Plastic Pollution Research: How Microplastics Threaten Coral Reefs and What We Can Do About It

1:00:00 How do microplastics affect tropical marine systems like coral reefs, lionfish, or even just the shoreline? Sometimes you're walking along a beach and you look down and you see these blue and white and maybe green little pieces that are kind of laid out under the sand or maybe they're just exposed from the sand along this beach. You're on a beautiful beach, you've got a beautiful sunset going, the waves are crashing in and you see these little pieces. Those are microplastics. Those are not part of the ocean. They came in from the ocean at some point and they're just laid out on the beach and that can affect different types of animals within marine systems. So today we're going to actually discuss how it affects marine ecosystems and what we need to do about them and if policies and beach cleanups actually help.

1:00:49 We are going to talk to Dr. Lisa Rodriguez, who is an associate professor of geography and the environment at Villanova University. She is here to talk about her research and her lab's research on microplastics in marine tropical environments, including coral reefs, including lionfish, including the beaches along every shoreline that she works at in Puerto Rico, in Hawaii, and so forth. We're going to talk all about microplastics and the marine environment on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up with the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action on today's episode.

1:01:33 We are going to be talking about microplastics in the marine environment. We've heard about microplastics being in the air, in the water, in our bodies. It's everywhere. It is something that is a huge concern from a health perspective of humans and from an environmental health perspective. When we talk about the planet, we use microplastics and single plastics more and more every day beyond plastic straws. Okay, we'll go beyond, although we discussed it in this interview, we go beyond plastic straws. We go and just what connects and what traps coral reefs and how it's affecting coral reefs, how it affects fish like lionfish, which is invasive. So we're going to study those. And we also look at sediment cores. We talk a little bit at the end about studies to come and when microplastics actually started in the marine environment.

1:02:22 This is a great episode. Dr. Lisa Rodriguez, a professor of geography and the environment at Villanova University, is here today to discuss her research on microplastics in the marine environment, not just on coral reefs, which is, I thought, first, what we were going to be talking about focusing most of the show on, even though we talked a lot about that. But there's other parts of the marine environment that are affected by microplastics and something that we need to be concerned with. And we need to make sure that the efforts that are done with beach and coastal cleanups, as well as policies in place to ban specific single use plastics, do they actually work? And sometimes they may work, but we don't actually see it for ourselves anecdotally when we're out in the marine environment. It's a little bit misleading, but the data shows that it actually works.

1:03:06 So we're going to find out all about that and why that is in this interview with Dr. Lisa Rodriguez. So here is the interview enjoy and I will talk to you after. Hey Lisa, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about microplastics and their effects on coral reefs? Hey Andrew, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and to chat more about that. All right, I'm looking forward to this is gonna be a lot of fun. I say a lot of fun because we're gonna be talking about studies and research that are that's going on. Obviously the topic doesn't sound like a lot of fun in terms of the effects on coral reefs, but we're going to get into all of that. Before we do, though, Lisa, why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do? Sure. My name is Lisa Rodriguez. I'm a professor at Villanova University, which is just outside of Philadelphia.

1:03:51 Awesome. Now, studying in Philadelphia coral reefs, not something that you find every day. I live in Burlington, Ontario, just outside of Toronto, surrounded by the Great Lakes. I say I'm a marine biologist. Everybody's like, what are you doing in Ontario? So I want to know how did you end up in in in Philadelphia? Obviously a fantastic university. How did you end up in Philadelphia? Yeah, so I first moved to Philadelphia to do my PhD here at the University of Pennsylvania where I did study coral reefs. Most of that field work though was done in Hawaii. So that's not a bad deal, right?

1:04:31 Not a bad deal at all. Part of your time in Philadelphia, part of your time in Hawaii. Yeah. Before that, I actually was in your neck of the woods. I did a master's at the University of Toronto. Awesome. Yeah. I lived in Toronto for a few years. I got my undergrad from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. But I actually grew up and I think where a lot of my interest came from is I grew up in Bermuda. And so on a tiny island in the Atlantic surrounded by corals and coral reefs. And I think, you know, that was just is what sort of generated my interest in marine biology and corals.

1:05:12 And I think that's sort of what led me down this path to where I am today. That's quite an adventurous childhood to grow up in somewhere like, you know, very small island of Bermuda. That's a huge destination from for people here in Canada because it's so close. And it's such a lovely island. I had a friend who lived out there. She was an accountant over there, which a lot of accountants start their careers over there. And she would scuba dive on on her as a hobby. And she learned to scuba dive there. And then she would got into the internet.

1:06:05 And then she just comes in a bit of retaliate. And then led her to a group group part of TagOUT G showing out, a supervisor who wrote this book of ten textiles on an Indian site, he thought he let her do a subpartite. But she was like, Well, like, I can't stop. And then she didn't express her ability to work specifically up to find a Pra Fantasy that that she had just published. If not, I'm talking aboutNo one practice. or seeing the degradation of reefs and other animals and environments as you grew up. Did you notice as a child or was it just like so young that you didn't have a chance to notice that? I think some aspects I noticed. So certainly there were things that would wash up on the shore when you would go to the beach that clearly didn't come from local areas, but I definitely more when I go back now, my family still lives there. And when I travel back over the years that I've lived away that I feel like those are the times where I've really noticed it much more is just sort of seeing that increase over time.

1:06:53 It was actually a few years ago, I was visiting over the winter holidays and we had all gone out, my family and other families, we'd gone out to a restaurant that is right on the beach. And after we had lunch, we were walking along the beach. And I was so surprised by basically every step that I took, there were pieces of microplastic that I could see as we were just walking. And that was actually, I mean, I'd studied corals for many years prior to that, but that was probably the first time where I realized, oh, this is something else that I think we really need to learn more about.

1:07:38 It's so interesting you mentioned that because I was just, I just got back from a trip in Hawaii, beautiful place. Obviously, you just talked about it, you know, a lot of corals, a lot of studies that are being done there. And the one thing I noticed, we went to this wonderful beach, Lanakai Beach, gorgeous area on a wall. Oh, I know that. Yeah, that is a great place. It's beautiful. The sand is like fine, fine, fine sand. It feels so great on your feet. We that's the beach where we notice the microplastics the most. And the funny thing is I overheard some people saying like the people that were besides they thought it was something from the ocean. Like they thought it was, you know, sometimes you have these little pieces of what looks like glass, but it's not glass. It's actually from the ocean. And they thought that's what it was. They thought it was from the ocean. They didn't like the fact that I told them, actually, it's not marine biologist here.

