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## Video 1: An interesting field

Summary:

As you watch the video, think about:

- the interdisciplinary nature of marine science
- complex interrelationships within ecosystems
- how opportunities can impact on your career path.

Captions:

Simon: So Melanie. You're a benthic marine ecologist. What does that mean?

Dr Melanie Bishop: Well benthic basically just means things that are on the bottom. So that's discriminating,

between, I guess, the animals that are found animals and plants on the sea floor versus those that are in the water column that are moving around.

So basically what I'm interested in is those plants and animals found on the bottom

and I guess, why they're found where they're found and the importance of them being found where they're found. So what they do.

Simon: And how did you get into such an interesting field?

Dr Melanie Bishop: Well somewhat of an accident actually. So I guess high school I ended up doing a lot of science and maths and I didn't really know what to do at the end of high school

so I thought well a nice broad option might be to do a science degree at university.

So I got started on that and narrowed it down to chemistry and biology being my main interests

and I guess you know each year I picked my subjects based on where my passions lay

and I guess most of my way through university I actually thought I was going to work on plants

and I guess how chemicals and hormones in plants you know allow the cells within plants to communicate with each other.

Anyway, it got to third year of university and I was picking my subjects and two of my subjects I wanted to do clashed every lecture.

So I'm not going to pay all this money to have subjects that clash and then not get value for money.

So I looked at the timetable and marine ecology ended up fitting in really nicely. So I got to start uni at ten every day which is always a bonus.

But at the time thought it sounded really boring. Anyway the first bit of that course was to go away on a field trip

to Pearl Beach on the central coast where we did a week of intensive field work

and I just really got into that and really enjoyed it and so I guess went from there.

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## Video 2: A typical day

Summary:

Listen to Melanie speaking about her work and think about:

· the importance of first-hand investigations in biology

· how ecological investigations are planned and conducted

· research papers contribute to the body of our scientific knowledge.

Captions:

Joseph: So, Melanie what's a typical day at work for you? How do you relax after a hard day?

Dr Melanie Bishop: I wouldn't say there was a typical day. Things seem to happen in blocks in my life. So I guess most of the work I do is in the intertidal area.

So that's the area exposed when the tide goes out. So most of the experiments I try and do are in the field because I guess they best represent what's going on naturally

if you do things in the lab suddenly you've got all these issues you know is that really representative of the real world.

So basically we're constrained by the times that we can do work in the field work,

so the tides might be good for a particular week so we'll go in the field every day and it'll be a lot of long days out in the mud.

But then the next week the tides aren't so good so I'll be in the lab every day sieving mud to look at the worms that are in the mud.

The next week I might be writing papers up on the results that I've got or I might be applying for grants to get money to do more research.

So I don't think there is a typical day really.

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## Video 3: Current research

Summary:

Watch the video and consider these questions:

- What is an example of current research being undertaken in Australia?
- How is the benthic marine environment unique?
- What are the pathways of energy and materials in a marine environment?

Captions:

Simon: And, what research are you working on at the moment?

Dr Melanie Bishop: Well I guess one of our major research areas is detritus-based food webs. You've probably heard about green food webs which are based on the primary producers

the plants and the herbivores that eat the primary producers and then the primary consumers that eat the herbivores and so on up the food web.

But there's also brown food webs too that are based on the decaying organic material and these seem to have been overlooked in the marine environment.

And I guess a number of changes have been going on in the marine environment might have big consequences for these food webs.

So one of the things that's happening is that as put nutrients into our waterways we're getting this shift from seagrasses as the primary source of plant material to macroalgae

which is able to take up the nutrients much more rapidly like your seaweeds and stuff like that.

Anyway this material when it dies ultimately ends up in the sediment and fuels the critters living in the sediment that in turn feed the fish.

I guess a lot of our research is directed at the potential consequences of these changes and what that means for the flow of energy up the food web to fish.

And, whether we might be able to adopt strategies of management at this point in time that might prevent some of the deleterious effects of the changes occurring.

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## Video 4: Contribution to science

Summary:

As you watch the video, think about:

- the relevance and usefulness of studies in marine science
- the interrelationships of people and their environment.

Captions:

Joseph: So how do you feel that you have contributed to the field of work that you're working in?

Dr Melanie Bishop: Well I guess in terms of managing the environment, ecologists have traditionally had a bit of a role as ambulance chasers.

So it's only once there's been an activity that's had a negative effect on the environment

and the ecologists have gone out there and they have said 'oh, my gosh, you know this system is really disturbed there are huge problems we will have to remediate now and reverse the change'.

But by about that stage it's a bit late. So, I guess the research I'm trying to do now is improve the predictive capacity of ecology.

So doing experiments where making some guesses about how conditions might be like in the future and what the implication of those conditions might be for the functioning of the plants and animals that live in the marine environment.

And where the outcomes of the changes might be negative there might be strategies of management that we might be able to implement that might be able to minimise the negative effects.

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