Marine Chemical Ecology: A Science Born of Scuba

For more than 50 years, organic chemists have been interested in the novel chemical structures and biological activities of marine natural products, which are organic compounds that can be used for chemical defense and chemical communication by diverse marine organisms. Chemical ecology, the study of the natural ecological functions of these compounds, is an interdisciplinary field involving chemistry, biology, and ecology. Examples of ecological functions of marine natural products include distastefulness that inhibits feeding by predators, settlement cues for larvae, allelopathic effects that prevent fouling by epiphytes and overgrowth by competitors, and pheromones for matesearching behavior. Much of the research in marine natural products and marine chemical ecology has used scuba diving and related undersea technologies as necessary tools. The breadth of marine organisms studied and the types of experiments conducted under water have expanded with technological developments, especially scuba diving. In this paper, we highlight the importance of scuba and related technologies as tools for advancing marine chemical ecology by using examples from some of our own research and other selected studies. We trace the origins of marine chemical ecology on the heels of marine natural products chemistry in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the development of increasingly sophisticated ecological studies of marine algae and invertebrates in Caribbean, tropical Pacific, and Antarctic waters.