Review: Hochberg EJ, Apprill AM, Atkinson MJ, Bidigare RR (2006) Bio-optical modeling of photosynthetic pigments in corals. Coral Reefs, 25:99-109.

Feature Paper: Hochberg EJ, Apprill AM, Atkinson MJ, Bidigare RR (2006) Bio-optical modeling of photosynthetic pigments in corals. Coral Reefs, 25:99-109.

Author Abstract: The spectral reflectance of coral is inherently related to the amounts of photosynthetic pigments present in the zooxanthellae. There are no studies, however, showing that the suite of major photosynthetic pigments can be predicted from optical reflectance spectra. In this study, we measured cm-scale in vivo and in situ spectral reflectance for several colonies of the massive corals Porites lobata and Porites lutea, two colonies of the branching coral Porites compressa, and one colony of the encrusting coral Montipora flabellata in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaii. For each reflectance spectrum, we collected a tissue sample and utilized high-performance liquid chromatography to quantify six major photosynthetic pigments, located in the zooxanthellae. We used multivariate multiple regression analysis with cross-validation to build and test an empirical linear model for predicting pigment concentrations from optical reflectance spectra. The model accurately predicted concentrations of chlorophyll a, chlorophyll c2, peridinin, diadinoxanthin, diatoxanthin and beta-carotene, with correlation coefficients of 0.997, 0.941, 0.995, 0.996, 0.980 and 0.984, respectively. The relationship between predicted and actual concentrations was 1:1 for each pigment, except chlorophyll c2. This simple empirical model demonstrates the potential for routine, rapid, non-invasive monitoring of coral-zooxanthellae status, and ultimately for remote sensing of reef biogeochemical processes.

Note to Readers: Follow links above for author email, full article text, or the publishing scientific journal. Author notes in my review are in quotes.

Review: This paper is important because as reefs are more threatened every year through direct human impacts (e.g., dynamite fishing, dredging of coral for building materials and lime, overfishing, etc.) and global climate change (e.g., increased El Niño Southern Oscillation events that contribute heavily to bleaching of coral reefs), scientists struggle to map coral reefs now. Eric Hochberg, Marlin Atkinson, Serge Andréfouët, and a handful of other coral reef scientists are using satellite imagery of the oceans to map coral reef communities. This greatly speeds up the process of mapping in situ (on location) but isn't nearly as accurate. Therefore, "ground truthing" is always required but remote sensing scientists hope that in the future, once all the obstacles are overcome, that all coral reef communities can be mapped accurately. This would allow frequent monitoring of all reefs around the world (theoretically though cloud cover would be an issue), almost in real time, which would be a critical tool to coral reef managers.

So, before I get into the review of this week's paper I'll give a very brief overview of remote sensing (mapping from remote locations, as opposed to mapping while observing an ecosystem directly).

How is it possible for a satellite to see a coral reef? Just check out Google Earth and use the satellite function, such as this image of the upper Caribbean. Coral reefs are high-contrast light blue (because many reefs are shallow and often because of sand within the reef environment) and easy to see below.

The challenge is not seeing where shallow-water tropical potential reef boundaries are. The challenge is being able to accurately map coral reef communities. To do this you have to first obtain cloud-free and calm seas pictures of the area you want to survey (because without radio waves, you can't map corals through clouds). NASA has been building a "coral library" for some time to build the best pictures of reefs around the world, which they've mapped (in red below).

Once you have the kind of images you'd like, there are still A LOT of problems. Eric Hochberg has done a lot of work in correcting for distortions in wavelength due to seawater, but the short story is that it is quite difficult to map coral reefs. However, once the obstacles are overcome, you get an image like that below (from Eric Hochberg's research website).

I've left Eric's explanatory figure notes above, but because of his image resolution, it may be difficult to read for some. The main point is to look at the left image (satellite) of a coral reef in an area of Hawaii and see that through his computer processing of the image using various algorithms to correct for water column effects, he generates a false-color map (right) with different reef communities discriminated (corals are in red).

In Eric's image, corals are able to be distinguished from algae, bare rock, and sand because living corals reflect light differently than those other categories. This is because corals have color, which is a reflection of pigments inside their tissue. Some pigments are sunscreens that shallow-water corals develop to protect them from harmful UV radiation (just like humans can tan) and other pigments come from symbiotic algae that live in their tissues (called zooxanthellae), which are responsible for photosynthesis inside corals (after all, corals are animals and only plants can photosynthesize, so it is a parnership or symbiosis between some corals and algae). Pigments within corals are there to absorb certain wavelengths of light (some that are harmful, thereby protecting coral tissues, and some that are needed in the photosynthetic process). Because corals have a unique combination of pigments compared to algae and other substrates, they can be discriminated once pigment peaks are determined.

With that background in mind, we'll get on to the review of this week's paper, which deals with attempting to discriminate photosynthetic pigments within living corals in the field (i.e., underwater) instead of having to collect coral samples, kill them, and process them in a laboratory for pigment analysis.

The authors point out a lot of the above in their paper's introduction, but when dealing with coral pigments, the important point to keep in mind is that there are three sources of pigments for corals: 1) pigments produced by corals; 2) pigments produced by zooxanthellae living inside coral tissues; 3) pigments by invasive organisms (some algae and sponges bore into living coral skeletons) and diseases. The authors concentrate on zooxanthellar pigments and state that the "major photosynthetic pigments" for this group are "chlorophyll a, chlorophyll c2, peridinin, diadinoxanthin, diatoxanthin, and beta-carotene." From past work in the pigment community, peridinin was shown to be unique to dinoflagelates (the group of algae that include zooxanthellae). For a more technical review of the photo system responsible for photosynthesis in zooxanthellae, look to the full paper.

This paper is unique in that the authors look to the complete suite of coral pigments, which has promise for determining how ratios vary according to environmental conditions (thus potentially helping determine coral reef health, turbidity, or nutrient stress through pigment ratios) or how ratios of pigments vary according to coral species (though no one has yet been able to, or may be able to, determine different species of corals through remote sensing technology). Pigment concentrations are also critical for determining bleaching status of corals and may allow researchers fearing a bleaching event (through tracking satellite images of elevated sea surface temperatures) to track the response of corals in situ to temperature stressors. Not only is this of practical management value, but this would also allow tracking of variable coral species response to heat stress in the field or laboratory.

The researchers studied corals in Hawaii that belonged to 3 growth morphologies: massive, branching, and encrusting. The researchers measured coral reflectance (in the visible wavelengths of 400-700nm) in the field using a spectrometer. They then took micro-samples of coral tissue (6mm diameter using a cork borer) from the area of spectral measurement and processed the samples in the laboratory through techniques shown to release more pigments over time from sample tissues (freezing within 3 hours of sampling at -50ºC for 2 weeks, followed by liquid nitrogen immersion for 2 months). Samples were then prepared for high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis of pigment concentrations. Again, for full methods, see the paper.

