WEBVTT

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Right now,

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beneath a shimmering blue sea,

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millions of fish are having sex.

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(Cheers)

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And the way they're doing it
and strategies they're using

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looks nothing like what we see on land.

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Take parrotfish.

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In this species, all fish are born female,

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and they look like this.

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Then later in life,

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she can transition into a male
and she'll look like this.

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But it's not just
a spectacular wardrobe change.

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Her body can reabsorb her ovaries
and grow testes in their place.

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In just a few weeks,

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she'll go from making eggs
to producing sperm.

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It's pretty impressive,

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and in the ocean it's also pretty common.

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In fact, I bet nearly all of you
have at some point had a seafood dish

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made up of an individual
that started life as one sex

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and transitioned to another.

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Oysters?

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Grouper?

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Shrimp?

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Seeing some heads nodding, yeah.

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But not all fish that change sex
start as females.

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Those clown fish we know
from "Finding Nemo"?

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They're all born male.

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So in the real world,

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when Nemo's mother died,

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Nemo's dad Marlin
would have transitioned into Marlene --

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(Laughter)

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and Nemo would have likely mated
with his father turned mother.

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(Laughter)

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You can see --

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(Laughter)

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Yeah.

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You can see why Pixar

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took a little creative license
with the plotline, right?

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(Laughter)

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So sex change in the ocean
can happen in either direction

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and sometimes even back and forth,

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and that's just one of the many
amazing strategies animals use

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to reproduce in the ocean.

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And trust me when I say

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it's one of the least surprising.

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Sex in the sea is fascinating,

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and it's also really important,

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and not just to nerdy
marine biologists like me

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who are obsessed with understanding
these salty affairs.

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It matters for all of us.

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Today, we depend on wild caught fish

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to help feed over two billion people

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on the planet.

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We need millions of oysters and corals
to build the giant reefs

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that protect our shorelines
from rising seas and storms.

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We depend on medicines that are found
in marine animals to fight cancer

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and other diseases.

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And for many of us,

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the diversity and beauty of the oceans
is where we turn for recreation

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and relaxation and our cultural heritage.

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In order for us to continue
to benefit from the abundance

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that ocean life provides,

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the fish and coral and shrimp of today

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have to be able to make fish
and shrimp and coral for tomorrow.

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To do that, they have to have
lots and lots of sex.

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And until recently,

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we really didn't know
how sex happened in the sea.

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It's pretty hard to study.

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But thanks to new science and technology,

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we now know so much more
than even just a few years ago,

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and these new discoveries
are showing two things.

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First, sex in the sea is really funky.

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Second, our actions are wreaking havoc
on the sex lives of everything

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from shrimp to salmon.

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I know. It can be hard to believe.

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So today, I'm going to share a few details
about how animals do it in the deep,

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how we may be interrupting
these intimate affairs

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and what we can do to change that.

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So, remember those sex-changing fish?

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In many places in the world,

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we have fishing rules
that set a minimum catch size.

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Fishers are not allowed
to target tiny fish.

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This allows baby fish to grow
and reproduce before they're caught.

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That's a good thing.

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So fishers go after the biggest fish.

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But in parrotfish, for example,
or any sex changer,

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targeting the biggest fish means
that they're taking out all the males.

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That makes it hard for a female fish

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to find a mate

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or it forces her to change sex sooner

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at a smaller size.

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Both of these things can result
in fewer fish babies in the future.

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In order for us to properly care
for these species,

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we have to know if they change sex,

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how and when.

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Only then can we create rules
that can support these sexual strategies,

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such as setting a maximum size limit
in addition to a minimum one.

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The challenge isn't that we can't think
of these sex-friendly solutions.

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The challenge is knowing
which solutions to apply to which species,

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because even animals we know really well

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surprise us when it comes
to their sex lives.

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Take Maine lobster.

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They don't look that romantic,

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or that kinky.

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They are both.

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(Laughter)

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During mating season,

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female lobsters want to mate
with the biggest, baddest males,

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but these guys are really aggressive,

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and they'll attack any lobster
that approaches, male or female.

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Meanwhile, the best time
for her to mate with the male

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is right after she's molted,

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when she's lost her hard shell.

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So she has to approach this aggressive guy
in her most vulnerable state.

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What's a girl to do?

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Her answer?

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Spray him in the face
repeatedly with her urine.

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(Laughter)

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Under the sea, pee
is a very powerful love potion.

