Meet Mote: Dr. Nick Whitney
By: Hayley Rutger
Dr. Nick Whitney is a postdoctoral scientist who recently joined Mote's Center for Shark Research. One of his specialties? Figuring out what sharks are doing. Whitney uses accelerometers to measure the fine-scale movements of sharks. One interesting finding? Nurse sharks mate only during the day in the Dry Tortugas.
Hometown: Jackson, Mich. Currently Bradenton, Fla.
How long have you been at Mote? Five months.
Your research focus? The main focus is putting accelerometers on nurse sharks to look at fine-scale aspects of their behavior. Accelerometers detect fine-scale body movements like tailbeats, so we can tell how fast a shark is swimming and when it's resting. We can also study their body orientation and even know when they're mating. When nurse sharks mate, their tails go up in the air and their heads go down, and they do lots of rolling. We're doing this research in the Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys where Mote adjunct scientists Wes Pratt and Jeff Carrier (Albion College) discovered nurse sharks mating over 17 years ago. Until Wes and Jeff came across this behavior, shark mating had not been well-studied in the wild.
A day in the field — er — water? We've been catching nurse sharks in shallow water and putting the accelerometers on. Then we try to track the sharks or watch them, to be sure that the accelerometers record their behaviors accurately. We track the sharks by attaching pinger tags, which make a sound that we pick up with a hydrophone — that's an underwater microphone that looks like something out of a James Bond film. The data are all stored onboard the tag, so we'll try to recapture the shark to get the tag back. We also attach the tags with links that corrode in seawater after a few days and allow the tags to drop off in case the shark is too wily to be caught twice — which is often the case.
Cool technology galore: Accelerometers are also used in digital cameras, iPods, the Nintendo Wii and cell phones. When you tip your phone to the side, its accelerometer tells it to turn the picture.
Interesting findings? None of the six nurse sharks we've studied have mated at night, which is surprising, since sharks are known to be active at night. But they're mating like crazy during the day.
What do you like most about your job? Being able to learn completely new and unexpected things about shark behavior. Shark researchers have gotten very good at tracking where sharks but have no idea what they're actually doing in different places. Their body movements tell a story about what they're up to, and learning to interpret that "language" and discover their secrets is very exciting.
How did you come to study sharks? Through a high school program, I raised endangered species of cichlid. It's a fish from Africa that broods its eggs in its mouth. They were extinct in the wild, and I ended up basically breeding them in my room. Later I studied sharks at Albion College in Michigan with Jeff Carrier, a Mote adjunct, as my advisor. I went to grad school at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. Then I came to Mote to do more nurse shark work with Jeff and Wes Pratt, and expand to other species as well.
Your spare time? My wife and I have two boys, a 3-year old and a 2-month-old. Most of our spare time is spent playing with them and taking care of them. Of course, we bring them to Mote Aquarium!
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Mote Marine Laboratory has been a leader in marine research since it was founded in 1955. Today, we incorporate public outreach as a key part of our mission. Mote is an independent nonprofit organization and has seven centers for marine research, the public Mote Aquarium and an Education Division specializing in public programs for all ages.
