Pollitzer Essay: Communicating BioAnthro to the public: How do we do this, and where are we falling short?

The following is an essay I submitted for the AAPA William S. Pollitzer Award.  It was successful, which means that I received $500 toward my conferences expenses (which was much needed!).  Here, I raise a topic that I think is incredibly important, and since I wrote and submitted it, I feel there's already been quite some progress made in this area.  I'd love to hear any feedback!  Since writing it, I have realized that I present an ideal that I would like to achieve.  However, I know I'm falling short of that ideal, at least when it comes to my blogging. Lately, I've been very focused on dissertation analysis/writing, manuscripts, and dreaming up future project ideas. Most of this stuff is work that I am not ready to share yet. I often find myself jotting notes on non-dissertation-related topics I would love to blog about in the future, but never have the time to fully develop and post them (or rather, don't, because I feel I would be using it as a form of procrastination). If anyone has any ideas on  how to use blogging productively in their work, rather than as a distraction/form of procrastination from that work, let me know!  

What important article is missing from the current literature in biological anthropology? Give the title and what you think it's impact/benefit would be.

Communicating BioAnthro to the public: How do we do this, and where are we falling short?

Biological anthropology has an image problem. The recent uproar over comments about the relevance and necessity of anthropology majors (Lende, 2011) , as well as controversy surrounding the AAA’s choice of removing “science” from its mission statement (Rutherford, 2011) indicates that, for both the wider field of anthropology and the public, biological anthropology is often forgotten, marginalized, or misunderstood.

What anthropologists need is an article that addresses ways we can rectify this situation. How do we emphasize the importance of our research and its relevance to the big concerns that affect our world? The research questions we study, whether large or small, are each getting to the root of understanding ourselves and our fellow humans. But how are we broadcasting this to a larger audience?  How do we share the theory and application of our own research niche to colleagues in other subfields?  When our students complete their gen-ed, introductory courses in anthropology, do they walk away with an accurate understanding of this field and its relevance to their lives?  When we give a lecture, whether to a class, an auditorium full of colleagues, or The Rotary Club, are we conveying how the topic of discussion fits within the large field of anthropology?  Are we adequately showing our audience how relevant this might be to both our individual lives and to society as a whole?

I envision an article that could guide us all into bringing biological anthropology into the forefront of public discourse, at multiple levels of society.  While I have no magical formula, I do have some ideas.  I think that we should each reflect on this issue and think of the ways we can share our research and our passion for biological anthropology with the world around us.  We can start by trying to understand our colleagues.  I mentally file people as the chimpanzee person, the stress and endocrinology person, the bone person…  But how well do I really understand their research, and its relevance to me, to my ancestors, to my future descendants, to the whopping 7 billion of us that are sharing this planet?

We could start there.  And we could start by communicating to our non-anthropology, non-academic friends and family.  We could share the joys of anthropology to a greater audience via blogs and popular science articles.  We could try to maintain a presence at science fairs, at every level, so that aspiring scientists realize that anthropology has many options for a passionate young science enthusiast.  We can contribute to public lectures, and share our field’s perspective on health and social issues, on human history, and the public debates and misunderstandings about the perceived conflicts between science and religion.  We can write books for a popular audience, and lend an anthropological perspective to popular accounts of health, science, stress, fertility, evolution, paleoanthropology, human resource dependence, primate behavior, and conservation.  As Agustin Fuentes (2010) laments, anthropological subjects are more frequently covered by science journalists and academics from other fields.   However, we can follow the examples of Kate Clancy (2011), Krystal D’Acosta (2012) Sarah Hrdy (2000, 2009), and Barbara King (2004) in sharing biological anthropology with the public.

I hope that we can work towards making this an issue to discuss at upcoming meetings, and generate ideas that will lead to publication of such an article. I believe that if we all consider this issue and look at ways each and everyone one of us can advance these goals, then we can truly raise the profile of biological anthropology in the public lens and demonstrate how this subfield, as well as other subfields of anthropology, are relevant to everyone.

References

Clancy, K. 2011. Networking, Scholarship, and Service: The Place of Science Blogging in Academia. Retrieved January 16, 2012, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/context-and-variation/2011/12/14/science-blogging-in-academia/

D’Acosta, K. 2012. What are the Costs of Lending a Helping Hand? Retrieved January 16, 2012, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/2012/01/16/what-are-the-costs-of-lending-a-helping-hand/

Fuentes, AF. 2010. The New Biological Anthropology: Bringing Washburn’s New Physical Anthropology into 2010 and Beyond—The 2008 AAPA Luncheon Lecture. Yrbk Phys Anth 53:2-12.

