Scientists are used to and trained for communicating with scientists. This includes presentation of research ideas and research projects in a short and comprehensible manner, scientific articles as well as oral and poster presentations at scientific conferences are typical examples. Usually, the audience comprises of higly trained scientists that work in the same or similar scientific discipline. Accordingly, a highly specialized language with numerous technical terms and acronyms is what many scientists feel most comfortable with when talking about their work. This is certainly fine as long as scientists are amongst themselves but becoming an issue if the public is to be addressed. Usually, it is frequently impossible for the average everyman to follow such presentations, and they may drop off very soon. Accordingly, a different language is needed, and this may require training.

I was recently confronted with the suggestion of presenting my research interest and my research projects through a sketch. I am certainly not an artist neither in my job nor in my spare time – nevertheless, I thought to give it a try. And here I will share with you the result of a first attempt.

When looking myself at my piece of research art (and it is certainly debatable if I should call it art) my first reflection was that I tried (intentionally?) to do it colorful. Certainly, color can attract attention, but color also may carry information. In this sketch, the blueish background may illustrate water as essentially all orgnaisms I am working on live in either freshwater or marine environments. My secong thought was on the variety of styles in the sketch. there seems to be an arbitrary mixture of basic drawing structures, letters, drawings, imported sketches and symbols and photos. I myself could not find a particular structure, but perhaps an indication of avoidance of drawings in response to my assumed (or real) poor drawing skills. Third, there seems to be both chaos and order represented in the sketch, and that attracted at least my attention.

So, what are the specific projects illustrated in the sketch? A common methodological approach for the research is the analysis of nucleic acid sequences (DNA), and DNA sequences consist of series of nucleotides abbreviated with the letters A, C, G and T. Such DNA information si applied to address various biological questions:
– The genetic diversity of bowhead whales (scientific name: Balaena mysticetus) in the Northeast Atlantic. Estimates of genetic diversity help scientists to understand the structure of a stock, population or species and are impotant for developing management and conservation strategies. In recent years, we used so called high-throughput sequencing data, which essentially sys that there is a huge amount of genetic information, and such data need to be assembled into larger scale (genomic) information. This is usually done by computer algorithms, and the process resembles the assembly of a big jigsaw puzzle.
– Another highly interesting marine mammal is the Hooded seal (scientific name: Cystophora cristata). The number of hooded seals in the North Atlantic has dramatically declined, and we are aiming at estimating genetic diversity in a similar way as we did for the bowhead whales. In this project we also plan to include material from scientific collections to address the changes in genetic diversity over time for this enigmatic species.
– There are three large groups of parasitic flatworms, namely tapeworms (scientific name: Cestoda), flukes (scientific name: Trematoda) and monogeneans, the latter ones infecting mainly fish. While most of the infections of fish with monogenean parasites do not cause too severe damage to the host, there is also examples of monogenean parasites killing substantial numbers of host individuals. The best known monogenean parasite, at least in Norway, is Gyrodactylus salaris infecting Atlantic salmon, which is also often referred to as the salmon killer. Parasitism is a very common lifestyle, and I am particularly interested how the activity of mobile genetic elements contribute to the adaptive potential of monogenean parasites. Mobile genetic elements can change their position within a genome, and if they do the downstream consequences are expected to be negative. However, there is also the potential for some positive effects, in particular when new fish hosts are explored during evolution.

So far, it was probably not too difficult to identify the graphical elements in the sketch that relate to the three research projects listed above. However, there are also several strange bean like elements randomly distributed over the sketch. What do they illustrate? This may be obvious for evolutionary biologist but very likely unclear to others. The intention was to put some emphasis on mitochondria, the power plants of cells. Essentially all animal cells contain mitochondria, and these structures are

of particular interest for evolutionary biologists as they contain their own genome. Typically, the mitochondrial genomes in animals are orders of magnitudes smaller than the genetic information we find in chromsomal structures in the nuclei of cells. Furthermore, they are usually inherited through the mother and evolve much faster than the chromosomal DNA – all features that make mitochondrial genomes very attractive to work with. Why are they depicted in the sketch? Simply because I use also in my projects to a large extent information from mitochondrial genomes.

After having drafted some explanations, I found my first attempt to illustrate my research through a sketch somewhat OK. Certainly, a lot can be improved when it comes to layout and artistic tools, and in my next attempts I will try to do so. However, the most important questions I could not answer myself. What do laymen think of the sketch? Do they find it attractive and interesting? Do they get an idea of what I am working with simply by looking at the sketch? And perhaps most important: would they start talking to me about my research? How would you react?

I am certainly interested in your feedback, and appreciate if you leave some comments on this blog post.