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Conveniently, lobsters' bladders
sit just above their brains,

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and they have two nozzles
under their eye stalks

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with which they can shoot
their urine forward.

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So the female approaches the male's den

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and as he charges out
she lets loose a stream of urine

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and then gets the hell out of there.

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Only a few days of this daily dosing

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is all it takes for her scent
to have a transformative effect.

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The male turns from an aggressive
to a gentle lover.

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By the week's end,
he invites her into his den.

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After that, the sex is easy.

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So how are we interrupting
this kind of kinky courtship?

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Well, the female's urine
carries a critical chemical signal

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that works because
it can pass through seawater

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and lobsters have a smell receptor

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that can detect and receive the message.

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Climate change is making
our oceans more acidic.

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It's the result of too much
carbon dioxide entering seawater.

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This changing chemistry
could scramble that message,

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or it could damage
the lobsters' smell receptors.

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Pollution from land
can have similar impacts.

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Just imagine the consequence
for that female

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if her love potion should fail.

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These are the kinds of subtle
but significant impacts we're having

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on the love lives of these marine life.

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And this is a species we know well:

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lobsters live near shore in the shallows.

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Dive deeper, and sex gets even stranger.

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Fanfin anglerfish live at about
3,000 feet below the surface

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in the pitch-black waters,

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and the males are born
without the ability to feed themselves.

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To survive, he has to find a female fast.

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Meanwhile, the female,

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who is 10 times bigger than the male,

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10 times,

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she lets out a very strong pheromone
with which to attract mates to her.

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So this tiny male is swimming
through the black waters

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smelling his way to a female,

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and when he finds her,

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he gives her a love bite.

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And this is when things get really weird.

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That love bite triggers
a chemical reaction

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whereby his jawbone
starts to disintegrate.

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His face melts into her flesh,

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and their two bodies start to fuse.

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Their circulatory systems intwine,

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and all his internal organs
start to dissolve

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except for his testes.

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(Laughter)

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His testes mature just fine
and start producing sperm.

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In the end, he's basically
a permanently attached

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on-demand sperm factory for the female.

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(Laughter)

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It's a very efficient system,

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but this is not the kind
of mating strategy

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that we see on a farm, right?

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I mean, this is weird.

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It's really strange.

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But if we don't know
that these kinds of strategies exist

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or how they work,

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we can't know what kind of impacts
we may be having, even in the deep sea.

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Just three years ago,

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we discovered a new species
of deep sea octopus

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where the females lay their eggs
on sponges attached to rocks

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that are over two and a half miles deep.

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These rocks contain rare earth minerals,

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and right now there are companies
that are building bulldozers

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that would be capable of mining
the deep sea floor for those rocks.

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But the bulldozers
would scrape up all the sponges

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and all the eggs with them.

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Knowingly, and in many cases unknowingly,

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we are preventing successful sex
and reproduction in the deep.

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And let's be honest,

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dating and mating is hard enough
without somebody coming in

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and interrupting all the time, right?

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I mean, we know this.

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So today, while I hope you will leave here

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with some excellent bar trivia
on fish sex --

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(Laughter)

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I also ask that you remember this:

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we are all far more intimately connected
with the oceans than we realize,

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no matter where we live.

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And this level of intimacy

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requires a new kind
of relationship with the ocean,

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one that recognizes and respects
the enormous diversity of life

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and its limitations.

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We can no longer think of the oceans

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as just something out there,

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because every day we depend on them
for our food security,

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our own health and wellness,

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and every other breath we take.

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But it is a two-way relationship,

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and the oceans can only continue
to provide for us

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if we in turn safeguard
that fundamental force of life in the sea:

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sex and reproduction.

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So, like any relationship,
we have to embrace some change

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for the partnership to work.

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The next time you're thinking
about having seafood,

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look for sustainably caught
or farmed species

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that are local and low on the food chain.

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These are animals
like oysters, clams, mussels,

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small fish like mackerel.

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These all reproduce like crazy,

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and with good management,
they can handle a bit of fishing pressure.

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We can also rethink
what we use to wash our bodies,

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clean our homes

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and care for our lawns.

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All of those chemicals
eventually wash out to sea

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and disrupt the natural chemistry

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of the ocean.

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Industry also has to play its part

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and take a precautionary approach,

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protecting sexual activity
where we know it exists

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and preventing harm in the cases
where we just don't yet know enough,

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like the deep sea.

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And in the communities where we live,

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the places we work

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and the country in which we vote,

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we must take bold action
on climate change now.

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(Audience: Yeah!)

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)