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Yes this winter As planned, Bethany Jenkins was preparing to board a 274-foot research vessel called Atlantis right now to head east across the Atlantic Ocean. But everything changed when the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus began infecting people worldwide and landed on the shores of the United States. USA In mid-March, the microbiologist at the University of Rhode Island received the news that his team’s trip had been suspended. The future of his research project, a three-ship, multi-institution investigation of ocean ecosystems that has been underway for more than a decade, is now uncertain.
But as Jenkins and his team start picking up the pieces, he doesn’t like to consider what might have happened if the journey had continued.
“The people on these ships leave their families behind,” he said. “If I am at sea, I will not be able to help anyone on land.” The opposite is also true: “On these research cruises, there are four people who share each bathroom, colleagues who share a wheelhouse, professional crew in the engine room, and sharing bunks. If something goes wrong, it would be really bad. “
As the coronavirus has spread, reaching all continents except Antarctica and infecting more than half a million people, scientific institutions around the world have closed or suspended field research such as Jenkins’, leaving the Many of these scientists work in limbo. Governments and health officials have told people to try working from home using remote communication tools. But for the most part, field scientists cannot do that; Their projects are based on the gathering of new information in the world. Unfortunately, many attributes of field research (international travel, limited access to medical tests or care, long periods of time shared) are also things that can help spread the coronavirus.
This disruption has left scientists feeling stranded, unsure of the future, and with more than a few logistical headaches. As grants near their end dates and researchers miss observations once a year or even once in a lifetime, they begin to grapple with how this temporary crisis will have lasting repercussions in the scientific community. The path forward for junior students and researchers, who rely on fieldwork to learn essential skills and collect data to start their own research, is now fraught with obstacles, creating a decisive effect for future scientific experience. In addition, the pause can mean delays to major progress in many areas, from fighting climate change to preventing the next pandemic.
“Right now, we are in a time of acute social need that requires good science,” Jenkins said. “Therefore, there is a real mandate to move forward with good science, while being empathetic to the health of the people who are really struggling during this.”
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“ANDyou can’t skype meetings with corals, “said Emily Darling, a scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, which coordinates monitoring of the world’s most threatened coral reefs.” Being underwater and being with communities that depending on reefs is the only way we have information about the health of a reef. That information is not available remotely. “
Right now, though, human health is Darling’s priority. His team has canceled trips to their study sites, asking all researchers to stay home for now. She was particularly concerned about team members visiting remote villages in countries such as Kenya and Fiji, where communities could be isolated from the coronavirus until a stranger inadvertently brought it into their environment.
“While our national staff may have access to medical care in urban centers, they would travel to communities that do not have the same level of care,” he said.
As his researchers take refuge on the spot, life in the sea is stirring and Darling knows important observations will be missed. One concern is that they may not be able to properly monitor an outbreak of a different type this spring – an often fatal reaction to high ocean temperatures called coral bleaching, which is currently moving through warming in the South Pacific. Some information can be gathered by flying over the reefs in small planes, but currently few institutions have access to such flights, nor do they want to expose their researchers to the tight quarters of a bush plane.
The nature of the fieldwork makes it difficult to reschedule delays. Field research often cannot be delayed for a few months; by then, the natural events that scientists want to observe may be over. And research ships and field stations can be shared by hundreds of institutions, requiring scientists to come online years in advance.
Take the case of Jenkins’ research trip, part of a broad NASA-led effort called Exports, or Export Processes in Remote Sensing Ocean, which seeks to investigate how the oceans absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere (including warming carbon dioxide), potentially for thousands of years. Her cruise would have monitored tiny floating ocean plants, phytoplankton, which have their largest bloom in the North Atlantic for just a few weeks in the spring. Because any post-quarantine projects currently planned will go ahead, it will likely be at least two years before your team can book a new trip.
In the coming months and years, delaying fieldwork also means delaying posts that would have come out of it. In the future, that could affect policy decisions that would ideally be based on the best and most current scientific data. This is of particular concern to scientists and policy-makers addressing issues that are already on borrowed time, such as in the case of exports, which is the collection of data that will allow more accurate predictions of global climate change.