Hrdy, SB. 2000. Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How they Shape the Human Species. New York: Ballantine Books.

Hrdy, SB. 2009. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge: Belknap Press.

King, BJ. 2004. The Dynamic Dance: Nonvocal Communication in African Great Apes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lende, D.  2011. Florida Governor: Anthropology Not Needed Here.  Retrieved December 13, 2011, http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology/2011/10/11/florida-governor-anthropology-not-needed-here/

Rutherford, JN. 2011. Science in Anthropology  at AAA: an “open” discussion? Retrieved December 13, 2011, http://aapabandit.blogspot.com/2011/11/science-in-anthropology-at-aaa-open.html

AAPA abstract: Cortisol and reproductive state in female black-handed spider monkeys

I have been in a state of dissertation hibernation, so I haven't posted much lately. But here is my abstract for my poster at AAPA, and I will also post my abstracts for the upcoming IPS meetings in August. I will also try to make an effort to update my blog more often, but that depends on how dissertation progress is going!

Rodrigues, MA, Kitchen, DM. 2012. Cortisol and reproductive state in female black-handed spider monkeys. Am J Phys Anth 147(S54):250-251.

 Fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (e.g., cortisol) are a valuable non-invasive source of information on individual levels of physiological stress. However, using them to evaluate stress levels among females can be problematic in species that do not show overt signs of reproductive condition because concentrations of reproductive hormones can affect cortisol concentrations. For example, high concentrations of estradiol during pregnancy may promote an increase in glucocorticoids and associated binding factors. Here, we examine the efficacy of using fecal glucocorticoid metabolites as an indicator of stress and whether estradiol is a potential confound of such measurements in both wild (El Zota, Costa Rica) and captive (Brookfield Zoo, Illinois) black-handed spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). First, fecal cortisol concentrations were measured from captive female spider monkeys before and after a veterinary exam. All females exhibited elevated cortisol concentrations after this stressful experience, though concentrations were highly variable among individuals in both conditions. Second, we examined the relationship between cortisol and estradiol concentrations in captive and wild females. In the captive samples all females were cycling and cortisol and estradiol levels were not related (N=22, r=0.177 two-tailed p=0.431). However, in the wild sample, which included nursing, cycling, and pregnant females, cortisol and estradiol were positively correlated (N=24, r=0.700, two-tailed p<0.001). Thus, we demonstrate the need to examine estradiol concentrations when measuring cortisol concentrations among females of unknown reproductive condition. We are currently examining how cortisol concentrations vary among female spider monkeys based on social and environmental factors as well as age, rank and reproductive state.

The best Darwin Day

I had what will probably be the BEST Darwin Day, ever, a few years ago. On Feb 12, 2009, I was grading a stack of article response papers and I came across one wonderful, thoughtful paper by a student. The article she chose to respond to (students read five articles in this section and wrote their paper on one of them) was John Rennie's 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. I knew that the title and tone of the article could be a bit off-putting, but as I explained to my students, I chose that article because I think it does a great job of dismantling the common misunderstandings about evolution.

The paper that so impressed me was written by a student who had been raised in an Evangelical Christian household, and had been taught to believe in creationism instead of evolution. However, in her paper, she explained that my class, and especially Rennie's article, had made her realize that what she had previously been taught about evolution was incorrect. At first she had been put off by the articles tone, but reading it had made her realize that what she had been taught most of her life was biased, and more importantly, based on misunderstandings.

That Darwin Day was so important to me, because through grading student papers, I learned that I REALLY WAS MAKING A DIFFERENCE! Through my class, a student had come to reconsider the teachings of her family and church on evolution, and realized that she wanted to learn about evolution and really try to understand it for herself. However, her paper also taught me a lesson. As she explained in her paper, some of the misunderstandings that are mocked as nonsense are anything but nonsense to some people. She used the example of Rennie's misconception #6 "If humans descended from monkeys, why are their still monkeys?" As she explained, it may seem like nonsense to someone else, but if you have been taught, your whole life, from trusted parents, teachers, and elders, that believing in evolution means believing that humans beings descended from monkeys, the living monkeys that we see in the zoo... It's not nonsense. Or rather, it's nonsense that others believe in, which makes your own subculture's perspective seem more rational.