1:08:22 That's not from the ocean. I mean, it's from the ocean, but it shouldn't be. It's a microplastic. But they had no idea. Do you think there is a like from I mean, obviously you and I know, especially doing a lot of work on microplastics and so forth. Do you find that there's a lot of people that may not know how to identify those microplastics if they just see it on a beach because sometimes it's kind of hidden. Sometimes it's white and sometimes it's blue. So sometimes it could look like a shelf. You don't touch it. Do you find that there's a little bit of that naivete around that? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think I think that goes for all kinds of litter and debris. Right. We don't. So, you know, if you think about just driving your car around the road or something, unless you what what I've learned in the last couple of years, working with people doing cleanups is that when you start looking for it, realize that it's so pervasive and is everywhere.

1:09:17 But that until you reach that point where your eye is kind of trained for it and doesn't take long to become sort of trained with this is then you see it everywhere and it's actually really difficult not to see it. Like we actually apologize to people when they join us in cleanups for the first time because because we say, you know, this is great. And we're happy that you're here. But just so you know, you're never going to look and you're going to see this everywhere. No matter where you look, you'll see. Yeah. And so that applies to what we would call macro debris, like the larger pieces, as well as the microplastics is once you start to see it, you realize just how pervasive it really is.

1:10:00 And it's like you want more people to know that. But you also don't want to ruin people's sort of idea of what the ocean is and what it should be and what a beach should be our shoreline should be. But once you learn it's like, ah, these scientists, they're always bringing us down, making us more aware of stuff, you know. But it's it's it's interesting, you know, as as you grow up, you know, in a place like Bermuda and the idea of just Bermuda just sounds wonderful. Right. It must have been a fun childhood. And you you again, you don't, as you mentioned, you probably didn't really notice a lot of the things that that happened there. And maybe, you know, when you're a child, like when I was a child, it maybe wasn't as persistent as it was today.

1:10:40 And as we use more and more plastics, when I when I grew up, Coke was still out of a glass bottle. You know, that's the generation that I've from. So may not have been persistent as it is today. What type of sort of like games did you get up to or what kind of like life did you have as a child growing up in an island? Were you in the water a lot or, you know, some island communities don't like to be in the water a lot. There's a definite fear. Were you always, always wanting to be in the water growing up, you know, being a marine biologist? I definitely was. I mean, I don't I had I know what you mean about sometimes people prefer not to be in the water. And I definitely know people who fit into that category.

1:11:21 But for for me, I was always I was always in the ocean. So, you know, that's where I learned how to swim, was being sort of thrown out of a boat and sort of to see what's going to happen. And and, you know, a lot of my summer jobs through the time that I was in school, but also when I would go home from university were were related to to the marine environment in some way. It's just some aspects of science locally. I like my favorite place there still, I feel like I could give them a plug is if you if you're visiting from you to go check out the Bermuda Aquarium Museum and Zoo.

1:12:05 It's like a wonderful place. You can't get into the water. That's like a really great place to see the fish and of the other animals that we have there. And really just that I spent a lot of my time there and then also involved in research as I got older as well. And so, yeah, I really did. We really did spend our time like I remember playing with sea cucumbers on the beach in my summer holidays because we would collect them and then play with them on the on the beach afterwards before putting them back. Right. Yeah, so it's just to me, it was just like the normal thing that you did. And those were the kinds of things that I learned about and really grew to appreciate and love.

1:12:50 And it was really, I think, getting my interest in science and and having, you know, sort of a more science background as I went into college and university was really about wanting to understand how those different things worked, what was going on in the ecosystem. And I was just always really interested in just learning more about them. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's for me as someone who has the same likes. I mean, that is the dream, right, is to grow up and to be around the ocean. Can you pinpoint a time in your life where you're just like, I want to learn more about these and this is what I want to do as a career, like as a because growing up, you know, you're near the Bermuda Institute of Oceanography, you are around the water.

1:13:35 Was there any time in that childhood or did that come later as you went to university? And I so I think it was really early on, actually. Yeah. Like I said, for me, it was there. I was sort of spent more time at the aquarium and they have a research component there as well. And so I think, you know, probably from the time that I was in middle school, maybe even earlier than that, I I knew that I like my dream job probably still would be to work there. But yeah, like I knew that I didn't I didn't know like what it meant to be a scientist really or to be a professor.

1:14:19 So that wasn't on my radar. Right. But I knew that I wanted to do science. They knew that I wanted to do science, be involved in science in some way related to to the marine environment. And so and so that's actually why I ended up going to Dalhousie was that they have a really good marine program there on the East Coast. Yeah. Yeah. And they've they've diversified quite a bit now. Their marine affairs program and their their science and research is just top notch in Canada. It's it's it's quite lovely. That's awesome. So you have like, you know, growing up from, you know, obviously Canada is really close. So you learn about Canada and then you end up in the U.S. Right. Afterwards.

1:15:00 And when you come out of of Dalhousie, was it still coral reefs on your mind? Was that still what you wanted to study or was there is was is that when the microplastics started to come into play? No. So, yeah, my sort of research sort of trajectory was after I finished, I had a degree in biology from Dalhousie. I knew that I wanted to do a master's. I really enjoyed I had some experience doing research at Dalhousie and I knew that I wanted to kind of keep doing that. So I looked around. I ended up doing a project actually partially based in Bermuda and partially based in Toronto on.

1:15:42 I worked in a lab that focused on crustacean behavior and I studied an organism that's on reefs. It's a hermit crab that's actually endemic to Bermuda. OK, that's actually really cool. It's a really cool hermit crabs. Hermit crabs are awesome. That one of the things that I found out about it is that the the males are primarily mobile in the way that we would imagine hermit crabs to be. They walk around in shells, but it's unique in that the majority of females of the species actually live in tubes that are fixed to the reef. And so they cannot move around. And I did not know that. Yeah. And so it's a really interesting.