With hundreds or thousands of other projects also on hiatus, Jenkins sees the echoes of this closure spread across the field of climate science: “If field programs that measure climate-relevant variables are canceled or put on hold, this is a step backwards for our contributions to understanding a rapidly changing ocean. “
Ravinder Sehgal, an associate professor in the biology department at San Francisco State University, fears that delays in his field due to the coronavirus may make it difficult to collect data that could help prevent the next pandemic. Sehgal studies how deforestation allows the disease to spread from animals to humans, and his field work, which includes monitoring the spread of malaria by mosquitoes and birds in Cameroon, is currently on hold. Projects like yours around the world are based on detailed timelines of how diseases are progressing that are now likely to present gaps from months to years.
“Without the continuity of annual population monitoring, we don’t have the data we need for a long-term study,” he said.
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Llike most science Field research is often based on grants that are awarded only for a specific period of time. Because of this, the main concern for many scientists is how project delays will affect scientists who are in their early careers, including the Ph.D. postdoctoral students and researchers.
When lead researchers apply for a project grant, they often request funds to support a PhD. postdoctoral student or researcher. These funds can now expire before students can gather the data necessary to finish their degrees or leave postdocs without a salary while they are still working on a project.
Matthew Smart could finish his degree without completing his field research, “although it would be a huge disappointment,” he said. A PhD candidate in geochemistry at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Smart planned to complete his dissertation using data from a trip to East Greenland scheduled for this summer. His research uses samples from a particularly well-preserved rock outcrop there to learn about what happened when Earth’s ancient plants developed roots and began producing soil. But that trip is only possible during a short window from August to September when the study site is not blocked by ice.
Smart is still hopeful, but said the job is increasingly likely to be canceled. That will push him and his advisor beyond the time limits on grants that fund his work, which means Smart is likely no longer a student by the time he returns to Greenland.
“Frankly, there is a significant health element to this crisis that trumps science,” said Smart. “We have to make sacrifices to” flatten the curve, “he added. In other words, keep the infection rate low enough to avoid overloading health systems.
Some grant-funded projects may extend their funds to make up for lost time. For example, all National Science Foundation grants are automatically eligible for a one-year extension at no cost, as well as additional extensions contingent on the approval of the foundation. Many universities and private foundations are developing special exceptions for research delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, these extensions do not necessarily guarantee additional money, only additional time. This could leave investigative teams in a difficult situation, especially if a grant must cover wages during the delay in addition to travel expenses.
“If this continues long enough, my main concern is that the students abandon their research entirely or move to other fields,” said Sehgal. “They can’t afford not to be doing anything.”
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Llike the hundreds Of millions of people around the world currently in stasis outside of normal life, scientists are thinking about the future of their work in the space between community sacrifice and self-interest. Interruptions of normal habits are necessary and are saving lives. But it is also understandable to process the conditions of this social contract through a personal lens: as disappointing, frustrating and worrying.
However, Darling of the Wildlife Conservation Society sees the pandemic in another light: as an opportunity for scientists to reconsider some of the ways in which they conduct field research. His organization already relies primarily on researchers based in the country, rather than flying scientists from other parts of the world. It is a model that she considers potentially useful for other projects.
A great advantage of doing this is that it reduces the carbon footprint of your research, but that is not the only advantage. “We know a lot about inequity in scientific resources and training, where Western researchers can travel and fly and do ‘helicopter science,'” Darling said, using a term for when a researcher spends only a short period in one place to collect data. before returning home.
“That is not a model that is sustainable, and it is not a model that is ethical,” he said. “So this new reality gives us the opportunity to develop online tools for collaborations, conferences, workshops and identify where we really need to travel and come face to face with our work.”
For now, most researchers are still trying to control the situation before they start planning for the future. They will teach classes remotely, review their writing, and read long-term assignments. They will look for ways they can help. Many are donating gloves, masks and chemicals that they will no longer need for their work. Some are volunteering on the ground. Given their training in microbiology, Jenkins and some of his colleagues have signed up to help with Covid-19 testing.
And they will wait, maybe they will miss the dramatic sweep of the Arctic landscapes or the stark beauty of the ocean environment, but stay focused on the present.
“We really hope this happens, as I am sure the rest of the world is, so we can get back out there,” Darling said. “But this is a rapidly moving crisis, and we have to deal with people first.”
Claudia Geib is a Cape Cod-based science writer and editor, specializing in marine and environmental science. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Hakai Magazine, and Atlas Obscura, among other publications. She is a graduate of the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing.
This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.
