A Beginners Guide to Freshwater Microscopic Life is a practical, spiral-bound guide written by David Seamer which offers a fantastic introduction to the multitude of microscopic organisms found in freshwater. For those with a more specific interest, An Illustrated Guide to the Freshwater Protozoa provides an extensive review of taxonomic information and detailed descriptions of 400 genera of Amoebae, Flagellata and Ciliata, all of which have a worldwide distribution.
In 1993, David Seamer bought an old school bus and converted it into a mobile home and laboratory. He spent the next 20 years travelling around south-east Australia and Tasmania collecting, cataloguing and drawing the biodiversity of the micro-world. David has now settled in a county town in Australia where he has access to a great range of environments from semidesert springs to alpine ponds and lakes and continues to sketch, study and identify microscopic life.
David took the time out of his busy schedule to discuss how he first got into studying microscopic life, the biggest challenges he’s had to overcome while creating these books and more.
Can you tell us about how you first developed an interest in studying microscopic life?
Ever since I was a small child, the natural world has fascinated me and my bedroom became a study place for caterpillars, tadpoles, lizards, insects of any description and anything else that I could keep in jars, boxes or old abandoned aquariums. But it wasn’t until I was about 15 and in high school that I discovered the micro-world, during a double biology lesson in which the teacher was using amoebas collected from a local pond as examples of an animal cell. While I was drawing an amoeba I noticed other ‘wigglers’ and drew them as well. After the lesson I approached the teacher and asked what these other things were. He pointed to a copy of Ward and Whipple’s Freshwater Biology and once I opened it and saw drawings of what I had seen, I was instantly hooked. I saved my money from a couple of lawn mowing jobs to buy my first microscope and it has become a lifelong passion ever since.
Which techniques would you advise a beginner in this field of study to use?
My advice to beginners is to be aware that these organisms are real creatures and should be treated with the same respect as any other animal. Collect your samples and examine them as soon as possible. Ideally, they should still be alive for once dead many of them decompose and break down very quickly. Preserved specimens often change shape and distort so live is always best. A good microscope is essential and the use of a measuring slide or an eye-piece micrometer, as well as phase contrast, is of great help. There are thousands of species so don’t try and identify organisms to that level. Genus or even family are as far down as one should go to start with.
I found it really fascinating looking at your illustrations of microbes and the incredible detail you’ve included. Can you explain the process of drawing from live microscopic observations and the challenges of this method?
Drawing from life requires patience and lots of it. Starting with basic measurements to get proportions is the first step. This illustration (see above) is fairly typical of my technique. I draw the initial outline and basic details in 2B pencil and then when I am satisfied that all is correct, I use various grades of felt tipped pens to complete the drawing. Of course one must have knowledge of the subject so as to point out specific identification pointers.
What does your essential field kit include?
My basic field kit apart from my wellington or gumboots, comprises a 30µm plankton net as seen in this photo, a basting pipette for mud surface collection, several numbered, wide–mouth jars with screw on lids, and a notebook for the recording of date, location, temperature and any other variable details – all packing into a large knapsack type bag in case a bit of a hike is involved.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome while creating these books?
The biggest challenge one faces is reference material. It is essential to get not only the identification correct, but also the internal structure of these tiny organisms. Because taxonomy is constantly changing and developing, keeping up with name changes can be a challenge. While the internet can be invaluable, it is full of incorrect information and one must be very cautious when using it.
When I started out, I was constantly frustrated by not only the lack of availability of reference material on this subject but also the language. So many books were written by scientists for scientists, or were so simple that they were pretty well useless, that finally I decided to write a number of comparatively comprehensive but simple guides aimed at the amateur, student and enthusiast. These guides have proved quite popular and have currently been despatched to 50 countries around the world.
How have environmental changes as a result of climate change affected the distribution of and variation in microorganism species?
Environmental changes resulting from climate change affect the distribution and variation of microorganisms in very subtle ways. Whilst many species are incredibly robust, others are very delicate and can easily be affected by things like water temperature. Some protists need very specific environmental conditions in order to exist. Freshwater is a fluid (no pun intended) environment and every change has its ramifications. For example, droughts can obviously dry out ponds, streams and even small lakes as well as change the oxygen levels and pH of water bodies and this can result in a change in biodiversity. Likewise, floods will have the same effect with an increase in additional nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates from farmers’ paddocks causing algal blooms.
