How cooperation contributes to scientific advances

Abstract

The idea behind the various papers called Food for Thought was to show how advanced researchers developed their careers, informing about successes and misfortunes. This presentation reports not only on the experiences made by the author; it includes those researchers who provided ideas and support for the author which then led to progress. It often occurs that cooperative efforts are actually needed to advance. The interdisciplinary oceanographic studies reported here were made possible by truly cooperative planning and data-sharing efforts of several individuals which then led to our pioneering advances. Similarly, the successes on obtaining the actual feeding behaviour data of calanoid copepods, after decades of guesswork, could only be achieved through cooperation. Much of the credit goes to my colleagues at the Food Chain Research Group at Scripps Institution of Oceanography who pioneered the combination of field and laboratory efforts to arrive at an understanding of biological processes in the ocean. Overall, not so much my initiative-taking but the repeated encouragement by and feed-back from my colleagues and friends both at Scripps, at Skidaway and other institutes made advances possible.