1:16:24 Again, I would. This is one. I haven't studied this in years and years. Yeah. Look at it again. But there's there's a lot of kind of just interesting behavior that we studied related related to that, like whether there was some choice in what the females were doing. Turns out that there's not. They're kind of relegated to live in things like suboptimal little tubes. Yeah. That's so I studied that at the University of Toronto. I actually took a year off after that and worked in Bermuda at at the aquarium doing research more on terrestrial work there. And then I ended up finding an opportunity at the University of Pennsylvania to do a PhD.

1:17:08 And that's really where I got into like corals, coral ecosystems. Right. And it wasn't until in the last sort of like five or six years that I've been at Villanova as a faculty member that it just sort of became clear that studying plastics, marine debris in general, as well as micro plastics was something that I would like to do to more of. I've been working with a colleague of mine in my department who focuses on river ecosystems and we were studying in Puerto Rico, the impacts of pollutants coming down the river, mostly focused on sort of dissolved pollutants like sediments and things like that.

1:18:01 And so we were able to get funding to continue that work. And that's kind of how I sort of transitioned into that area. Okay. And now, you know, we've seen, you know, micro plastics really come to the forefront of sort of one of the major issues, I would say in in the ocean in general, even in our world. I think it's really exploded over the last, I'd say five or six years, especially the last two years where we're starting to see studies come out and being published of, you know, micro plastics being in our body, being in the air, being in the water. And as as marine biologists growing up in the last two decades, you know, we've seen microplastic.

1:18:44 We knew that was a microplastic problem before there was a microplastic, even just a plastic debris problem. We knew that was a problem. We could see it, you know, continuing. Not much had been done with it over the last two decades. Now we're really starting to see more policies put in place, studies being done, really starting to see some of the major consequences of these actions and the non-actions of what hasn't taken place. Seeing, you know, studying coral reefs and marine debris. Why coral reefs at this point? You know, like it's such a broad subject and obviously you want to niche into a certain place. Totally understandable. Why coral reefs?

1:19:25 So there's there are so many other stressors that are on coral reefs, some of which I've studied. And so this, you know, we all there are many studies that have shown when you have these sort of multiple stressors, just like with humans, you know, you're sick, you're more likely to have something else happen to you or you, you know, it's harder to do things. And that's the same thing with corals is while they're much simpler organisms, they're, they're definitely this sort of compounding aspect of multiple stressors is something that is really important because we're sort of throwing many, many things at them. And so this sort of felt like kind of a natural next step for the research that I was doing was previously mostly focused on some of the physiological impacts, like sort of what's happening in the corals body when different stress stressors happen.

1:20:20 And so to sort of now tie in this other aspect, I know we haven't directly there. There are other studies out there. We haven't directly in my lab looked at what the direct impacts are of microplastics on corals in part because it's very difficult to study in the field, which I think is where the important questions are. And so instead what we've been doing is looking at some of the more broader ecosystem impacts of beaches, mangroves and tropical river systems that are sort of all adjacent to coral reef ecosystems.

1:21:07 And so we're looking at where it lands. So like, where does it sit for a little for a while, because then that can kind of tell us where we're more likely to find microplastics and maybe also give us some clues as to where, where we can kind of do some prevention and more management activities. And so I just got into a lot there and I want to kind of break it down a little bit. Sure. There's there was so much there that was kind of juicy from a scientific point of view that I wanted to break down. We talked about cumulative effects in in coral reefs. Now, obviously, you know, we have bleaching because of major heat, sun, like even even more sunlight exposure. We have ocean acidification are some of the three major things that have caused, you know, mass coral bleaching in the past and even just the development of with ocean acidification.

1:21:56 The problem in developing stony corals or any kind of coral that uses calcium and so forth. And I don't want to go into the details of that because we've covered it on other podcasts and we want to focus on the on the microplastics here. It, but when you when you start to look at you mentioned in the field, it's very difficult to study just the direct impact of microplastics on these corals because we have all these other things that are affecting it at the same time. Is it possible I know for some people, some researchers where they actually take corals and grow them in situ or not in situ, but in a lab where they can manipulate the environment a little better to tease out some of the some of those cumulative effects.

1:22:42 So in essence, like control light control heat and then expose them to microplastics. Has that been done so far before or have you done that or anybody else in that? Yes. Yes. So there are several studies where people have done laboratory experiments like you were describing to assess the impacts and or where they have, you know, they have sort of varied questions. Sometimes the simple question of do will corals consume microplastics or not. And it and there's kind of a mixed bag of results, I think in terms of what's out there. So depending on the species, depending on the sort of the details of the study, you can find that corals.

1:23:29 Corals, yes, will eat microplastics and consume them. They tend to be more likely to do so if the microplastics have a biofilm on them. So, you know, like if you leave something with water in water, it no matter what, even if the water looks crystal clear and clean, there's bacteria in there that will end up causing like a sort of a like a slimy film on the surface of things. Yeah. And so that's that's a biofilm is there's where there's a sort of like microbial activity that coats the surface of something. And that we think the sort of the the thought behind that is that that ends up being like a mimicry to something that would be food.

1:24:14 And so the corals might just be pulled and other organisms to might be pulled into thinking that this sort of seems like it is something edible. And so they ingest it. In the case of corals. The other thing that's kind of interesting is they have also been known to spit out microplastics so they ingest. And so it's hard to know how much actually stays in so corals polyps are just a really simple sack. Yes, they have just one opening, unlike humans and other animals, we have to opening, they just have one. And so, you know, food and waste comes goes in and out of the same opening.

1:24:59 And so they also don't really have they have a stomach, but it's not really the same kind of thing that we have. And so they don't it's unclear how much digestion is is going on or whether they're the same issues that we see with birds or fish when it comes to ingestion of plastics. So anyhow, they there's there is this sort of like complicated story I think of they definitely do consume. They seem to consume more when they're covered with biofilm.

1:25:53 And so they are able to also e jest. They are able to sort of determine. So, that's, that's, that's, that's out for my understanding of what we kind of know so far. Yeah, it's such a broad kind of subject mattering I think a lot of people think corals they don't think of how many different species of corals there are around the world right there's a lot of different ones they all react differently to heat to temperature to to ocean acidification and I'm sure they all, you know, will will be different when it comes to microplastics and their exposure to microplastics just like nutrients and so forth. So it becomes a difficult thing to, you know, to study from the study where you did in the river system where you looked at sort of how debris would affect the entire ecosystem.