The authors then used multivariate multiple regression analyses "to determine the ability of spectral data to predict pigment concentration." Basically, the authors were taking their observed measurements of various pigment concentrations and trying to predict coral reflectance at different wavelengths. This means that given a certain combination of pigments (therefore, a pigment-concentration matrix), what will the color reflectance be? If corals have a distinct ratio between their pigments it will be possible (if the above analyses proved significant) to determine that a given sample does or does not come from coral. This is necessary to make the maps shown earlier where corals are shown as distinct from other benthic categories.

In short, the authors demonstrated that all corals (tested) showed 3 statistically-significant pigment reflectance peaks at 575, 605, and 650nm, though strength of peaks varied with coral species, form, and whether bleaching or normal. In other words, corals can be predicted by their pigment ratios (which affect reflectance peaks). The authors also showed that an entire system could be built for pigment analyses of corals for less than US$5,000 total, thereby opening the door for "simple and low-cost spectral measurements to provide for routine in situ monitoring of coral-zooxanthellae status, and eventually for remote sensing of coral reef color." This is great news for beginning researchers and small university laboratories or private field stations looking to contribute to ground-breaking science without breaking the bank.

I hope everyone enjoyed this review and that it provides a motivation to learn more about coral pigments, coral reflectance, and remote sensing of coral reefs. Stay tuned for next week when I'll look at a good paper showing that sometimes a healthy reef has a healthy, diverse, and dominant algal community. This is important because many coral reef managers equate algae with bad nutrient stress, which isn't always the case.

Review: Locker SD, Armstrong RA, Battista TA, Rooney JJ, Sherman C, Zawada DG (2010). Geomorphology of mesophotic coral ecosystems: current perspectives on morphology, distribution, and mapping strategies. Coral Reefs, 29:329-345.

Feature Paper: Locker SD, Armstrong RA, Battista TA, Rooney JJ, Sherman C, Zawada DG (2010). Geomorphology of mesophotic coral ecosystems: current perspectives on morphology, distribution, and mapping strategies. Coral Reefs, 29:329-345.

Author Abstract: This paper presents a general review of the distribution of mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) in relationship to geomorphology in US waters. It was specifically concerned with the depth range of 30–100 m, where more than 186,000 km2 of potential seafloor area was identified within the US Gulf of Mexico/Florida, Caribbean, and main Hawaiian Islands. The geomorphology of MCEs was largely inherited from a variety of pre-existing structures of highly diverse origins, which, in combination with environmental stress and physical controls, restrict the distribution of MCEs. Sea-level history, along with depositional and erosional processes, played an integral role in formation of MCE settings. However, mapping the distribution of both potential MCE topography/substrate and existing MCE habitat is only beginning. Mapping techniques pertinent to understanding morphology and MCE distributions are discussed throughout this paper. Future investigations need to consider more cost-effective and remote methods (such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and acoustics) in order to assess the distribution and extent of MCE habitat. Some understanding of the history of known MCEs through coring studies would help understand their initiation and response to environmental change over time, essential for assessing how they may be impacted by future environmental change.

Note to Readers: Follow links above for author email, full article text, or the publishing scientific journal. Author notes in my review are in quotes.

Review: This is a review paper, meaning that it collates current knowledge about a certain topic. These kinds of papers are very useful to scientists and students wishing to know a base of information on a given topic that they are unfamiliar with, as well as providing a good article on a discipline of interest that can be "bookmarked" for following up on specific theories posed.

This paper is important because it deals with a kind of coral reef environment that has generally gone unexplored: the mesophotic coral reef. Colloquially this region is known as the "twilight zone" (a term coined by Dr. Richard Pyle, one of a small group of regular explorers of this zone) because it lies below the normal photic zone (region of highest photosynthetic activity, generally between 0 - 30 meters depth) of reefs, but still has enough light (generally defined as at least 1% of equivalent solar radiation at the surface) to allow some photosynthesis. But because the amount of light is so small, there are only a few zooxanthellate corals (those containing symbiotic photosynthetic algae within their tissues) and algae that can survive. Most of the reef looks quite different, dominated by whip corals and sponges. Fish life, however, is abundant.

As a side note, there are other deep reef communities that survive in cold waters absent from light (generally below 300 meters depth) but we won't be reviewing those communities this week. However, it should be noted that deep water coral communities likely have as much diversity as shallow water coral reefs (with over 2000 species of "hard" corals, only about 850 species are known from tropical coral reefs) and are extremely important for fish communities (and subsequently suffer damage from trawling by deepwater fishermen). For scientists working in the mesophotic deep reef realm, there is now a Mesophotic Research Organization that collects and posts information about that research community.

Okay, so now that the background is out of the way, on to the key points of the paper:

1. Mesophotic reefs are poorly studied. This is because they are too deep for conventional scuba diving (the main research tool of coral reef scientists) but too shallow to be cost-effective for research submersibles. A good overview of this point was made by Dr. Richard Pyle at the TED 2004 conference:

2. The paper gives an overview of the current geographical distribution of known mesophotic reefs, concentrating heavily on the United States (northern Gulf of Mexico, Florida, US Caribbean, the main Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, and the Mariana Islands). It is clear from the paper that the potential habitat for mesophotic reefs is large, but known mesophotic reefs are few and far between (because of point #1 above).

3. The paper discusses the various habitats where mesophotic reefs can be found, including: continental shelves, isolated banks, terraces along sloping drop offs, deep buttresses and continental shelf-edge spurs and grooves, and relic reefs (often from old sea stands during glaciation periods).

4. "Until recently, little effort has been made to systematically identify, map, and study scleractinian [reef-building] coral reefs found at depths below ~ 30 m."

5. The paper overviews various methodologies used for sampling and mapping mesophotic reefs, noting that they are below the limit of conventional scuba diving and "beyond the scope of airborne and satellite remote-sensing instrumentation." Successful research methods used are acoustic technologies (to map reefs based on distance traveled from surface ship based sounds, such as with swath-mapping systems, multibeam and side-scan sonar, and electromechanical "boomers" such as seismic-reflection profiles), underwater still and video cameras (either with technical scuba divers or remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs), pulsed-laser line imaging to construct a "3D digital representation of the seafloor," other submerged vehicles (ROVs as noted as well as autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, and towed vehicles or sleds with attached instrumentation), and technical scuba diving techniques (discussed by Dr. Richard Pyle in the video above).

6. Geomorphology can limit the "occurrence and distribution of [mesophotic reefs] by providing favorable hard substrates for colonization and by directing the down-slope transport of sediment" that would smother reef corals. Corals and many benthic organisms need hard substrates to survive and grow.