I think the lesson that I learned from this student is that if we want students, and the general public, of all political views or religious faiths, to really understand evolution, we need to both respect and understand the strength of the cultural underpinnings underlying anti-evolution beliefs. Enculturation is powerful, and if when you are attacking a particular worldview, people are going to feel threatened. I think the key to broadening public understanding of evolution is by being less confrontational, more respectful, and by really trying to understand the the misunderstandings that prevent people from accepting it.

Live Feeds of Primates!

Here's a list of live feeds of primates at zoos, from San Diego to the UK! Thus far, I don't think anyone has a spider monkey cam :( If you discover any ape/monkey cams that I have missed, please let me know!

Callicam:
marmosets at the Wisconsin National Primate Center

Orang Cam:
orangutans at the Durrell Wildlife Trust in the UK

Orang Cam:
orangutans at the National Zoo in DC

Ape Cam:
orangutans and siamangs at the San Diego Zoo

Monkey Cam:
Japanese macaques at the Blank Park Zoo in Iowa

GLT Cam:
Golden Lion Tamarins at the National Zoo in DC

And if you are looking for video clips, I highly recommend that you check out ARKive or National Geographic's monkey videos and ape videos!

Pandas are much harder to study than monkeys

"Anybody who has experienced our work knows it is not that glamorous. It is sometimes boring and lonely," Panda researcher Yang Yi

The LA Times has an interesting article on censusing pandas, and what struck me is that while the challenges and frustrations of panda research are similar to my own, the rewards are much fewer and far between.

Yi's statement would apply to most fieldwork. It definitely applied to some parts of mine. However, the work of censusing and studying pandas makes my research look easy, and far more rewarding. When censusing unhabituated animals, you have to look for traces, such as feces, prints, scratches, or nests, depending on the type of animal you are studying. For example, if you are censusing great apes, you look for nests. If you are censusing panda droppings, you look for panda feces. And while fecals are rewarding as both data points and assurances that the pandas are still there, they are not as rewarding as seeing the animal itself. And pandas sightings are rare. I've heard that dedicated panda biologists consider it a highlight to see one in the wild just a few times in their career. Dai Bo, a wildlife biologist quoted in the LA Times articles, has worked in the mountainous Sichuan province for 20 years without seeing a single panda.

This really reminds me how lucky I am to study animals that I could regularly observe, and increases my respect and appreciation for everyone who studies animals who are far more cryptic. I have learned from past field experiences that while I can put up with much of the loneliness, tedium, and frustrations of fieldwork, I need to regularly see the animals I am studying to stay motivated. And while I love the forest, and am fascinated by the research questions I am exploring, for me, the main reward is the joy of getting to know individual personalities, watching infants and juveniles grow, and peering into the daily lives and dramas of the animals I study. While I definitely have stretches in which I can't find the monkeys, or am constantly losing the monkeys as I get stuck in the swamp, I have the lucky moments in which I get to watch and enjoy the monkeys. And every once in a while, I get the opportunity to see other, more elusive animals, such as tayra, sloth, tamandua, jaguarundi, agouti, and tapir.

There are many times that I've wished I had chosen to study terrestrial, easy-to-see primates, such as baboons or macaques. But thinking about the panda census makes me realize how lucky I am to see my spider monkeys as often as I did.

However, for those of us sitting at our computers, it's much easier to see pandas, because the San Diego Zoo, the National Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta all have panda cams. Thus far, I have yet to find a spider monkey cam!

Field Notes on Science and Nature

I absolutely loved most of this book, and wish I had read it before doing my dissertation fieldwork. I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone going off to do fieldwork in the near or distant future, because it makes you think a lot about how you want to organize your data collection, as well as methods for identifying individuals, recording anecdotal information, and preparing for analysis and writing. Besides that, it also shows excerpts from the various researchers own field notes. My favorite chapter was “The Pleasure of Observing” by George Schaller, but I highly recommend at least skimming through all the chapters to see if there’s helpful or relevant information to you. The book contains chapters written by different field researchers in a variety of fields, from entomology to paleontology to biosocial anthropology, and covers a variety of different types of field recording systems… from the old-fashioned 19th century naturalists field journals to the standardized Grinnell system to utilizing sketching in field notes. While many of the authors feel strongly that there is something essential to having an old-fashioned, paper-and-pencil field notebook and lament replacing them with computers and hand-held recording devices, one author, Piotr Nasrecki, has a chapter entitled “Note-taking for Pencilophobes,” describes his experience developing an online database manager to create an entirely digital version of a field notebook.

