In this occasional series, go behind the scenes to meet Smithsonian experts who have some of the most intriguing professional specialties. In this session, hear from two scientists whose research takes them from the tops of the forest canopy to the ocean floor. Along the way, they have gathered more than just coral and carbon dioxide data: they’ve also collected uniquely Smithsonian stories.
Chris Meyer, research zoologist and curator of marine invertebrates at the Natural History Museum, and Jess Parker, senior scientist in forest ecology at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), share the challenge of trying to collect information about vast ecosystems.
In order to study how marine ecosystems function and respond to change, researchers need to be able to track species. Meyer turned his childhood hobby of collecting just about anything into full-scale professional scavenger hunts to gather marine life from around the planet. He led the Mo'orea Biocode Project, an endeavor to build a comprehensive genomic inventory of all life in and around the French Polynesian island.
Those efforts led to the development of standardized sampling of marine communities using autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS). ARMS are like prefabricated housing that are placed on the sea floor and then recovered after a set amount of time to see who moves in. Meyers leads the Global ARMS project at the Natural History Museum to coordinate these worldwide efforts.
At SERC, Parker has a similar goal of investigating how ecosystems function and respond to change. But instead of a wetsuit, he uses construction cranes. He studies forest ecology across long temporal and large spatial scales, and since his project is for the Smithsonian, the research goals and implications are far-reaching. His work in measuring how forests “breathe” as they collect and emit carbon contributes to the Forest Global Earth Observatory network’s research on how climate change affects forests globally.
Moderator Tony Cohn, co-producer and host of the Smithsonian’s podcast Sidedoor, asks Meyer and Parker about what it’s like to work in the field for the Smithsonian—below and above the earth’s surface.