7. And in a sobering note, the authors state that "the single most important issue from a mapping perspective is the lack of knowledge on the potential extent" of mesophotic reefs. Dr. Pyle has also noted that more is known about the surface of the moon than mesophotic reefs and more scientists have surveyed the abyssal deep ocean bottom than "deep reefs."

8. Continuing with mapping and surveying mesophotic reefs will require the use of emerging technologies. Mesophotic reef scientists who use scuba-based technologies either require multiple staged bottles with different gas mixtures (to lessen the effects of nitrogen narcosis or "getting the bends") and technical diving skills or they have switched over to closed-circuit rebreather technology adapted for deep diving.

9. The thickness of mesophotic reef benthic communities is unknown, meaning that the rate of calcification and accretion of corals and other calcifying organisms is also unknown at depths below 30m. This is important because as ocean acidification due to increasing carbon dioxide concentration continues, the effect on mesophotic reefs may be more acute than on shallow-water reefs since calcification is often tied (in corals) to photosynthesis and metabolic rates. In layman terms, too much carbon dioxide will dissolve coral skeletons faster than they can be laid down, destroying reefs even without conventional pollutants like increased nitrogen or phosphorous.

And on that note, next week we'll look at labratory experiments meant to determine the harm that decalcification of living coral skeletons has on coral organisms.

Review: Vroom PS, Page KN, Kenyon JC, Brainard RE (2006). Algae-dominated reefs. American Scientist, 94:430-437.

Feature Paper:  Vroom PS, Page KN, Kenyon JC, Brainard RE (2006). Algae-dominated reefs. American Scientist, 94:430-437.

Author Abstract: Numerous reports suggest that reefs must be dominated by coral to be healthy, but many thriving reefs depend more on algae. Most people now recognize that coral reefs worldwide are in decline, and fingers are commonly pointed at algae as the culprit. The authors have had the good fortune to study pristine reefs at more than 50 uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean. Although unaffected by human activity, these reefs show considerable variety in their percentage of coral versus algal cover, with some being dominated by various species of algae. It has thus become clear that, although algae may pose a problem in some situations, these plants are an essential part of nearly every healthy reef system.

Note to Readers: Follow links above for author email, full article text, or the publishing scientific journal. Author notes in my review are in quotes.

Review: This paper is important because many scientists mistakenly believe that any conspicuous presence of algae on a reef means that nutrients are overloaded and that corals are suffering. What is more important to look at when determining the health of a reef is not the percent cover of living coral, algae, or other organisms, but rather to understand what the "baseline" is for the reef in question. As this article points out, some healthy and unfished reefs surrounding uninhabited islands can have luxurious algal (or seaweed) communities.

As the authors point out "over the past few years seemingly every publication -- from newsstand magazines and newspapers to peer-reviewed journals and textbooks -- has reported on the degradation of 'coral' reefs." This is a good time to point out that a reef is merely a rocky structure and that it does not have to have (and more often does not have) corals attached to its substrate. However, many scientists use the term "coral reef" to specifically note reefs in tropical waters with coral growth without realizing that there are many situations when corals for communities but are not dominant as reef structures. Most of the history of corals showed them as coral communities, with the large coral reef structures (e.g., the Great Barrier Reef) only developing geologically recently.

Nevertheless, it is true that in a healthy coral reef environment dominated by hard coral cover (the "typical" reef in many scientists and the public's minds), when under stress (e.g., from overfishing of herbivorous fishes to bleaching and death of the coral communities) can have algae (which grow quicker than corals) overgrow and smother living or recently dead corals. This phenomenon is called a "phase shift" (defined by TM Work and colleagues as when "coral reefs undergo relatively rapid changes in the dominant biota, a phenomenon referred to as phase shift") and can hamper the recovery of the reef in question to its former state.

The authors do not dispute that such phase shifts occur and that algae are often a culprit. Rather, the authors try to detail their work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on more than 50 uninhabited US-territorial islands (and associated reefs) in the Pacific Ocean, where they discovered reefs with no signs of human impact that nevertheless had healthy, thriving, and visibly conspicuous algal communities.

A special note that I should make is that the authors are mainly discussing macroalgae (the fleshy seaweeds that include kelps as their largest forms) rather than crustose coralline algae (CCA), which cement many reefs together. CCA contribute as much to the fixing of atmospheric carbon dioxide as do living hermatypic (reef-building) corals (which do so through symbiotic single-celled algae called zooxanthellae and photosynthesis). The authors do note that CCA and other algae have been shown "decades ago that a reef can depend more on algae than coral."

The authors note that to distinguish disturbed reefs from healthy reefs (and thus determine whether the community composition is representative of a healthy community or one of a phase shift), scientists "must create a set of diagnostic indicators." As the authors further state, "researchers are beginning to understand that reefs from different latitudes and in different successional stages differ dramatically from one another [and] consequently, indices appropriate for measuring reef health at one island might not be appropriate for another." For the more than 50 reefs the authors surveyed (in the NW Hawaiian Islands, main Hawaiian Islands, Mariana Islands, Wake Island, Howland & Baker Islands, American Samoa, and the US-territorial Line Islands), the majority of surveyed reefs "contained only 7.1 to 32.7 percent live-coral cover" and often surrounding uninhabited islands. Algae, for the most part, occupied the remaining space. Sometimes those algae were "turf algae" that were kept cropped low by healthy herbivorous fish communities (e.g., surgeonfishes and parrotfishes) and the authors rightfully state that "turf algae are some of the most overlooked macroscopic organisms on tropical reefs" and that "casual divers swimming over boulder fields or hard pavements often don't realize that the fuzzy layer covering every inch of space between corals or other sessile organisms consists of hundreds of species of little plants that help form the base of the food chain."

The main "take-home message" of this paper is that when a coral reef biologist (whether a graduate student, participant in a Reef Check program, or an established field scientist) surveys a given reef, they should understand the geographical context of the reef community in question and not jump to conclusions of stress should algae be found to be a significant makeup of the community structure. This makes the seemingly simple question from managers of whether their reefs are healthy one that can only be answered when their reefs are placed in the context of "globally accepted indices that define a healthy reef." Until those are developed, such questions are, in the author's words, often "lacking definitive answers."

The work of NOAA, AIMS, GCRA, Reef Base, and others helps to create such standardized indices and surveying techniques and every four years at the International Coral Reef Symposium, top scientists and managers around the world inch closer to a globally accepted standard. In the meantime, while some coral reefs certainly hold true to the romantic images of the general public, perhaps it is time to revise our collective imagery of reefs as coral-dominated communities that are healthiest when they are sterilized from the presence of algae.

In carrying through with the theme of "non-traditional" reef communities, next we'll review mesophotic deep reefs (not coldwater coral communities below 300m, but rather, deeper reef communities that still have impact from the sun but with significantly reduced photosynthesis, often between 30 - 200m depth).

