by Taylor Wev
Amy Freestone joined the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in May, to help lead the Marine Invasions Research Lab as senior scientist and managing director. Amy previously worked with SERC as a postdoctoral fellow from 2006 to 2009, before working as an assistant professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. In this Q&A, Amy discusses the roots of her love for ecology, bridging the gap between local and global research, and her core principles of scientific research.
Edited for brevity and clarity.
Do you have a personal mission that drives your interest in marine ecology?
You need to have a job that you’re passionate about, and ecology has always been that for me….I just have a very deep appreciation for the natural world. It’s important to me, and important to my family and to my kids. Those of us who are engaged in ecology often have an environmental ethic that underlies the work that we do. I know for me it’s not only about taking care of the natural world for myself, but also just knowing that this is the playground for my kids and wanting to protect those resources for them.
What are some key communities you’ve focused on in your research? What drew you to them?
A lot of my research has been on sessile [immobile] marine invertebrates. For example, when you go out to a dock at low tide and see all of that “scuzz” on the piling—that is the community that I like to study. It’s kind of funny because in marine operations…they’re considered a nuisance. But when you bring these communities into the lab and look at them under a microscope, they’re just fascinating. They are this colorful, diverse community of little critters that have such varied ways of making it through the world—you wouldn’t know it unless you spent hours looking at these guys under a microscope and you see them do all these amazing things.
What makes them great for the questions I’m asking is that these communities occur all over the world, they’re very easy to study, and they’re experimentally tractable. They are also heavily invaded communities. A lot of invasions in marine systems occur in our coastal environments, so it is a good model system in that regard and there are also great applications from the research in how we can prevent and manage invasions [in other communities].
How does your previous postdoctoral work at SERC differ from the projects you’re working on now, and your new role at the Marine Invasions Research Lab?
I have been collaborating with the Invasions Lab for most of my professional career. But one of the things that makes my current role so appealing is being able to take the questions I was previously asking to the next level. As a postdoctoral fellow, I really wanted to take the concepts I was studying as a doctoral student in plant ecology and apply them to marine systems across a broader spatial scale. As the managing director of the Marine Invasions Research Lab, I can continue to expand that work. The Smithsonian has wonderful infrastructure and resources, and the Invasions Lab has a deep bench of expertise….It’s, in my opinion, unparalleled. I feel fortunate to be able to ask the kinds of questions that I feel are important using the platform of this world-class lab. There are also a lot of elements of the lab that I have worked with less over the years, so it’s exciting to get to dig deeper into those components and learn about the work that is ongoing.
How does researching local populations help us understand what’s going on globally?
Traditionally, community ecology is a local-scale field and very site-specific. But a lot of the big ecological questions we have are global. So being able to understand and integrate ecological patterns and processes across those spatial scales has been important to me and my scientific path. There are feedbacks at play….Processes that happen at the local scale are important to macroecological patterns, and those macroecological patterns are setting the background for what’s happening at a local scale. When you study multiple spatial sites, you can start to see those feedbacks emerge.
Are there any ways ocean lovers and conservation enthusiasts can help contribute to the success of our local marine communities?
I think there are two important pieces: being an informed citizen and engagement. Our lab, and SERC more broadly, have wonderful participatory science programs where people can come out and help us collect data and actively learn more about what we’re doing. It helps inform people about our research, it provides fun experiences, and it also helps demystify science. A lot of excellent datasets have been produced through participatory science, so these kinds of activities can be a valuable contribution to science.
What would you say are some of the most important principles a scientist should keep in mind when approaching new research questions?
Don’t be afraid of the unexpected. Research will often lead you in a new direction that you didn’t foresee and that’s the fun of science—not necessarily knowing what the endpoint is and just working through where your questions take you. When you’re dealing with Mother Nature, the unexpected is the expected. As ecologists, we need to lean into that. Instead of saying, “This didn’t fit the model of what I was testing,” think about it as, “This is what’s happening in nature, and we have to follow this line of investigation that’s now been put in front of us.”
The other thing is to think creatively. I think sometimes science and art are put into different categories, but I don’t view it that way. Science is creative. We need to consider: What is the question I want to ask, and what are all of the creative ways I can approach this question to get my answer?