Reading this has made me reflect a lot on how I record data, and what I do, (and don’t do) with my field notebooks. Back when I was in Cameroon, I kept a field journal that was similar to what I imagined old-fashioned naturalists’ field notebooks were like—a mix of journaling, recording field stories and experiences, and sketching butterflies that I’ve seen. But our data was recorded on separate checksheets, so this field journal was completely separate from data collection. In doing my masters research, I recorded data in checksheets in rite-in-rain notebooks, and then recopied them into another notebook, and then entered them into Excel spreadsheets. Notes and anecdotes were either noted in the notes section of my focal spreadsheets, or written in a Word field I kept for anecdotes and more detailed notes and descriptions. I kept the field notebooks in plastic baggies so that I could refer to them in the future, but that’s meant that they just sat festering in a moldy state in Ziplocs for quite a long time--if you do this, make sure you put some silica in with your notebooks, or they will get DISGUSTING!

For my dissertation data collection, I’ve been given conflicting advice. One of the reviewers of my NSF DDIG proposal seemed shocked that I would collect data in field notebooks (he/she said it was because paper can be eaten by termites, but I suspect he/she just thought it was a completely outdated practice), and advocated using a hand-held digital recorder. However, I think that in a rainforest environment, using technology in the field increases the risks of losing data—there’s always a risk of electronics malfunctioning in the humid environment, and if you drop it in a stream or swamp, there goes expensive equipment AND your data. But since I have dropped my field notebooks in swamps on multiple occasions, I know that you can just wipe the mud off the pages and still be able to see your data and notes. My advisor also did not like the idea of collecting data in field notebooks, and instead though that I should print out checksheets on rite-in-the-rain paper. However, this would require periodically printing in the field, which I didn’t know if it would be a possibility (the field station does now have both electricity and a printer, but the printer was not there at the beginning of my fieldwork, and until we were hooked up to the electrical grid about 10-11 months into my fieldwork, we only had generator power for a few hours in the evening). So instead I decided to stick with checksheets in my field notebook. Initially during my masters research I would spend a lot of time meticulously organizing neat checksheets in my notebooks, this was replaced by a messier, less time consuming version of the checksheet system that worked for me. I continued to stick with this method during my dissertation, because I already had my own system and shorthand down. Recordings for fecal collections also went down into my field notebook, and if there was something of interest I’d usually jot down very quick, abbreviated notes, and then expand on that in the evening when I was entering data.

During my dissertation research I also skipped the step of copying into a separate notebook, and instead went straight into entering data into my excel files. While I like having a separate written record, it’s very time-consuming, and I preferred being able to enter my data more quickly and I would back up my records on an external hard drive. Entering in data the evening it was collected gave me a chance to check over data, and expand on any observations that were only briefly noted in my notebooks. Notes on individual identification and any expanded notes or anecdotes went into word documents.

I also am very diligent about keeping my computer and hard drive safe from the humidity. While I do know of one person’s computer that molded to death at the field station, I suspect it was because she was not taking good care of it. To protect computers and other electronics from constant humidity, you need to run them regularly—the heat generated helps keep them dry. Since I used my computer nearly every evening, it was always in regular use. When not in use, its best to store them in some sort of dry box or bag. There are dry boxes/closets at the field station, but the heat from the lamps obviously only works when there was electricity. Instead, for both my masters and dissertation fieldwork, I kept a large plastic storage container with silica as my drybox, and it seems to have worked out quite well. The silica was wrapped in old socks, which are porous enough to allow the silica to absorb moisture while preventing silica beads from getting in everything.

Interspecific Affiliation

Raymond has recently posted on interspecific grooming, and I have so much to say about this topic that I have to write about it as well—however, I look at interspecific grooming as part of the range of interspecific interactions that can occur. We’re usually not surprised when individuals of different species have agonistic interactions. However, sometimes we are surprised when affiliative interactions occur. This really shouldn’t surprise us—after all, many of us participate in interspecific interactions everyday (I probably spend more time interacting with my cats and dog right now than I spend with other humans).

Aside from my daily interactions with my best feline and canine friends (as well as observing their interactions—one of our cats does groom the dog as well), I’ve seen various types of interspecific interaction, both in captivity and in the wild.

