diver with full face mask and underwater radio peers into a large Caribbean vase sponge. [OAR/National Undersea Research Program]

A: Before answering your questions, let me tell you about another with a dream like yours: Diane Poehls. Twelve years ago, Diane was in the 7^th grade and, researching a science project, she found a National Geographic article that enthralled her.

It showed a recent eruption deep under the Arctic Ocean of hot waters gushing from a volcanic vent.  Water had seeped into a crack in the sea floor. Molten rock below the crust heated the water up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit (400 degrees Celsius). More cold dense water fell into the crack and pushed the scalding hot liquid back into the sea. Animals lived in the upsurge of hot waters and rich minerals.

"I saw the photos of this strange world miles and miles below the surface of the ocean... it looked like a barren desert in places, and yet there were pockets of these absolutely fascinating animals." She determined to become a marine biologist and go there.

Diane Poehls realized her dream of becoming a marine biologist.  [Tom Kleindinst, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, used with permission]

In 2002, now working on her doctorate in marine biology, Diane boarded a submarine vehicle called Alvin with two Woods Hole Oceanographic researchers and dived 1.5 miles (2.5 km) to the hydrothermal vent field on the floor of the Arctic Ocean. Gazing through Alvin’s portholes, she saw the strange creatures who make their homes in volcanic water: shrimp, mussels, octopuses, orange tubeworms in their armored tubes, giant clams, and ghostly white crabs. The exotic animals lived in primal Earth conditions, even breathing sulphur compounds instead of oxygen.

Now, for your questions — and how you, like Diane Poehls, can realize your dream!

What to learn. You have chosen a life in science. So, in high school and college, take every science and math course you can: biology, chemistry, earth sciences, physics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics — and computer courses. Diane took a marine biology class in high school and studied aquatic biology in college.

Learn to write and speak well. Your advancement later will depend largely on these skills.

In the summer of your junior or senior year in college get a summer job (or take a course) at a marine lab. That’s worth five college courses easily, says Jeffrey Levinton, professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

To be a marine biologist, though, you must go on: two years for a master’s degree in marine biology and probably another six years for a PhD. You can skip the master’s degree and go directly into a PhD program from undergraduate school, however, says John Stegeman, biology department chairman at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Also, you can get your degree in related fields — biochemistry, for instance like Stegeman did, or molecular biology — and apply that knowledge to marine biology

What jobs to do. Marine biologists investigate how marine organisms

• grow and develop
• relate to each other
• adapt to and interact with the environment.

As biologists understand how sea plants and animals live, they can better predict what will happen if... Earth warms, seas dirty, fish numbers increase or diminish, and other changes. Marine biologists also work with geologists to examine fossil marine creatures for clues about past climates.

Now, at age 24, Diane Poehls works on her doctorate in biology through a joint program with MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). She wonders how the larvae of animals that live in hydrothermal vents get from one vent to another. A vent may go dormant after ten to fifty years and then what does a sulfur-breathing warm-water dwelling animal do on the frigid ocean bottom?

"These animals and their offspring must somehow get from one patch to the next, sometimes traveling many miles," she says. "Grandiose communities persist despite constant environmental change and extinction." How?

Where to work. Private research institutions, universities, aquariums, zoos, environmental protection agencies, fisheries, and consulting companies are likely places.

Fisheries manage stocks of fish along our shores and in ocean depths. Biologists there survey fish stocks in the various stages: larvae, immature, and mature. They use the data to create computer models and predict future stocks. On the basis of such predictions, governments regulate fishing and help species survive.

Evaluating the impact of man’s activity on the environment take marine biologists to coastal zones where sea defenses, tidal barriers, industrial waste, and sewage affect the sea and its creatures. Some activities help sea life. For instance, a sunken ship may become an artificial reef and attract plants and animals. Marine biologists advise how to extract oil, gas, sand, and gravel from the sea in ways that minimize harm.

Your work can take you around the world, at least briefly, to either pole or any sea between.

That’s the fun part — outdoors at sea on research ships or in coastal waters on smaller boats. After this comes hours of analysis in the lab.

What animals to study. You may investigate biochemical or other ways marine creatures interact with the environment. "Many marine biologists do study the large marine animals, including whales and seals," says Stegeman. Maybe you could too. Marine biologists probe sea life, however, and that’s mostly little animals that the bigger guys feed off of. So, you’ll probably examine, count, and classify bacteria, plankton, algae, shrimp, worms, and fish larvae.

Tubeworms do not eat, having neither mouth nor stomach. [© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, used with permission]

Just ask Diane Poehls if worms are interesting, though! Tubeworms can grow up to two yards (meters) long, never leave their protective tubes, and do not eat. They have neither mouth nor stomach.

"Going to the sea floor is like taking a trip to another world without leaving Earth."

Further Reading:

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Sea Grant: Marine careers — the website for information on marine careers according to folks at NOAA, NSF, and USGS. A fantastic source.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Dive and discover, join the current expedition exploring hydrothermal vents off the Pacific Northwest coast.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Remarkable careers in oceanography

Southampton Oceanography Centre: Marine biology as a career

Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library: Careers in Oceanography, Marine Science, & Marine Biology

Toastmasters International: speaking well

(Answered July 2, 2004)