1:26:43 Was that the approach you took it when you first started looking at corals is just how does it affect a coral reef instead of an individual coral, or did you go to the individual first. So for corals we typically the way that I've been studying it as we focus on individual species. Okay, and not as much on the overall system although we try to draw conclusions that can apply to the overall system. And so, in, in part, I think some of that is because the corals that I've been sitting mostly are in Hawaii. And there are fewer species that are that are there, especially in a particular bay that we work in, where there's much of the bay is dominated by two, two very distinct species and so a lot of the work that I've done has been focused on sort of a comparative We tend to, at least for me I tend to focus on on the coral and I think that's in part just because I would consider myself to be more of a physiologist, like sort of trying to understand how the underlying biology is working in this.

1:27:59 That makes sense, that makes complete sense. Now at this point of the podcast, people are listening and they hear, okay, so you're at Villanova University, fantastic university, right? One of the best in the country. You do field work in Hawaii. So the first thing people are gonna ask me is, how do I work with Dr. Rodriguez so that I can live in Philadelphia and then I can go to Hawaii once, maybe twice a year? Do you get a lot of students who are also interested? Because coral reef is, you know, when you first get into marine biology, especially students, they want to learn about, you know, the top subjects are marine mammals, sharks, and then you have coral reefs. Do you get a lot of people who come and be like, hey, look, I've seen your work.

1:28:40 I like what you do. I like where you go. To try to kind of ensure that the people who do work in the field are ones who are able to deal with the less glamorous aspects of, you know, your elbow deep in seawater on a regular basis in tanks and corals smell funny and long hours. We study coral reproduction and that happens at times during happy hour typically.

1:29:24 So, you know, we gotta watch corals reproduce instead of going to happy hour. So things like that. We yeah, it's not as glamorous. There's, you know, it's while it's amazing and it's beautiful. It's a really wonderful experience and I feel very privileged to have had them. You know, it's also you're working in the hot sun. It's hard work. It's a lot of hard work. It's it can be very physical. This just swimming alone, you know, and you work while you're swimming is a lot. But yeah, we do. We definitely we definitely don't suffer from lack of volunteers for working in Hawaii or Puerto Rico, which is another, which is another area.

1:30:08 Yeah, not too bad in places, right? Now, but like, you know, talking about working in in in these places like in the ocean, if you're you know, a lot of times you can find corals in shallow areas. But also, you know, I just went to you know, to Hawaii, like I mentioned, I just got back and I saw that there were, you know, hazards in the ocean in terms of currents and riptides and, you know, being along the shore in those areas can be quite dangerous in a way. You know, the big the big saying there is don't turn your back ever on the ocean because you never know what it's going to do the bay that you believe you said there's one bay that you that you worked in.

1:30:50 Yes. Where is it? And then and then and how does it how is that in terms of safe and safety is in that area? Sure. So we work primarily off of the coast of Oahu, which is the main island of Hawaii where where Honolulu is located. Yeah, but on the sort of the opposite side of the mountains from Honolulu, there's a marine institute there called the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. And when I was a graduate student to my PhD and then also since then as a faculty member of the one over, we've been working there on and off. It's located in Kaneohe Bay, the largest base. There is not too far from Lani Kai that you were talking about earlier.

1:31:36 Yeah, it's a very sheltered bay. The the Marine Institute is is itself on a small island and that island is completely surrounded by fringing reefs. So you don't you barely need to get your toes wet in order to be able to see the corals and you and even then you you could stay fairly dry and see them from land. So everything is fairly close. It's one of the reasons why there's just so much research that is actually done at that location. It's it's it's relatively easy to work with. And then throughout that day, there are also patch reefs that are kind of distributed throughout the inner part of the day.

1:32:22 And then as you get further out into the into like just sort of at the mouth of the bay, things can sometimes be a little bit more choppy. But you know that usually those are more experienced people will go right that work out there. So yeah, so yeah, it's a it's a nice it's a nice place. It has it. Yeah, they have really great facilities in terms of on on the island itself to be able to do experiments. And so we've done before tank experiments where we can bring corals into tanks and seawater and do some manipulations and things like that. So there's there's a lot of different things. Yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah, that's amazing. You mentioned earlier, you know, looking at where corals are situated was important.

1:33:11 You know, near the mouths of river rivers, but not all corals are near the mouth of mouths of rivers. We know rivers can be a spot where debris comes out and micro plastics are created through that. So have you found a difference in terms of corals that are closer to rivers being exposed to marine debris compared to coral reefs that are further away from those rivers? Is there a significant difference in those types of exposures? Yeah, that's a really great question. No, it kind of depends. So we haven't we've seen more sediment impacts than direct debris impacts in those but there'd be some parallels is my guess.

1:33:57 So the corals that are closest to the mouths of rivers tend to be heavily impacted by sediments, but I've also seen in some locations. So in Puerto Rico, where we work, some of the healthiest corals that I've seen in that region. Are right at the mouth of where the there that they're so well adapted to living there. You know, this this was a place where I had to hold hands with my dive buddy in order to be able to not lose them because I couldn't see them. I could even barely see their bubbles from scuba diving. That's kind of insane. Yeah, that was it was like just pea soup plus there. And yet the corals that we just like and you know you don't because it's so just what the visibility is so bad you kind of it's sort of like this otherworldly kind of experience where you kind of swim up until they're right in front of your face you realize, oh, wait, this is a coral.

1:34:56 Right. And I think that's what I was, we're so healthy and what I would describe as a happy for its polyps were all extended. It was happily feeding so there can be some definitely some local adaptations that are probably happening. And it's funny, we don't see as much debris in those kinds of areas. I'm sure it's there at the micro level it's just very difficult to measure and quantify. But there's, you know, we tend to see most things are will be on a reef in terms of debris, where you have kind of protrusions on the reef things that, you know, that debris can get wrapped around or trapped on.

1:35:49 But I think that a lot of the sort of when the reef is a little bit more smooth than the debris tends not to get caught, at least the bigger pieces. And so we typically don't see it all that much it kind of varies. So when you say smooth, are you talking about like, like flat type of corals? Exactly. Almost like plate corals. Yeah. So more of like, or even sort of rounded mounding corals. Right. So where there's less kind of crevices or less upper where where you have more branching corals and yes, or other branching structures or where it does seem like you're more debris is piling up and stays and seems there.

