So Many Snakes, So Little Time: Uncovering the secret lives of Australia's serpentsby , Boca Raton: CRC Press. 2022. pp. 292. RRP (AUD 53.99) softback, also available as eBook (AUD 48.99) and hardcover (AUD 175.00). ISBN: 9781032232928
This book tells the stories behind a prolific biologist's research on an oft-maligned group–Australian snakes. It captures the moments that sparked curiosity and the personal and professional challenges that often stifle plans to carry out ambitious research. It shows how these moments, serendipitous and otherwise, are seminal in guiding choices of research question, study system and approach over a long and productive career.
The stories of the snakes explored in this book transition effortlessly from descriptions of their natural history to how ground-breaking research generating new ways to think about ecology and evolutionary biology emerged. The book celebrates the importance of big thinking and long-term approaches in research, but it also highlights the critical role that observation, description and a passion for nature play in shaping the world views of ecologists.
So… who should read this book? Despite its obvious appeal to those with an established enthusiasm for any of herpetology, evolutionary biology or ecology, it should also be essential reading for those starting their journeys in these fields. Numerous lessons for early career ecologists, sometimes hard learned, punctuate each chapter and offer great insights into how to do research.
Space does not permit me to go through all the study systems and insights they revealed about Australia's serpents (buy the book!). Still, the book includes chapters on Shine's seminal work on the love lives of blacksnakes, a dive into the preservative-filled jars of snakes in Australia's museums, an exploration of the precarious ecology of Broadhead snakes under bush rocks in the Greater Sydney region and of course, his extensive work at Fogg Dam's remarkable (and very snakey) ecosystem.
There are poignant reminders of how little moments can shape careers. Things like an encounter with George Williams' seminal book ‘Adaptation and Natural Selection’ as a graduate student in rural Australia provided the impetus to ask better questions about organisms and the way they live, challenging the assumptions underpinning widely held, but poorly supported, conventional wisdom.
The book is also a salutary reminder of multiple tenets and caveats about the science of ecology and how we practice it. Most notable for me was constant reinforcement about the importance of variability in nature, and its effects on animals and how we understand their biology. For instance, Rick's acceptance of Andrewartha and Birch's argument that ecological stability was bunkum (p. 216) pervades much of the thinking in the work presented and highlighted the importance of two things. First, not to accept off-the-shelf ideas from the Northern Hemisphere to explain ecological phenomena in Australia's unique environment, and second, the acknowledgement that brief field expeditions do not reveal the true story of how complex ecological systems work and that only long-term approaches would reveal their secrets (p. 206).
One recurring theme in the book is the spirited defence of snakes as fascinating and diverse models to study evolutionary biology. This stems from an encounter with a clever but arrogant Oxbridge visitor who claimed that snakes were ‘useless bloody animals’ and that work on them was unlikely to shed any light on fundamental ecological or evolutionary issues (p. 17). I'd like to think that a stellar research career proving this to be incorrect had helped erase the impact of that drunken diatribe half a century ago. However, the regular return to this conversation in some shape or form (by my count, in most of the chapters) about how wrong the haughty Englishman was, suggests that the memory of that interaction still stings.
The extensive reference lists for each chapter reveal the magnitude of his body of work. It also showcases something that sets Shine's research legacy apart from those of other lauded Australian scientists. It reveals a commitment to publishing work in not only career-building, high-impact journals but also sharing the building blocks of knowledge in more humble journals showcasing natural history. In that way, it is an important nod to the naturalist traditions that are central to the scientific origins of evolution and ecology.
A thread running through the books is Shine's love for his family. This is evident from the time his wife Terri is introduced (p. 59) and reveals how important his commitment to family life was in shaping the choices he made on what to work on, and where to do it. While some readers (and even subjects of stories) may feel that the details of the conception of Rick's first child Mac at the end of Chapter 3 could be considered oversharing, the overarching message of valuing and prioritizing relationships and family life is something that needs to be embedded in our work cultures.
There are also numerous reflections on a life spent in academia and the changing cultures within universities. Among several dramatic academic subplots, my favourite was when he was temporarily blackballed by the Australian Academy of Science after his enthusiasm for West Highland White Terriers (p. 82) escalated to co-authoring papers with them.
Rick Shine clearly has an inordinate fondness for snakes. Long-time followers of his work will celebrate the taxonomic accuracy in So Many Snakes, So Little Time, epitomized by its carefully chosen cover art. They'll also recognize that Australian snakes are only part of his body of work, and his research on cane toads, and snakes outside of Australia has similarly changed the way we think about ecology and evolutionary biology.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
DFH worked with Rick Shine for over 20 years at the University of Sydney. He has also been known to be flippant about both reptiles and high-achieving academics for his own amusement. This initially seemed an ideal opportunity to combine these interests.