Review: Raymundo LJ, Halford AR, Maypa AP, Kerr AM (2009) Functionally diverse reef-fish communities ameliorate coral disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 106(40):17067-17070.

Feature Paper: Raymundo LJ, Halford AR, Maypa AP, Kerr AM (2009) Functionally diverse reef-fish communities ameliorate coral disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 106(40):17067-17070.

Author Abstract: Coral reefs, the most diverse of marine ecosystems, currently experience unprecedented levels of degradation. Diseases are now recognized as a major cause of mortality in reef-forming corals and are complicit in phase shifts of reef ecosystems to algal-dominated states worldwide. Even so, factors contributing to disease occurrence, spread, and impact remain poorly understood. Ecosystem resilience has been linked to the conservation of functional diversity, whereas overfishing reduces functional diversity through cascading, top-down effects. Hence, we tested the hypothesis that reefs with trophically diverse reef fish communities have less coral disease than overfished reefs. We surveyed reefs across the central Philippines, including well-managed marine protected areas (MPAs), and found that disease prevalence was significantly negatively correlated with fish taxonomic diversity. Further, MPAs had significantly higher fish diversity and less disease than unprotected areas. We subsequently investigated potential links between coral disease and the trophic components of fish diversity, finding that only the density of coral-feeding chaetodontid butterflyfishes, seldom targeted by fishers, was positively associated with disease prevalence. These previously uncharacterized results are supported by a second large-scale dataset from the Great Barrier Reef. We hypothesize that members of the charismatic reef-fish family Chaetodontidae are major vectors of coral disease by virtue of their trophic specialization on hard corals and their ecological release in overfished areas, particularly outside MPAs.

Note to Readers: Follow links above for author email, full article text, or the publishing scientific journal. Author notes in my review are in quotes.

Review: This paper reports that healthy coral reefs have functionally diverse reef fish communities and low occurrence of coral diseases. This is important because it gives added value to marine protected areas (MPAs) in that they will not only increase fish numbers (and replenish fish stocks on overfished neighboring reefs) but they will stave off coral disease. Healthy corals are better able to combat environmental stressors (e.g., El Niño-induced coral bleaching).

The lead author is a world-renowned coral disease specialist and this study examined the prevalence of six coral diseases: white syndrome, ulcerative white spots, growth anomalies, black band, skeletal eroding band, and brown band. The authors established that differences in disease prevalence between marine protected areas (MPAs) and non-protected areas were "not due to diferences in percent total cover between MPAs and fished sites, percent cover of Porites, the dominant hard-coral genus and disease host, mean total number of coral colonies per transect, or physical damage to colonies." However, there was a strongly significant correlation between high fish diversity and low coral disease prevalence.

The important point that this paper brings up is that you need a diverse reef fish community to stave off disease. While this might be intuitive (healthy reef = many kinds of fish = less disease) the scientists approach their subject in a very interesting way. Many scientists have used butterflyfish abundance and diversity as measures of coral reef health because most butterflyfishes feed on corals. Therefore, only the healthiest reefs with highest coral cover should have the highest numbers of butterflyfishes. What is really interesting about this paper is that they make the observation that butterflyfishes are generally not targeted by fishermen because there isn't much to eat on them. However, as overall fish diversity goes down through overfishing, so too do the numbers of predators to butterflyfishes decrease. And since butterflyfishes move from one coral to another over a large range during their feeding, if there are more butterflyfishes on a reef unhampered in their movements (because of a lack or lower density of predators) then butterflyfishes may transmit coral diseases through their mouth from one coral bite to another.

As a result, you can't just look at butterflyfish numbers and diversity without accounting for overall fish diversity because overfished reefs (without destruction of coral through blast fishing or cyanide fishing) may in fact have relatively high coral cover and therefore, high butterflyfish diversity. But if a researcher only looked at that, they'd miss the big picture and not realize that the reef was actually unhealthy or out of balance.

While not noted in this paper, other important aspects of high reef fish diversity are that:

1) herbivorous fish will keep algal abundance lower, helping to prevent algal overgrowth of reefs and keeping ecological phase-shifts at bay;

2) high reef fish diversity can also increase growth of corals as waste from fish provides a source of nutrition to corals in the low-nutrient waters of coral reefs (and thus is a form of energy recycling or coupling).

Reefs remain under constant threat for their survival and while I, as a coral reef biologist, do not think that coral reefs will be gone entirely in the next 100 years, it is clear from past events that reefs won't be pristine or nearly as extensive. This paper gives added benefit to establishing no-fishing zones and MPAss, but also makes it clear to conservation biologists that they have to be careful about what metrics they study when determining coral reef diversity and making claims about overall reef health.

Because coastal peoples rely on fishing for their livelihood, it is important to present alternatives to fishing all reef areas that make economic sense to local communities. When the value of MPAs is explained, it can only benefit local communities. For those reefs that continue to be fished, proper fishing techniques should still be employed (e.g., size limits, non-destructive fishing techniques or poisons, not fishing at spawning aggregations, protecting certain large predator fishes, rotating fishing times and zones or partial closures during certain times of the year, etc.) to ensure that fished reefs contain higher fish diversity. This paper shows that any fishing on a reef that significantly impacts reef fish diversity will also increase disease prevalence, so it is important as stewards of our local environment to ensure that they continue to provide resources for future generations to enjoy.

Review: Lahav G (2010). How to survive and thrive in the mother-mentor marathon. Molecular Cell, 38:477-480.

Feature Paper: Lahav G (2010). How to survive and thrive in the mother-mentor marathon. Molecular Cell, 38:477-480.

Author Abstract: This article is for women who ask whether it is possible to combine motherhood with academia and still be successful and happy. It is also for those working with, bosses of, or married to such women, giving them a better feel for the challenges mothers in academia face, and the strategies that can be used to survive and thrive in both of these worlds.

Note to Readers: Follow links above for author email, full article text, or the publishing scientific journal. Author notes in my review are in quotes.

Review: While the specific focus of this paper is for mothers in academia (both teaching, in research, or entering school) I hope that others are not put off by the title of the article, because I think it has a lot to offer anyone either in science or just trying to excel at their given profession while balancing a personal life. I think this article is also good for any student. I will address my review towards the latter crowd as I don't expect many mothers in academia to be reading this review. However, if you are a mother in academia, I recommend you follow the link in the article above to read the full article for specific details that can help you.