1:36:37 That's interesting. That's that's really yeah I think that's cool. That's cool to see those those types of differences again looking at the different species and diversity of the shapes of the corals in certain in terms of how it kind of intersects with all these different pathways that they get exposed. Right. So you see parallels in other ecosystems as well. So in mangroves, which are usually adjacent to these coral reef ecosystems and our trees that are going to grow in salt water. They, their roots tend to be the places that get, you know, plastic bags or rope or things like that twined around them and you see that that becomes like sort of an obvious feature sometimes.

1:37:22 But that in in other areas that are maybe more flushed where the water is able to, yes, bring things in, but then also pull stuff out. It may not, you know, water bottles or things like that might not stick around all that long in the system. Because it wouldn't necessarily stick or connect to it. Exactly. Exactly. It's not getting trapped in the same way. So there's so there's the variety of the way the ecosystem looks, but then there's also the variety of the trash that we that we produce and how that how that plays into it. Yeah. And even though seeing a water bottle is not good in the ocean, it may not affect the corals in that situation.

1:38:04 Exactly. It may not have the same kind of abrasive or shading impacts that that rope or plastic bags can have. Is there, you know, with all these different adaptations, different shapes and different features of a coral and even where they're where they grow and where they they're located. Is there a common method that you can evaluate the health of the coral in terms of, you know, being exposed to microplastics, you know, because a lot of times when we hear about like microplastics in marine mammals, we see it in their tissue and the chemicals. And there's an increase in the chemicals from those microplastics in their tissue.

1:38:45 So they obviously obviously absorb it into their system. Doesn't sound like this is happening with corals or am I wrong here? We just not gotten to that part. I think I don't know that we know yet. Okay. How much chemically there's being an impact there there's an impact or not. So yeah, I'm not sure that we're there yet with corals. One of the things one of the features that we typically that has typically well there's two things that we typically study. One is sort of their photosynthetic potential. So like how rarely do we remember that corals are symbiotic between an allergy and endosymbic symbiotic algae and an animal.

1:39:26 And then how good the photosynthesis is is one parameter that we tend to look at when we're looking at that health of the overall coral. And then another parameter that we tend to look at are sort of the energy reserves, like how much fats or carbohydrates or proteins are being built up in in the animal portion of that. And so possibly the plastics could impact both of those areas depending on how significant it is like you know ingestion of microplastics could cause sort of hypothesized to maybe cause self shading or shading to happen and maybe algae can't photosynthesize and then if you can't photosynthesize then you're not taking in energy.

1:40:14 So there could be these kind of cascading effects. Some of the species of one of the species that I've studied in the past in Hawaii is a really big feeder. So one of the ways that it is able to survive coral bleaching is that it tends to feed on plankton more. And so that could also be another impact if you're if your little gut is full of plastics, you know, you won't be able to maybe feed as much or digest what you do feed on plankton. And so there could be these other things. But at least as far as I know, I haven't seen studies yet that have taken it to that level that sort of physiological level with microplastics and corals.

1:41:07 And so that's really cool. Like to see it feels like we're just scratching the surface, no pun intended in terms of what what it could do and really bringing a light into again no pun intended in terms of how this like the physical aspect of trash being on a reef like a plastic bag being used for is amazing. I was I was walking in the marina where our hotel was and there were the corners of the marina where you just see the devastation of a lot of the trash that accumulates within a marina, whether that's from the boaters themselves or just a way that this is where the currents led them to. And then this is and this is where it is. But there were wasn't just like plastic grocery bags. There were some like industrial bags and there was like a lot of debris that you would not expect oil caps and things like that.

1:41:57 And so it was quite devastating to see that in you know what I expected like Hawaii to be pristine and and so forth. I think it's just you know you falling for that dream of this these Hawaiian waters being so amazing but they they fall victim to a lot of pollution, whether it's from the island itself or from outside of the island. And so when you do studies like this, you obviously doing it to see the effect to see how we can manage it better right in the overall aspect of how can we lower the effect of of of marine I guess marine debris on coral reefs themselves, especially from this physical aspect.

1:42:42 I know it's early on in the process, but what have you come up with? What have you seen or even talk to colleagues or even come up with yourself? We're just saying like, how can we get rid of this problem? Like, how can we stop it? Corvies tend to be really close to shore. And so I think that's one of the first sort of one of the first types of ecosystems that really feels the impact of this debris. What can we do as a society and and and just like to force policies to get to stop this from entering the water or even affecting the corals? And so I think that's one of the first types of ecosystems that really is important to remember, and I think that's one of the first things that's important to remember is that we can work on this.

1:43:41 And so when you get to your local lake or river, that is eventually is getting to the ocean. And so every piece of litter, you know, that is in the city of Philadelphia, which is where I live, will eventually end up end up in the ocean. And I think that I think that's important for people to be aware of and remember because I think when, especially if you're a person who loves the ocean. You know, you're a person who loves the ocean as well. Or your town or your neighborhood. Yeah. And kind of thinking about those sort of local things that you could do. I think sometimes there's such a disconnect.

1:44:31 I think that's one thing that's really important where we need to sort of do better at litter and waste management on all sorts of levels, even if we're not a coastal community. Although as you know, coastal communities, I think, especially and usually those are the places where people are very conscious of those kinds of things. We also find that this debris travels really long distances. So some of the things that we found on beaches in Puerto Rico, we are pretty sure have come from the coast of Africa, because of some of the writing on them.

1:45:24 We think we find some things from the coast of Brazil, most likely, again, because of the writing and the language. In some cases, like the item that we're pretty sure has come from a Brazilian grocery store was printed in in 2015 and we're finding it in 2021. So, you know, so not only are they traveling long distances, but these things are in the environment for a really long time. And so anything that we can do to remove the item in the first place properly dispose of it, maybe also rethink what we purchase too. And this is tough because, you know, as as a society, especially if your listeners are maybe mostly in North America, you are going to have, we don't have a lot of choice, it's really hard to find like so I sometimes will spend a lot of time in the grocery store where I try to find the same product, but in glass, instead of in plastic or something like that, or, or can of some sort. Exactly. Or, you know, switch to something that is more paper or, you know, instead of shampoo in a bottle.

1:46:37 What about shampoo in a bar form which is now a thing. Yeah. So I think thinking about the small things that we as individuals can really do to to pick up the waste when we can but also not to be producing it in the first place, I think, can be really beneficial. And then there's also you know like then I'd say sort of the next scale up in terms of community action. We see really big improvements with regular with regular cleanups. So one of the things that we do in Puerto Rico. We did them twice a year at first and then the wonderful people that are there are super excited by this and so they've been doing them more regularly on a bi monthly basis at two different beaches.

