Featured Science Article Limestones and Forams and Corals! Oh My! The Marine Science Career of Pamela Hallock Muller Natural history is my passion: early years on the prairie, where the seasons, rainfall or lack thereof, wind direction, outbreaks of insect pests and all such aspects of nature were integral to daily life; first attempts at scientific research for high school science fairs; discovering ecology from the classic Odum textbook “Fundamentals of Ecology”; and falling in love with geology as a Seasonal Ranger Naturalist in Glacier National Park. Graduate school at the University of Hawai’i brought it all together. To me, oceanography is ecology on steroids!
Pamela Hallock Muller One of the definitions Odum gave of “ecology” is “the study of the structure and function of nature”. Oceanography is ecology/natural history at its finest – combining the physical, chemical and biological sciences from the whole Earth perspective through geologic time. One cannot even hope to understand any kind of organism, let alone an ecosystem, without recognizing its evolutionary context, its physical and chemical tolerances, its similarities and differences from other organisms, and its symbioses and inter dependencies with other life forms. Observing natural systems, learning from the observations of others, conducting experiments, and synthesizing insights into presentations and manuscripts that others can understand and build upon, have been my life-long pursuits. Over the past 32 years, the focus of research in the my lab has been to understand the environments in which prolific calcification can occur, particularly the advantages and inherent limitations of algal symbiosis in calcifying organisms, and how such understanding can be used to interpret the geologic past, recognize anthropogenic impacts in the present, and predict future responses of calcareous organisms to global and regional changes. My early interest in population dynamics of reef foraminifera (forams) and their responses to environmental changes has continued through the years, with both geologic and resource-management applications. Since publication of the “Foraminifera In Reef Assessment and Monitoring” (FoRAM) Index (or FI) in 2003, the Great Barrier Reef Park Authority has adopted the FI as one of their management tools, and studies applying it have been carried out in all major oceans, as well as the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Red Seas. My publication record includes more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, and more than 50 other published book chapters and conference proceedings, many also peer reviewed. My 60+ graduate students have come from a variety of backgrounds, have had a variety of interests, and have pursued a variety of career paths. You can find them in national, state, and local governmental and private environmental or educational positions around the world, as well as several who have since gone into health-related fields. As the first married-female graduate student in the Department of Oceanography at UH, I was accused of “wasting tax-payer money” by pursuing a graduate degree. When I was completing my Ph.D., I was asked repeatedly “What can you possibly do with your degree?”
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A Publication of The University of South Florida College of Marine Science