The author gives a handful of excellent tips that will help anyone:

1. "Discover and use the 'good enough' principle." This is a principle that I learned way too late. Everyone trying to pursue the career of their dreams wants to be excellent. Please note that I'm not referring to the average person working in a job just to pay the bills, who probably works 10 productive hours out of a 40-hour work week. If you are in that latter category, then this principle is probably already solved for you or you need to apply it to the area you are really passionate about (perhaps a hobby). Some people take this principle all too personally and settle for a partner later in life because they are afraid they can't meet "Mr." or "Mrs." Right. The author and I are not talking about settling. We're talking about learning to pick manageable goals and to learn how to cut off projects. Every scientific project creates more questions than answers so it is important not to spend so much time trying to answer everything that you lose track of the small picture. We need to learn to move on and to remember that scientific knowledge (or any knowledge) is only good if you share it with others. Remember, we live in a community. It doesn't help if you keep it all to yourself, so stop spending years finishing a degree or years on a project when you could just finish that project and degree and get working on the next small step. In the end, you'll be great anyway! But you must be consistent. To learn when "good enough has been reached" (in the author's words) you can start by setting a one-week goals, finishing them, and moving on to the next task. Yes, you know that you may have done a better job on each task given more time but in time you'll learn that it is okay to wrap up all the small tasks to complete the larger picture in as short a time as possible (without compromising too much on quality).

2. "Delegate, delegate, delegate..." Surround yourself with excellent people so that you can give each of them responsibilities and tasks. To be a leader you need to share your knowledge and not micro-manage everything and you have to trust your team. And remember, you always have a team of people in your personal network.

3. "Learn to say 'no' and to feel okay about it." In order to prioritize your values, not only do you need to decide "what to do first and how much time to spend" on each task, you have to decide what not to do. This goes for all work, when you shouldn't be a doormat to everyone's request. From my own experience, I take on too many projects at the same time (see step 5 below) and this causes me to take too long with projects. Learning to limit what you do is very important towards succeeding.

4. "Break big dreams into small practical tasks and reward yourself for achieving them." Once you learn how to say no and once you set limits on how long you spend on each task, you need to figure out all the steps needed to reach your goals. You also need to have specific tasks to delegate to your team or contacts or colleagues so they won't aimlessly pursue unstructured tasks that will only frustrate them. Also, when you reach certain milestones in your project, take a break to ensure your happiness and health as well as recharge your "creativity, brainpower, and scientific appetite."

5. "Compartmentalize your brain and calendar." Learn how to focus on one task at a time. Regardless of our profession or passions, there are few of us that can sustain living, eating, and drinking every moment in pursuit of our goals. For most of us it is important to separate your different roles in life. Work is work, home is home, social life is (you get the idea). You need to schedule your vacations and make personal goals in the same way you deal with your work goals through every step outlined here, including delegating to others where possible. Remember, we all have a social network regardless of how small we think it may be. The author also suggests scheduling your calendar to include time for all your important goals so that you are consistently working on them.

6. "Discover the things that make it worth it."Beyond whatever difficulties you face that make you wonder about your career, there is something in there that struck your imagination once and that keeps you going now. Figure that out and surround yourself with a team of people that support your goals and vision. If you are hiring people make sure that not only do they share similar goals, but they have a personality you get along with. Throughout our lives we are in situations as diverse as being the student as well as the teacher. We always have something to teach others and we should aim to be humble enough to learn our entire lives. The author mentions some excellent skills we'd all benefit from developing further: "patience, trust, kindness, and understanding the importance of self-fulfillment."

And as the author notes, in the marathon of life and career, if we "run without joy, it really doesn't matter if you are the first to get to the finish line."

Review: Alon U (2009). How to choose a good scientific problem. Molecular Cell, 35:726-728.

Feature Paper: Alon U (2009). How to choose a good scientific problem. Molecular Cell, 35:726-728.

Author Abstract: Choosing good problems is essential for being a good scientist. But what is a good problem, and how do you choose one? The subject is not usually discussed explicitly within our profession. Scientists are expected to be smart enough to figure it out on their own and through the observation of their teachers. This lack of explicit discussion leaves a vacuum that can lead to approaches such as choosing problems that can give results that merit publication in valued journals, resulting in a job and tenure.

A quick note as this is the first paper we'll review.

1) The above is the general format I'll use to cite the papers I'm reviewing. While citation methods vary by discipline and journal, I'm choosing a fairly standard format: Author Last Name followed by First and Middle Intials (Year Published). Article title. Article Journal, Volume (Number if relevant): Pages. I will follow the full citation with the author's abstract, where available.

2) I will give links whenever possible. For authors, I'll try to give email contacts, though please note that I may not have their most recent contact information in the event that a paper is a few years old or even a classic. I will try to link to the full article whenever it is available for free or at least to the source where you can purchase the full article if you choose. Please note that I am not affiliated with any publishers or scientific journals so I will not benefit from any purchases, so I am not trying to steer anyone in a certain way other than to the path of greater knowledge. I will give a link to the Journal website so you can research other articles as well.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's begin with our review.

Review: I chose this paper as the first paper to cover before getting into headier or more specific topics not only because it is short (3 pages), free of jargon, and freely available on the web, but because often when someone is starting out on the path of science, they take on projects as they are handed to them by their mentors or teachers. However, for those who like to think for themselves, there will often be a problem that interests you. I have learned the hard way that I tend to think about grandiose, multidisciplinary problems that take way too much time to solve. No one taught me to take my enthusiasm and direct it towards smaller, manageable problems that can build together towards a larger goal. After all, a larger scientific goal is just another way of defining a scientific career. But before you can build your career, you must start somewhere. The greatest lesson that I can impart is to pick a theme and stick to it. How you define that theme is based on your personal interests. Oh, and by the way, this applies to life as well. How you learn about that theme through active discovery is what the topic of this week's paper is about.

Summary: The author gives several bullet points to help a young student (or anyone who never learned the proper ways of scientific research) pick a problem that is interesting and adds to scientific knowledge, but that isn't too difficult to research in a relatively short period of time. Before one seeks "Fame and Glory" (in the words of Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) one should start small and work consistently. Besides, as you begin working on problems, you will invariably discover more questions than answers and one of those questions might turn out to be a big breakthrough later.

Step 1: Choose your problem based on the answers you want to discover in life. What is your theme or goal in science or any other field? You must first establish "values," in the author's words.

Step 2: You must pick a problem based on two metrics: feasibility and interest. Feasibility means defining the problem as difficult or easy to answer, time involved, instruments needed, and basically all the barriers that prevent you from discovering the truth. Later you will learn methods to creatively deal with those barriers to knowledge, but first, you must define your barriers. Interest might seem simple but actually, many scientists don't address problems they are very interested in. Rather, they address problems that either they are given (common for beginning scientists) or they think they can discover the answer to. Yes, there is usually some form of interest, but I can speak from experience. I have become a marine biologist but what I am is a far cry from what I thought I would be when I was younger. Somewhere along the way my dreams got corrupted and I got distracted by the passions of other researchers or exposure to interesting fields and I started studying many different kinds of problems. I learned all too late that this was a mistake, not from gaining varied and interesting experiences in life, but in working toward a single theme and becoming a better and more knowledgeable scientist in my chosen field. As I continue to correct that in myself today, I thought I'd warn you ahead of time. For a young scientist, you probably want to pick problems that the author defines as "easy-but-not-too-interesting low-hanging fruit" kind of problems. But as you gain in experience and confidence, mostly aim for problems with both feasibility and high interest that are "likely to extend our knowledge significantly."

