biology

Marie Poland Fish

Marie Poland Fish is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Marie Poland Fish rather than just read about it. In short: Marie "Bobbie" Dennis Poland Fish (1900 – February 2, 1989) was an American oceanographer and marine biologist known for her bioacoustics research and the finding of eel eggs in the Sargasso Sea. Her research on underwater sound detection allowed the United States Navy to distinguish enemy submarines from wildlife.

Key takeaways

Marie Poland Fish belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Marie Poland Fish to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Marie Poland Fish from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Marie "Bobbie" Dennis Poland Fish (1900 – February 2, 1989) was an American oceanographer and marine biologist known for her bioacoustics research and the finding of eel eggs in the Sargasso Sea. Her research on underwater sound detection allowed the United States Navy to distinguish enemy submarines from wildlife. The United States Navy awarded her its highest civilian award, the Distinguished Service Medal, in 1966 to recognize her contributions during her twenty-two years (1948–1970) leading the "Underwater Sound of Biological Origin" project for the Office of Naval Research. She also founded the Narragansett Marine Laboratory with her husband Charles. It is now the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.

Early life and education Marie Poland was born in 1900 in Paterson, New Jersey. Her nickname "Bobbie" derived from her bobbed flapper haircut. She graduated from Smith College before earning a PhD from the University of Rhode Island. She graduated in 1921, and married Charles Fish in 1923.

Career Before working for the Office of Naval Research, she worked for the United States Bureau of Fisheries, Buffalo Museum of Science, New York State Conservation Department, University of Rhode Island, United States National Museum (now the Smithsonian Institution), Pacific Oceanic Biology Project, and the State of Rhode Island in various roles as scientist, researcher, investigator, instructor, and curator.

In 1925, Marie Poland Fish and her husband Charles John Fish, participated in the first oceanographic expedition of the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society), the Arcturus expedition, which was led by William Beebe. The six-month long expedition left New York on February 11, 1925, and sailed through the Sargasso Sea to the Galápagos Islands, returning to New York on July 30, 1925. Marie Poland Fish worked on samples from the expedition at least up to 1932. During this expedition she became the first person to identify the eggs of the elusive American eel. which reached the newspapers given the mystery surrounding the origin of eels. In a 1926 article in Science she first describes the collection of the eggs and their development into what she was able to identify as an American eel. In 1927 she published the full taxonomic description. She concludes her initial description by noting that...the sea has given up the last secret concerning the life history of the American eel which it has jealously guarded for so many centuries Fish's publications include work cataloging sounds from marine animals, including from fish and whales. She went on to determine the biological mechanisms that allow fish to make sounds. She was a prolific author, writing over 200 articles in academic journals and popular magazines, including a newspaper column on popular science that she wrote with her husband from 1936 to 1939, the only time they collaborated professionally.

Commemoration The Fish family endowed the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture in Oceanography, an annual public lecture on oceanography hosted by the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography that began in 1990.

Selected publications Fish, Marie Poland (1926). "Preliminary Note on the Egg and Larva of the American Eel (Anguilla rostrata)". Science. 64 (1662): 455–456. Bibcode:1926Sci....64..455P. doi:10.1126/science.64.1662.455. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 1651252. PMID 17741951. Fish, Marie Poland (1956). "Animal Sounds in the Sea". Scientific American. 194 (4): 93–104. Bibcode:1956SciAm.194d..93F. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0456-93. ISSN 0036-8733. JSTOR 26171975. S2CID 4146421. Fish, Marie Poland (1970). Sounds of western North Atlantic fishes; a reference file of biological underwater sounds. William H. Mowbray. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 0-8018-1130-9. OCLC 92568.

Awards Navy Distinguished Public Service Award (1966)

References

External links The Charles and Marie Fish Lecture in Oceanography

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marie Poland Fish

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marie Poland Fish claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Marie Poland Fish before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Marie Poland Fish ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Marie Poland Fish

In research: Marie Poland Fish appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Marie Poland Fish in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Marie Poland Fish is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1900 births, 1989 deaths, 20th-century American women biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marie Poland Fish outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Marie Poland Fish in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Marie Poland Fish means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Marie Poland Fish out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Marie Poland Fish in simple terms?

Why does Marie Poland Fish matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Marie Poland Fish?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Marie Poland Fish.