1:47:26 80% of the degree that we find at these beaches is plastic 80% and so if you but we also see that if you do these regular cleanups. You can significantly reduce the total amount that you find. I mean it's crazy to think about but you could go every two months to the same spot and still trash, even though you cleaned it up, you know, spotless two months ago. And so, having that kind of regular investment in people time and effort, I think is also really important because doing that builds really big awareness, right, like start to really appreciate and start to really think about well if I don't want to spend my Saturday morning doing this.

1:48:15 What are some other things that I can do to prevent this from happening in the first place. We also work with a lot of local restaurants in the area near the beaches in Puerto Rico to try to encourage them to reduce the packaging that they use to distribute food and so that can also be something you know, in terms of the businesses that you support. And so, you know, maybe your favorite restaurant or or shop or whatever that is by the beach, you could always encourage them to think about paper instead of plastic or you know, or or dishware instead of plastic, and those can all have kind of long standing I think benefits on that kind of scale.

1:49:06 Yeah. I think that's all phenomenal things because I really like just working locally, you know, and it seems like a lot of this community driven, not only individually but community like the cleanups comes from a community aspect but it comes from. It comes from organizations like rare it comes from a place of pride, you know, like you clean up if you spend the time as a community to clean up these beaches or these waterways, whether you're in Philadelphia you're in Burlington you're in Hawaii you're in Puerto Rico, you can you see the difference. Over time, and you start to say hey we're this we actually can make a difference locally we may not be able to make it from a world perspective but we can make it locally we can keep our Bay, or, or whatever clean in this particular area, and then we take pride and we can talk to people about that and put in and, you know, going over what works what doesn't successes and challenges to help other communities do the same thing. I love that aspect. I even love the aspect again talking about local community, going to your favorite eatery and just be like hey like, I see that you know you have a lot of plastic containers, you can you just put in a bag or can we do something else it'll really help. We clean up the beach like twice a month and there's this I see this stuff all the time. Can we move I really like that connection, and I feel like we've moved away from that especially in North America we've moved away from that local connection and having that relationship

1:50:37 with people you respect, not from a place of hey don't do this you're an awful person but hey, I've seen this happen. And, and a lot of times, you know, your branding was on it you don't want to see that at like let's let's try and figure out ways to do it whether it works or not is something to be to be said like something to look ahead at but I feel like that that really helps in terms of of this of this type of moment but it seems like people are really just continue to be disconnected from the ocean I you know even being even being in Hawaii, I saw a lot of things that surprised me, you know, and it comes back to this. You know, the first thing is you're at a lot of restaurants when you go away.

1:51:17 Every time a drink came, there was a straw, you know, compostable biodegradable or compostable straws which I know aren't really compostable they're basically plastic, and and you just sit there and you're like, look, I understand people don't are sick of the plastic straw thing, I get it. And I understand maybe there was we went too far as as a as a conservation sort of plethora of like conservation community to really focus in on that. To me, it was like a gateway to other plastics and are just our usage of plastics. But it seems like people are almost rebelling against that, you know, you see the the current administration. We've seen people just regular people just being like, I'm just sick of it. I don't want to have a paper straw.

1:52:04 How do we as as the scientific community as a conservative people interested in conservation, not even scientists. How do we combat that like what's your opinion on that. When we start to see people rebel against the conservation things that we want people to take. I sort of see it as a sort of a fatigue in a way, right, we're just so sick of and I get that I totally understand that there's, you know, sometimes you hear so much about something that just doesn't kind of connect like why are we caring about this tiny little tube. Yeah, I mean, I think one one aspect that I think is important to keep in mind that maybe will help with this is all of these larger pieces of plastic that we use just one time, whether we dispose of them correctly, or we don't all of those things will end up as micro plastics and as they as they degrade and you know so all of the kind of health impacts and the things that are these like scary headlines that you mentioned at the at the start about where we find where we're finding micro plastics in the human body.

1:53:15 We can potentially reduce the total number of micro plastics, if we just get the big things out and we stop utilizing them. And also, you know, I think it's also important to remember with plastic that there are these big pros and cons you know it's so imagine you're you have to go to your doctor's office. You are going to be pretty darn sure, and that you want your doctor to be using all kinds of plastic right plastic gloves plastic, everything, whatever, because you can see the package being open you know that it's sterile you know that it's, you know, so there are definitely places hospitals are one where we want to be using yes single use plastics and where they're really important for people's health.

1:54:06 And, but then there are places where we don't need them, like if if for the majority of people who are who are healthy and have good motor function, they should be able to drink out of the glass without a straw, you don't use even a paper straw, really, right. And so, you know, it's to think about, I feel like, what are, I think as a society, we need to decide what are the types of plastics that we all admit, yes, actually, these are really important and in these situations this is when we want to use them. But that, you know, I don't need a plastic bag to carry my loaf of bread home from the store with me, you know, like I don't, I don't need a plastic straw in order from it from my glass when I go out, because I don't use when my guess is is most people don't use them when they're at home. Right.

1:55:04 And so I think it's, I feel like that's the thing that we maybe need to get out is is to for for scientists and policymakers and conservationists to to more be more upfront about the fact that it's you know it's not just about the straw it's it's about all of these things that we really don't need to use so that we can be in the position to decide which ones we do want to use and what are the what's the value of those those items. Yeah, it's like prioritizing the value of exactly plastics right exactly because because I do think that we have gone a little bit overboard with things, you know, in some cases, maybe, and, and that you're in that all people have heard is don't use straws, but they haven't actually been informed.

1:55:52 They haven't been informed about why that is the case and what is sort of behind it. Yeah, and I, you know, there's, there's also a whole nother aspect of this which which we haven't really talked about but it's the the fossil fuel aspect. And so all plastics that we use regardless of whether they're biodegradable or not, are derived from from fossil fuels. Yeah. And so the more that we use plastics, the more that we are are dwindling down our very limited supply of oil and natural gas.

