- Dr. Niels Lindquist
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
I have been fascinated by coral reefs since the first time my family visited John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo when I was in grade school. After that trip, I set up a saltwater aquarium and stocked it with fish from my favorite pet store or that I caught snorkeling in the Florida Keys. I watched the fish in my tank for hours! SCUBA lessons were next for me at age 13, which opened up vast areas of reefs to explore that I could not reach snorkeling. I grew up in Gainesville, Florida and spent many days with friends trekking through forests and swamps, fishing and surfing. My family (dad, mom, and two brothers) also spent two long summers backpacking through the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico up through Idaho, which gave me an opportunity to look up in wonder at tall mountain peaks, as well as to have gazed down with amazement into the depth of the oceans.
These early outdoor adventures set in motion a desire to study what factors influence the ways in which organisms interact, particularly coral reef organisms. As a student at the University of Florida, the goal of my studies, which focused on chemistry and zoology, was to apply chemical knowledge and tools to ecological studies, a general research area known as chemical ecology. After graduating with a degree in chemistry from UF, I moved to La Jolla, California to begin graduate studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. My Ph.D. research examined the secondary metabolites produced by sea squirts and the ecological roles of these small organic molecules, many of which proved to effectively protect these reef creatures from predators. I had the great fortune as a graduate student to collect sea squirts from coral reefs in the Bahamas, China, Mexico, the Philippines, and the Seychelles Islands. From Scripps, I moved back to the East coast and established my research base at the UNC Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences. I've continued my research in marine chemical ecology and have expanded my studies to include investigations of larval ecology, marine symbioses, and the impact of sponges on the chemical environment and nutrient dynamics of coral reefs.
I've had the great fortune to dive on coral reefs around the world - sometimes for pleasure, sometimes working, but each dive is always an enlightening experience that plants in my mind another seed of imagination (which Einstein called more important than knowledge) and that creates a perspective on the underwater world unique to me. Today, the existence of many coral reefs is threatened, and it will take the collective imaginations, unique viewpoints, and hard work of scientists, coral reef managers, and interested divers and environmental policy makers to chart a course for saving these jewels of the oceans. My daughters are now snorkeling and SCUBA diving, and my hope is that they one day have the chance to see coral reefs that truly have the splendor and complexity that I saw when I was young. Advice to kids: stay in school, be bold and imaginative, and make a positive impact on the world around you.