Step 3. Take your time. The author states that before jumping into a project, too many young scientists take the first problem that comes to mind. Just imagine that you follow that path and succeed in solving the first problem. Well, you'll probably discover new problems, which will lead you to other questions, which will lead you to attempt other projects. And soon enough, 10 years go by and you have led an unfocused career and unlikely to have written many scientific papers because you have lacked focus and patience. The author gives the following advice: "do not commit to a problem before 3 months have elapsed." During those 3 months you should read, discuss, and make plans for how you will address your problem. You should understand the feasibility. Taking 3 months will also ensure that the problem is of great personal interest, which fuels the learning process. Don't learn something just because you have to... you should want to learn as well.

Step 4: Subjectivity of interest. Sure, the topic may be of great interest to you but if your inner voice is really calling out to art or literature, maybe science shouldn't be your chosen profession. There's nothing wrong with that. But you can take the techniques of science and the scientific method with you for whatever problem you want to truly address. The author poses the following exercise to help you discover your inner voice: "If I was the only person on earth, which of these problems [that interest me] would I work on?" Answer honestly. After all, the only job you have in life is to discover who you are and what you want to learn.

Step 5: Self-expression. To answer a problem, you need to not only reflect on your personal world view, as the author notes, but I believe you should also learn how to write so that you convey your ideas in a clear manner to anyone reading. Contrary to much scientific writing techniques, you DO NOT have to keep everything in the passive voice. Some of the best papers I've written and the best scientists I've met are very clear about stating exactly what they did, not "what was done." Don't be afraid of this. And don't fall into the trap of using jargon just because you think it is necessary to make your topic appear valuable. Learn the difference between personal and impersonal pronouns. Edit, edit, edit. Keep things short (I know, I have a lot to learn about this, but I'm working on it too). For instance, don't say "in order to" when you can just say "to." There are lots of other little tricks and techniques and I'll try to introduce them as the weeks continue, but in the meantime, start looking online and ask those professors you really look up to. Find those papers that really interest you and that you think are clearly written and emulate their techniques, but remember not to plagiarize.

Step 6: What happens after you choose a problem? The author states that if we pick a problem and outline a path to answer that problem, but we ignore all the other potentially interesting things along the way, we may never succeed (especially if the problems are complex) because we'll continue to get stressed out as our experiments or techniques don't help us solve the problem. Sometimes, the author notes, we should follow our intended path but be open to new problems and developments as they occur. Just remember to only follow the developments that are of true interest to you so you remain focused! In the end, the "answer" we were seeking might not be as interesting as the answer we find along the way.

Hopefully you can use these techniques to pick problems in life that interest you and that build (and rely) upon your skills (which ties into feasibility). Remember to stay focused, but open to new developments. Just make sure that you are always doing what you love in life and don't get sidetracked to the point where you become bitter, disheartened, or let decades slip away.

And always remember, science can be fun and life is about learning.

About Me

You can view my blogger profile for a summary, but in case you want to know more, I'm a marine biologist who focuses on coral reef biogeography, meaning that I study how similar organisms are from one reef to another.

Professional Summary

I've been living mostly overseas since 1996 and have research experience in the Hawaiian Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Wake Island, and the Maldives. I have personal experience diving on reefs also in the Red Sea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysian Borneo, the Florida Keys, the Great Barrier Reef, and New Zealand. I am also interested in desert environments and have limited experience working in the Algodones Dunes of the Colorado Sub-Basin near the Arizona-California-Mexico border.

I have a wide variety of marine biology experience, with specializations in coastal shallow-water coral reef environments, algae, biogeography and connectivity networks of ecological systems related to coral reefs, reef and coastal biogeochemistry, closed-system modeling of coral reef ecosystems (aquariums & microcosms), human-aquatic interactions, sea turtle conservation, and anthropogenic impacts on oceanic environments. I also have experience with terrestrial desert environments and direct experience collecting and analyzing data for enforcing the Endangered Species Act (USA). I am comfortable with basic computer programming and also have limited ecological modeling experience, as well as experience leading and aiding project management, research, fieldwork, and report and proposal writing / editing. I have extensive public speaking experience, including with international journalism, television, magazine, and radio programs.

Expertise

Global biogeography of marine algae (8 years)

Closed-system marine aquaria (21 years)

Marine field work (14 years)

Desert field work (0.5 years)

Management experience (6 years: 1 year business related, 4.5 years marine related, 0.5 years terrestrial desert ecology related)

Sea Turtle conservation (3 years)

Education

BSc Zoology (1999) University of Hawaii-Manoa, USA

BSc minors Marine Science, Geography (1999) University of Hawaii-Manoa, USA

Graduate Certificate Maritime Archaelogy & History (2000) University of Hawaii-Manoa, USA

MSc Biology (2007) University of Guam Marine Laboratory

Awards & Grants

* 2008. National Geographic and Ashoka’s Changemakers Geotourism Challenge. Finalist (Banyan Tree Maldives Marine Lab chosen as 1 of 15 finalists from over 700 nominations and 480 applications worldwide; writer of award application; manager of organization at time of award).

* 2007. Islands Magazine Hot 100: Leaders in Responsible Tourism. Finalist (Banyan Tree Maldives Marine Lab chosen as 1 of 100 leaders in responsible tourism worldwide; writer of award application; manager of organization at time of award).

* 1999-2000. Research Fellow (NASA Space Grant College, University of Hawaii-Manoa, Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean & Earth Sciences & Technology (SOEST), Hawaii USA). Supervisor: Dr. Marlin Atkinson. $6000 stipend for a project analyzing reflectance spectra and pigments of corals for use in satellite remote sensing.

* 1997-1999. Three-time recipient Dean’s List for academic excellence, University of Hawaii-Manoa, Hawaii USA.

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more about me professionally or would like a copy of my CV or knowledge of specific skill-sets.


Social Networking
My professional profile with full work history is at LinkedIn. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in learning more about me professionally or would like a copy of my CV or knowledge of specific skill-sets.

Editorial: American GIs brought dynamite fishing to the Philippines

I thought that I'd share some disturbing news I've learned from friends in the Philippines. Part of the reason why I am in the Philippines is that the Philippines not only belongs to the "coral triangle" area of highest coral reef fish and hermatypic reef-building coral diversity globally, but its reefs also suffer among the most in the world through overt environmental degradation by humans. See the figure below for areas of reef and their subsequent threat risk level.