1:56:33 And so, and, and those are having all those other impacts that we talked about that are affected the ocean coral bleaching ocean acidification warming, all those other things and so there's, there's this underlying aspects about plastics that we tend to talk about as much there's the debris part which is huge in which we see. And so that's 30% of fossil fuel revenues, revenues to the fossil fuel industry is coming from plastics. That's, that's exactly, I mean a big portion, exactly a big portion of the natural gas that's being produced in my state of Pennsylvania gets shipped all around the, around the world in order to produce plastics.

1:57:34 And so that's not is not necessarily being used to heat homes or to drive cars. It's going into plastics and then we just, you know, we use it once and we throw it away. And so, again, I think those are sort of societal questions, what, what do we as a society think is important and what do we, what do we want to have done and, and then I think that helps to drive policy but you know when policy doesn't necessarily have to go through the science. I think that's where the consumer has a lot of power and can really, really make a difference by their actions and what they purchase or don't purchase. And I think that that goes that does mean we see that often that can go a long way into making important changes happen.

1:58:27 I mean, I think it's a, it's an interesting, like complex issue that we're, that we're in with this type of of things and again, I think it's the disconnection from the environment that a lot of people have these days in terms of let's not interrupt our daily lives to make these changes to help the ocean when we don't see a lot of things that are happening in the ocean for many of us who live in land, but we're all connected. connected. And I think when it comes to, I think you were right, right from the get go, Lisa, when you mentioned, like, it's about community, do things, community, do things local. You know, there used to be that saying that really, I think it hit home was, you know, it was an act local, you know, think globally. And it's, it's still range true today, we kind of, we don't say that as much, but it's still, you know, range true today. And, and all those things need to be done at a policy level at a federal and state and, and provincial level and local level, we still need to act. And we still need to understand that the way we work, the way we do things as a society will affect things down the road. And sometimes we don't have a lot of say in terms of what happens, but there are times where we can take care of our local places and make a difference. Now, there's a couple more questions I have as we, and this is a great conversation. I love this conversation. I can probably have this conversation for hours and hours and hours and hours, but I want to be mindful of your time. There's a couple questions.

1:59:51 The first one is, as you're out in the field and doing things with your students and your colleagues, what's the most frustrating aspect of working with, you know, the looking at the effects of like microplastics and debris on coral reefs? What's the, what's what, and you're out there, what you like when you see stuff, as you mentioned before, sometimes it can be hard to sort of realize how much, you know, marine debris and microplastics are out there. What's the most frustrating thing for you as not only a scientist, but as a person, as someone who wants to protect the ocean and your, your, you know, the lab that you have, what's the most frustrating you see as a collective as a lab? That's a good question. I, I, I guess, I don't know, it's funny, I don't know that there's a lot that does frustrate, like, I feel like there's just so many kind of exciting things that we've done that we don't have time to get frustrated with.

2:00:41 But I guess, I guess probably thinking about it more, it's really just the, the pervasiveness of it can can get get you down and frustrated. Where, you know, we're because we are seeing these things so regularly. There is, you know, so like I said, we've found things that have traveled very long distances. And at first, there's this like, oh my God, this is so cool. This came from, you know, a lot of people, you know, they're like, oh, I'm not going to do this. And, but then it sort of when it dawns on you, oh, wow, this thing has been in the ocean for for many, many years or many, many miles, kilometers. I think that can sometimes get kind of frustrating. Like I was saying before, I think that's a really interesting thing.

2:01:25 You know, I guess a great question is that, you know, when you parts are planetyr 79 and you actually, maybe if you're on the ocean that you are on the ocean 40 multiply the fourteen Your two months before. Two months before cause the picture. Yes. So. That, that. Well. So when we actually quantify it, we do see that the numbers reduce, but that you know, just looking at it, it's very hard sometimes to discern that there has been some improvement. And so that I think sometimes that can get a little bit frustrating for people for just anybody really.

2:02:07 And is that the reduction is that the actions of people cleaning up or is that the actions of policies actually working? I think that's the action of people cleaning up. Okay, as far as I know, at least in that area, there hasn't been any real change in policy. And so I think it's that we are just cleaning up more regularly. And so we see it locally in Philadelphia. A colleague of mine has been working on more upstream areas of some local rivers. And there we've got some he has some evidence that shows that plastic bag bands that are happening in some municipalities, but not others may be having an impact on what they're finding in the river.

2:02:55 So so there is some evidence. Yeah, policy is is having an impact. Yeah, which is nice. I can both, you know, the cleanups and, you know, the policies. It's nice to see that both have the like the evidence showing that they that they work. That's really I think that's really important for for communities to understand for people to understand because I think people are like, what's the what's the like, what can we do? There's there's microplastics all over the ocean in the Marian at Marianne a chance. Like there's nothing we can do about it. And sometimes we rely too much on government and expecting those policies to go through. But we don't actually go out and do the work ourselves or even work within our local councils and say, Hey, shouldn't we if this works, shouldn't we have a cleanup crew? Like, wouldn't it be great to have that cleanup crew like here in Burlington hire some students clean up the debris on a regular basis and measure it, see if it reduces, see if it works.

2:03:46 Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's really important to tell people is that it actually works when it's done, even though it may not seem like it is that absolutely right. Right. Yeah, that's absolutely true is that, you know, and it partly I think it's just our memories that it's for sure to kind of remember what it was like the last time. Yeah. But yeah, if you if you take the time to collect the data and it doesn't take a lot of extra effort to do so, you know, there are a lot of different organizations online that have tally sheets for these kinds of cleanups. And so, you know, you can find something that suits you and then it's actually kind of fun when you're out there and you pick something up before you put in the bag, you just like make a little tally of whatever it is.

2:04:31 Yep. Because that could also, you know, help you identify where things are coming from. But then it can also help, you know, the totals at least can help you see whether any new policies are having an impact and that's what we are starting to see. So really at sort of township or municipality levels or city levels, depending on sort of how your how your area is organized can can sometimes pass specific legislation around just their, their, for their area. And those like plastic bag bands or what have you, those can have really strong benefits to them over overtime, at least it seems like.

2:05:20 Yeah, no, absolutely. I think I think it will. And I think we just need to reiterate that and communicate that fact to the people that it does actually work because I think a lot of people are just so disconnected from from that aspect. So last question I have for you. And this I find is an interesting one as well is what are you, what studies that you that how you have upcoming or that you are working on right now that may not have been published on yet what are you excited about studying looking at or maybe even some preliminary results that you're just like, oh, this is going to be interesting. Yeah, we have a couple different micro plastic related studies that will hopefully be coming out in the next few months or year a year maybe, but we have some of that we have, we've looked at micro plastics in lionfish, which are an invasive species in the Caribbean, and we have the opportunity for there's a some groups of people that cull them remove them from the environment in the Atlantic.

