My articles try to simplify complicated biological issues so that they are understandable to non-biologists.
Many of the environmental problems that currently worry biologists do not have quick or easy fixes. Usually there are many different species involved, and the relationships between them can be very complicated and far from obvious. There is a lot of information available in the specialist literature, but distillation of this for public consumption often oversimplifies the issues. This is very unfortunate because effective intervention will often need action at governmental level, and pressure from a well-informed general public is essential.
Some of my articles attempt to tackle important issues in small chunks. For example the problems facing Coral Reefs are developed in several other articles. The relationship between shell-collecting and the Crown-of-thorns Starfish is touched on in the article about the Giant Triton, but I also try to explain how the starfish is an important member of the reef community.
The same article about the Giant Triton goes on to look at the relationship between agricultural run-off and Coral Reefs. This effect is not at all obvious. Increasing the amount of nutrients available to the coral animals causes them to eat less of the eggs and larvae of a starfish that will eat them when they grow up!
By concentrating on one or two species at a time, or going into details of one or two relationships, I am able to keep the science accurate. Attempting to cover many aspects and inter-relationships in one short article would require too much simplification and obscure the complexity.
I think it is important to present scientifically accurate biological information in a way that can be understood by non-scientists. Over-simplifying issues simply insults the reader’s intelligence.