At the Omaha Zoo, I watched a juvenile spider monkey both groom and harass the tapir with which she shared her exhibit. She groomed him, jumped on him, and eventually, in an attempt to get a reaction, reached back and grabbed his nether regions. The tapir ignored her previous actions, but did raise his head and look at her in response to that transgression. When she got a reaction, the spider monkey made a gleeful play face, and I suspect that this may have been a regular occurrence (unfortunately, I was only visiting for one day, but I would have loved to observe there more often to see if that was a regular occurrence).

At Brookfield Zoo, the spider monkeys share their exhibit with capuchins, an anteater, and a tapir. However, they seemed to largely ignore the anteater and the tapir, and would routinely harass the capuchins or redirect aggression toward them.

At Cayo Santiago, the island was teeming with both rhesus monkeys and iguanas. Most of the time, the two species ignored each other, but occasionally interactions occurred. Though they were rare, it indicated that the rhesus monkeys did see the iguanas as social actors. When the iguanas were very active during their mating season, male macaques would sometimes get irritated and chase them away. Once, I sat down on a log, and inadvertently scared an iguana hidden below it. Startled, he immediately ran out, and darted straight into my focal animal. The poor monkey was startled as well, and he indignantly threatened the iguana. However, the funniest macaque-iguana interaction is when a female macaque went up to an iguana and started grooming it. I think a friend of mine may have actually caught that interaction on tape—I would love to see it again.

During my masters research at El Zota in Costa Rica, I observed quite a bit of capuchin-spider monkey interaction. One of my focal animals, Tristan, spent a whopping 78% of his play time with capuchins! Furthermore, my male juveniles received agonism only from capuchins. In Tristan’s case, it may have been because Tristan would indiscriminately approach capuchins of all ages, and adult males capuchins responded agonistically to his solicitations. Another individual, Freddie, was far more afraid of capuchins, and was chased out of a Ficus tree several times by capuchins. I also observed one of my female focal subjects, Iris, attempting to groom a male howler—however, he seemed rather surprised by her attempts, and moved over to rest a meter away from her.

During my dissertation, I observed a few more interspecific interactions. During my pilot project during the summer of 2008, we observed an adult male howler playing with a juvenile male spider monkey, as well as an adult female spider playing with an adult female howler. During the main portion of my dissertation fieldwork, adult female focal Agata fought with, and then was chased by an adult male male. Subadult female Anne groomed an adult male howler for less than a minute before he retreated. Another time, Anne solicited play from an adult female—they played for less than a minute. Juvenile male Judah played with an adult male howler for quite some time—I unfortunately was not able to note the duration of their play encounter, because I was doing focals on Judah’s mother, Jlo, at the time. I also observed adult female Strawberry chased an adult female howler—I wrote in my notes that it was a “slow chase.”

I have also heard reports that someone observed spider monkey-capuchin grooming interactions--I'm very envious, because in all the time I've spent with those spiders, I have not seen it! I've heard there is photographic evidence, but I have yet to see the picture. This summer, an instructor with a primate class also observed a subadult male capuchin mounting a subadult male spider--and got a picture of it (I did see that photo!).

Why do these interspecific interactions occur? Most agonistic encounters can usually be understood in the context of feeding competition. However, interspecific affiliation, particularly grooming and play, are a bit more difficult to understand. I think it indicates that many primate species recognize other primate species, as well as other animals, as social actors. Play among different primate species is more commonly observed, and may just be a consequence of playful juveniles looking to play with whoever will play with them, regardless of species. This might be especially valuable for juvenile spider monkeys—small subgroups can limit their opportunities to play with conspecifics, and adults may be busy feeding, resting, or grooming with other adults. However, play among adults of different species, and interspecific grooming, is another issue. Why would adults invest time in affiliating with another species, when they could be investing in relationships with conspecifics? In species that form interspecific associations, it makes sense to invest in relationships with the other species. For other species, its less clear.

How can we study this phenomenon? Unfortunately, because such interactions tend to be infrequent, we usually just collect anecdotes as we collect data for another project. However, perhaps collaborative effort on examining collections of observations might yield some interesting insights. Also, there are a number of zoos that house multiple species together, and these exhibits probably are the best place to specifically exam these questions. However, just because animals are housed together does not mean that they will affiliate together—the spiders and capuchins at Brookfield Zoo are a good example of that. It may also be valuable to study interspecific affliliation among species that frequently form interspecific associations, as the frequency of interactions would likely be more common.

Have you observed any interesting interspecific interactions, or have any ideas or insights into why it occurs? Please share! And I you have observed interspecific grooming, please let Raymond know as well!