David Seamer has privately published his collection, two of which are available at www.nhbs.com/david-seamer
This stunning photographic book, written in collaboration with penguinologist Dr Tom Hart, offers a unique view of Antarctica from above and captures the wonders of this magical place, from vast icebergs to penguin colonies in their thousands. Each chapter includes an array of incredible captioned images, taken from both land and air, and describes the resident wildlife and conservation efforts in this remote area.
Proper Job in Chagford, Devon, is a registered charity that aims to protect and preserve the environment by promoting waste reduction, re-use and recycling. Its roots wriggle all the way back to 1993 when a group of environmentally conscious allotment holders launched a community composting project. They had noticed how much reusable, recyclable and compostable material was being dumped in the rural skip and started collecting anything that could be reused or recycled. In 1995, this resulted in the founding of a community business that was committed to principles of sustainability and the creation of jobs.
Justifiably, the book opens with sensory biology. Before we understand what is in the mind of any organism, Chittka argues, we first need to understand the gateways, the sense organs, through which information from the outside world is filtered. These are shaped by both evolutionary history and daily life (i.e. what information matters on a day-to-day basis and what can be safely ignored). Chapter 2 deals with the historical research that showed that bees do have colour vision and furthermore can perceive ultraviolet (UV) light. Chapter 3 bundles together research on numerous other senses, including ones familiar (smell, taste, and hearing) and unfamiliar to us (perception of polarised light, Earth’s magnetic field, and electric fields). The antennae of bees, in particular, are marvels; Chittka likens them to a biological Swiss army knife, packing numerous different sense organs into two small appendages. Tightly connected to sensory biology is how this incoming information is processed in the brain, though Chittka postpones discussing neurobiology to chapter 9. He describes the discovery and function of different brain areas and highlights the work of Frederick Kenyon who would inspire the better-remembered Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Thanks to them, we now understand that brains consist of numerous specialised nerve cells. Though the bee brain is small, Chittka argues that size is a poor predictor of cognitive skills; it is the wiring of neurons that matters. Rather than be surprised that small-brained insects such as bees can do so many clever things, Chittka instead tickles the reader with the opposite question: “Why does any animal need as large a brain as a bee’s?” (p. 153).
What clever things do bees do, you ask? That is the subject of the preceding five chapters where Chittka surveys a large body of behavioural research. Honey bees are famous for their waggle dance by which they communicate the location of flowers but also, this was news to me, the location of potential nest sites when the swarm relocates. But Chittka discusses more, much more: how bees navigate space using landmarks, show a rudimentary form of counting, solve the travelling salesman problem, learn to extract nectar from complex flowers, learn when to exploit certain flowers (and when to ignore them), and learn new tricks by observing other bees. But what about instinct, something most behaviours were traditionally ascribed to? He has some insightful comments on this: “even the most elemental behavior routines need to be refined by learning: instinct provides little more than a rough template” (p. 50). What really made me fall off my chair is that bees have long been outsmarting researchers in choice experiments. Many behavioural experiments take the form of choice tests, where bees need to pick between two locations or objects that differ in e.g. colour or shape with one option containing a sugary solution as a reward. Bumblebees would simply be lazy and check out both options in random order. Until, that is, protocols were modified by adding a bitter-tasting solution to the wrong choice as a penalty.
As mentioned above, this book is focused. If you enjoy reading about the facts and the study system with minimal (autobiographical) diversions, Chittka has got you covered. The only digression he allows himself is to include biographical details of older generations of scientists. This includes inspiring tales such as Karl von Frisch who described the honey bee waggle dance and later barely escaped being dismissed from his post by the Nazis. And look out for repeat appearances of Charles Turner, a now largely forgotten African American scientist who published pioneering work despite having been denied a professorship based on his ethnicity. But there are also tragic stories such as Kenyon’s, who snapped under pressure of not securing a permanent job and was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum where he died more than 40 years later, alone and forgotten. Chittka includes occasional quotations from historical literature to show that “many seemingly contemporary ideas about the minds of bees had already been expressed, in some form, over a century ago” (p. 15).