Dynamite fishing (the practice of throwing dynamite in the water to kill or stun fish and bring them to the surface) destroys coral reefs in the process of catching large amounts of fish. Fully 25% of coral reefs in the Philippines are already destroyed beyond repair in a generation's lifetime, with another 25% already greatly impacted (findings from State of the Reefs 2010 country findings). Looking at the figure above, it is clear that most reefs in the Philippines are color-coded red, for extremely high risk to their survival. Arguably dynamite fishing is one of the greatest threats to Philippine reefs considering how extensive it is.


What is disturbing to me is that dynamite fishing was taught to Filipinos by US troops post-WWII, first using hand grenades supplied by the American troops before returning home, and later through learning how to make dynamite from US instructions. Therefore, while the practice is now a couple generations old, when looking for blame about why the coral reefs of the Philippines are so damaged, a large part of the blame must go to the US, whom, in only a few years before granting the Philippines independence (in 1947) were able to sow the seeds that led to future destruction.


Unfortunately, such short-sightedness is not limited to the above example. Even [the late] Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received support from the US military in the past, and I think we know how well that turned out.


Before closing this week's Science corner, I'd also like to share a short list showing that the Philippines is among the top of most threatened countries environmentally. The United Nations Environmental Vulnerability Index (below) describes how vulnerable a country is (politically and other measures) depending on how imminent environmental collapse may be.

Editorial: Malaysian wildlife smuggler Anson Wong arrested and brought to justice

Did you know that wildlife trafficking (the transport and selling of animals and their byproducts illegally, often using endangered animals) ranks just behind illegal small weapons and drug trafficking?
 

I wanted to share an article published by Foreign Policy magazine on December 28, 2010, about the recent arrest of the notorious Malaysian wildlife smuggler Anson Wong Keng Liang. I have chosen to copy the article in its entirety below since it is freely available on the internet. All text below and pictures are from the original article, with a link below. I believe that this article shows that sometimes, individuals dealing in wildlife can bring as much havoc and disruption as those who deal in small weapons like guns. Unfortunately, because the crimes described below are about animals (many endangered animals included) such smugglers tend to get treated more leniently than those dealing in weapons or even diamonds and gold. It is good to see at least one big man brought down.

The original article can be found here. I've also linked to the author's book, which is selling quite cheaply on Amazon.com right now, so it is a great value gift about an understudied but important topic.

A copy of the text is below:

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Original text published on December 28, 2010 by Bryan Christy in Foreign Policy Magazine

Bryan Christy is an investigative journalist, a contributing writer for National Geographic, and the author of The Lizard King: The true crimes and passions of the world's greatest reptile smugglers.

Title: The Serpent King

How a notorious Malaysian wildlife smuggler was brought to justice -- and what it tells us about stopping the world's most profitable black market.

It began almost innocently. A broken lock on a suitcase moving through Kuala Lumpur International Airport this summer led to an odd discovery: nearly 100 baby boa constrictors, two vipers, and a South American turtle, all hidden inside. It was a fairly modest cache for a wildlife smuggler, but the man who claimed the suitcase was no ordinary criminal. He was Anson Wong Keng Liang, the world's most notorious wildlife trafficker. And instead of a slap on the wrist, which he might reasonably have expected, Wong was about to receive a surprising punishment. 

From the tiny Malaysian island of Penang, in a storefront no larger than your average nail salon, Wong commanded one of the world's largest wildlife trafficking syndicates. Much of the work Wong's company, Sungai Rusa Wildlife, had done since he got into the business three decades ago was above-board: He legally wholesaled tens of thousands of wild reptiles annually, making him the likely source for many of the snakes, lizards, turtles, and frogs on sale in American pet stores. But using a private zoo as a cover, he also offered an astounding array of contraband, including snow leopard pelts, panda bear skins, rhino horns, rare birds, and Komodo dragons. He moved everything from chinchillas to elephants, smuggling critically endangered wildlife from Australia, China, Madagascar, New Zealand, South America, and elsewhere to markets largely in Europe, Japan, and the United States. For a man capable of brokering these kinds of deals, Wong's arrest over a suitcase of boa constrictors was the equivalent of a Mexican narcotraficante getting caught with a few marijuana cigarettes in his pocket. 

Wong's long career beyond the reach of the law offers a window on the illegal wildlife trade and our broken system to combat it. Underfunded law enforcement, government corruption, controversy-shy NGOs, and a feeble international legal framework have yielded few inroads against wildlife syndicates or kingpins like Anson Wong. Wong's arrest and his sentencing in November 2010 provide a lesson on how to change that.

The illegal wildlife trade is often described in the press as a $10 or even $20 billion-a-year industry, just behind illegal drugs and weapons trafficking in scale. But in truth, no one really knows how big the illegal wildlife trade is; the few serious efforts to quantify it have failed.

Certainly the range of life forms on offer -- timber, fish, exotic pets, coral, ivory, skins, supplies for traditional Asian medicines, and on -- represents billions of dollars a year, legal and illegal. China alone consumes vast amounts of endangered species -- freshwater turtles, spiny anteaters, even tigers -- as delicacies or for medicinal purposes, while other countries in Asia and the rest of the world collect them as pets, or make watchbands, scarves, perfume, furniture, and wall ornaments out of them. What makes the illegal trade so lucrative is its minimal risk: Few traffickers are ever caught, fewer still are prosecuted, and those who are convicted generally end up paying fines the size of parking tickets. Almost no one goes to jail. 

As a result, the illegal wildlife trade may be the world's most profitable form of transnational crime.

Wong got into the business in the early 1980s, selling exotic animals to zoos and dealers around the world. In the beginning, he told me when I met him at his office on Penang in March 2007, he dealt openly in the ungettable: gorillas, tigers -- "anything," he said, by which he meant "anything rare." (Changes in international and Malaysian law eventually led him to focus on reptiles, which he believed were not as protected as other species.) Wong's techniques mirrored those of narcotics and other traffickers. He paid mules to carry Komodo dragons hidden inside suitcases, and hid endangered Malagasy tortoises at the bottom of legal wildlife shipments. Purchasing vacation packages as cover, he sent men out to poach rare wildlife from breeding facilities in New Zealand. The most important technique Wong and other large-scale smugglers employ, however, is far less exotic than all that. Instead, it has to do with paperwork.

The primary treaty governing international wildlife trade is the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which classifies wildlife into three groups according to how close to extinction the species is perceived to be. Animals listed in Appendix I, such as tigers and gorillas, are so close to disappearing they are banned from international commercial trade; Appendix II animals may be traded under a permit system; and Appendix III animals are protected by a country with a request that others honor the protection. CITES makes paperwork the key to moving wildlife. Smugglers like Wong scan the globe for countries with weak laws or corrupt law enforcement officials tasked with stamping their animals' documentation, paper that is as much in demand as the animals themselves. Such countries become wildlife laundering pass-through points: animals come in illegally and leave "legally."