2:06:31 And the total of the sort of in the 50s I think was the total number so decent amount. And they average about six micro plastics per fish. Wow. They're not like terribly big fish either. They're not huge. Yeah, they're not huge and size didn't seem to play a role in this at all, which was also kind of interesting, which we were not not expecting. So, you know, that could be one of the things that is difficult to do with micro plastics is sometimes, especially for organisms, you have to harm them in order to figure out what you have. And that's, you know, that's not ideal when all our species are already under threat for all variety of different reasons. So, you know, the invasive species maybe becomes an ideal target, we want to remove it anyway.

2:07:25 And so then we can also study these other aspects of it. So that's one of the things that we've been we've been doing with a former grad student of mine. And then, you know, we're also kind of looking at this idea of when did micro plastics, like when do we first start seeing them in the environment. And so we've been taking cores where we sort of dig down into the sediment. Yeah, to look at different layers over time. And so far, we have not been able to get down deep enough, but we don't see any so we that's scary. That's scary. It's a lot. It could be.

2:08:06 Yeah, I mean, it could be because these are mostly beach environments and sort of turn over quite a bit anyway so that might be the case. We're going to start looking at these and other in others are more stable environments, too. But, you know, I think that's kind of exciting. And I think that can have really can really make people sort of take notice of just how how far it's not just sort of on the surface and and spatial, but that there also is a lot of time behind this as well. And that I think, you know, that that can that really the time for us to stop some of these bad behaviors is now. Yeah, or we just kind of continue to push this into the future. And I think that kind of a study can really show help show that and help depict the sort of the timeliness of these kinds of problems.

2:09:06 Yeah. So is it safe to say in your studies, your focus now a lot of it is on like the question is, is where is microplastics impacting the marine environment? Because it's not just coral reefs. It sounds like it's looking at, okay, let's look at where it starts and how far down does it go. Let's look at is it affecting, you know, invasive fish and using that as an opportunity to study, you know, as we're as we're taking them out. Is that safe to say that your question is like how do microplastics affect even the coastal environment or a tropical environment? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there's to me because of just how connected all of these things are in space, but also how they behave with each other.

2:09:49 I think it it becomes in some ways it to me, I feel like I've sort of moved a little bit past corals in some ways. Yeah, I, you know, I know that there there are so many different other avenues that we can look at and we can still tie it back to the coral reef ecosystem. So yeah, I think that that that does that is accurate that we definitely have been moving into some of these other areas. A lot of it is driven by students actually, though, you know, sometimes it's students who come with their ideas and their interests. And so that helps to kind of broaden some of the things that we're also doing.

2:10:32 Yeah, I love I love that aspect. I love what you're doing. I love what you and your labs are doing and even empowering this thing. And I think that brings a lot of interest and creativity into into your program. And I think it comes up with a lot of results that we've seen. And I'd love, Lisa, for you to come back on the podcast, talk about more of these studies so that we can see these results and they can people can hear them for themselves and hear some optimism from that policies work, beach cleanups work. It may not look like it, but it does. And I think that's that's wonderful. So I want to thank you so much for coming on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It's been it's been great to have you on. I can't wait to have you on again.

2:11:13 Thank you. Thanks, Andrew. I was really nice to chat with you about all of this. Thank you, Lisa, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I can't wait to have you back to talk more about some of the research that's coming up and some of the stuff that you're going to be publishing on and getting results on. It sounds really incredible. It sounds like it's needed. It sounds like we need to know how the environment is effective so that we can put management and policies in place so that we can get rid of this stuff. Right? That's how important it is. That's why it's important to have scientists like Lisa and the people in her lab to go out and do this type of work. It's not easy work, even though, you know, working in Puerto Rico, working in Hawaii sounds like a wonderful trip. And I'm sure there are aspects of the trip and when they go in the field that are phenomenal. But it's also very difficult to do that.

2:11:58 It's difficult to see environmental degradation like they see each and every day and to have that optimism that the stuff is working, you know, beach and coastal cleanups as well as policies in certain places that are working. We need to talk more about that. We need to get that more on podcasts like this on videos like you're watching on YouTube on social media. And what's important to see me put out is the fact that there are places where it works and it's unique to everybody, but we need to find out more of where these policies and these cleanups are actually working. And that's why it's important when you do a cleanup or you do a policy, you measure and evaluate the results. That's important part. And you adapt to the management and what is working for other people and what doesn't work for certain places around the world. So it's really important to connect everything together, but it's also important to act locally to think globally.

2:12:47 That's what we're going to be talking more about in upcoming podcasts, getting that optimism back. Getting the fact is that we are connected to the ocean always, no matter where you live, where you live in Burlington, Ontario or live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or you live in Hawaii or Puerto Rico where you see the ocean every day. We're all connected to the ocean in some kind of way. And we need to make sure that our communities, our own regions are protected and we take care of them as a community. We can't just let other people do it. We can't let the marine conservationists and the conservationists and the scientists leave it up to them to do it. We have to do this. We have to take care of our local area. And that's including myself to need to be more connected to where we are. But that's what we're going to talk about in future episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. Lisa was such a great communicator. Want to have her back on soon. And I told her after I said, you should be on more podcasts. You should be doing more of this because people need to know what you're up to. Because I think it's really important.

2:13:39 But also I want to thank Lisa. I want to thank her lab for the work that they do. And I want to thank you for listening to this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. If you want to know more about how to protect the ocean, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can subscribe to our Spotify channel, watch the video on Spotify or listen to it on your Spotify app. You can also listen to an Apple podcast on Amazon. But if you want to find out if your favorite podcast app is available, go to our website speakupforblue.com. That's speakupforblue.com. Forward slash podcast to be able to listen to all of our episodes and find your favorite podcast app so that you can connect to it on the go on the run and listen to it each and every time Monday, Wednesday and Friday when we release episodes. So if you want to go there speakupforblue.com. If you have any questions or any concerns, you can email me from that website or you can hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean.

2:14:32 That's at how to protect the ocean. I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and have a conservation.