Few places launder as much illegal wildlife as Penang. The island's location and favorable regulatory regime have made it not just a global manufacturing hub for multinational companies such as Dell and Intel, but also a bathtub drain for the world's rare animals. This was largely the work of Wong: "I can get anything here from anywhere," he boasted to an American undercover agent in March 1997. "Nothing can be done to me. I could sell a panda -- and, nothing. As long as I'm here, I'm safe." The key, he explained, was paying off government officials in the customs bureau and, importantly, in the wildlife department, the agency responsible for CITES paperwork. 

Wong's activities finally landed him on the radar of international law enforcement agencies in the early 1990s, when Special Operations, the elite undercover unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), made him the target of an investigation called Operation Chameleon. Agents set up a reptile importing company outside of San Francisco and a retail operation in Reno, Nevada, and began doing business with Wong. Before long, they discovered Wong not only smuggled rare and endangered reptiles, but also critically endangered birds and mammals. His reach was global.

To arrest Wong, agents needed a ruse to lure him out of Malaysia. There is a lucrative international black market in bear bile, which is used as a cure-all in traditional Asian medicine. USFWS Special Agent George Morrison, acting undercover, offered Wong a piece of a bear-bile smuggling operation he claimed to be running, on one condition: The two men had to meet in person. Wong agreed, but because he was already wanted in the United States on smuggling charges, he refused to meet there or in Canada. They agreed to go to Mexico instead.

When Wong stepped off a Japan Airlines flight in Mexico City on September 18, 1998, he was met by Morrison, along with Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Anderson and a team of Mexican federales, who arrested him. It was the culminating moment of Operation Chameleon, which had grown into one of the longest and most successful undercover operations ever undertaken by the USFWS, and one involving authorities in four countries. (Malaysia wasn't one of them; the Americans suspected Wong had had help from someone in his government, and accordingly kept the Malaysian officials in the dark about their work.) Wong fought his extradition from Mexico to the United States for two years, but eventually he gave in. 

In June 2001, Wong was sentenced in California to 71 months in prison, fined $60,000, and banned from exporting to the United States for three years after his release. But the sentence did not stop him. While he was in prison his wife ran his wildlife business, including sales to the United States. When he got out in 2003, Wong returned to Malaysia, grew a pony tail, and went back to work.

Wong's U.S. conviction had no discernible impact on his ability to operate in Malaysia. To the contrary, his new plan to build a tiger zoo -- a potential front for illicitly trading in big cats -- received funding and land from the Penang government.


"He is my good friend," Misliah Mohamad Basir, the wildlife department official directly responsible for policing Wong, told me when I visited her at the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur in January 2008. Misliah considered Wong a legitimate businessman, and believed the U.S. authorities had framed him. As proof, she offered inside knowledge of his smuggling: "He never handles animals himself," she told me.

By the time I caught up with her, Misliah had been promoted from Penang's top wildlife officer -- her job at the time of Anson's arrest -- to deputy director general of PERHILITAN, making her the second-most powerful wildlife official in Malaysia.


In fact, in the years since the USFWS's revolutionary sting operation took down Wong, the global wildlife kingpin had only grown more powerful, while the people who brought him to justice had fallen on hard times. Special Operations failed to make another major case after Wong's; today its best agents have given up undercover work -- and the unit, which never constituted more than a handful of agents, is all but defunct. In the media, Wong's 1998 arrest was met with a global thud. International wildlife NGOs operating in Malaysia did nothing to expose the trafficker and his relationship to the wildlife department for fear the department would expel them.

Things didn't begin to change until January 2010, when National Geographic published a profile I wrote of Wong, detailing his government connection and his new plans to exploit tigers. The outcry by both the public and journalists in the Malaysian press was immediate. (Malaysian newspapers and television are state controlled, which makes it difficult for journalists to criticize the government directly -- but they are free to disclose foreign reporting about Malaysia, such as my story.) In the course of the past year, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment announced a revamp of its wildlife department, promising to rotate senior officers every three years. It stripped the department of key powers and is in the process of transferring Misliah, who is now also under investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission. While international wildlife NGOs were cautious about causing trouble in Malaysia, they have provided invaluable advice to the country's government, including the parliament, which passed the first overhaul of its wildlife law in nearly four decades this summer.

As a result, when Wong was caught with a suitcase of boa constrictors, he didn't get away with it. The Malaysian government revoked his business licenses, shut down his zoo, and seized his entire collection of animals, including his Bengal tigers. In November, a judge sentenced him to five years in prison, an unprecedented term for a wildlife trafficker in Malaysia, and a stern sentence for animal smuggling compared to current standards anywhere else in the world.

The effort to catch Wong -- all 17 years of it -- offers a few important lessons on what it takes to stop a kingpin. Two principles float to the surface.


First, where there is long-term, high-volume international wildlife trafficking, there is certain to be one or more government officers who are either complicit in the smuggling or so complacent as to be reasonably considered an accomplice. This was the problem with Operation Chameleon, for all its genius -- any law-enforcement effort that does not take into account the domestic governance problem will fail to yield enduring results. As long as a few countries are willing to bend the rules and fudge some paperwork, it doesn't really matter what everyone else does: A single country, even a single wildlife enforcement official, can undermine the entire global "system" to control trafficking.

Second, the public in the kingpin's home country is the best weapon against him. No step to Malaysia's unprecedented legal and administrative reforms this year was more important than outcry in Malaysia from concerned citizens. Dozens of articles -- many of them on Malaysian newspapers' front pages -- finally told the story of Operation Chameleon, Wong's Penang operations, and the history of poor management by the country's wildlife department, exposing years of bad policy and official venality.

Exposure is a critical ingredient for change. Law enforcement, NGOs, and others will find their work magnified and lasting once the public becomes aware of it. Full stories need to be told in the media. In the United States, where wildlife trafficking busts are often treated as humorous news items, that means journalists have to realize there are often criminal syndicates behind those people stopped at airports with exotic animals hidden under their clothes. As Wong himself demonstrated this summer, a man caught with snakes on a plane may be the break authorities need to stop a global trafficker of tigers, rhinos, and more.

And of course, no fix is forever. Wildlife smugglers, like any other breed of trafficker, obey the laws of supply and demand: As long as there is a market for rare and endangered animals, someone will find out how to get them there. Rising incomes in China, India, and even in Southeast Asia mean more customers for endangered wildlife. In 2009, over 18,000 live animals and more than 267 tons of dead animals and derivative products were seized in law enforcement actions in Southeast Asia alone -- and that appetite won't go away just because Wong temporarily did. It remains to be seen whether Malaysia's reforms this year will take root, and what will happen upon Wong's release. Still, it's all but guaranteed that somewhere in Malaysia or another country willing to look the other way, there are aspiring kingpins working to take over his business.