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ANNUAL REVIEWS: MARINE SCIENCE

From 2006 to 2021, I supervised graphics production for a subset of Annual Reviews journals. 

These engaging cutaway illustrations were published in “Tropical Marginal Seas: Priority Regions for Managing Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function,” By Dr. A. David McKinnon, in the Annual Review of Marine Science v6.

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Coral reefs and emergent atolls in tropical marginal seas. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in the Annual Review of Marine Science v6. © Annual Reviews.
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Pelagic biomes in tropical marginal seas. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in the Annual Review of Marine Science v6. © Annual Reviews.
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Deep benthic systems in tropical marginal seas. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in the Annual Review of Marine Science v6. © Annual Reviews.

Here’s a selection of figures from The Annual Review of Marine Science and related journals in ecology, Earth science, and more. Click on any thumbnail to see the full image.

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Difference in community structure resulting from the benthification of 1 m2 of Lake Michigan Mid-Lake Reef Complex habitat (60-m sand-cobble example; not drawn to scale). Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in Cuhel and Aguilar 2013. Annual Review of Marine Science v5. © Annual Reviews.
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Theoretical model of interactions among geological structure, currents, and biological components of the Mid-Lake Reef Complex during the quagga mussel (QM) epoch of Lake Michigan. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in Cuhel and Aguilar 2013. Annual Review of Marine Science v5. © Annual Reviews.
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Schematic of the flow of interstitial water containing supersaturated concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) via subsurface pathways in relation to surface runoff as the forest water table lowers during an ebb tide. Water flow reverses on the incoming tide via the same pathways, percolating upward as the forest floods. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in Alongi 2016. Annual Review of Marine Science v6. © Annual Reviews.
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(a) Examples of acoustic tools (solid circled numbers with curved yellow lines indicating acoustic waves) and the wide variety of animals (open circled numbers) that they can be used to study, ranging from zooplankton to marine mammals. (b) An example of acoustic data, representing the shaded rectangle in panel a. This echogram shows data from a 120-kHz echo sounder inside an autonomous underwater vehicle. Graphic by Fiona Martin. Published in Benoit-Bird and Lawson 2016. Annual Review of Marine Science v8. © Annual Reviews.
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Frequency responses characteristic of different types of animals. Dashed lines denote curves derived from empirical observations; solid lines indicate predictions based on physics-based scattering models validated through empirical measurements. The vertical dotted lines show typical sampling frequencies. The line colors indicate animal types (or parts of animals) that are similar kinds of acoustic scatterers. Published in Benoit-Bird and Lawson 2016. Annual Review of Marine Science v8. © Annual Reviews.
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The zone of fear: Loss of biogenic habitats that provide refugia from large roaming predators affects the risks faced by intermediate-level predators, influencing behavior, time allocation, fitness, and the role of intermediate predators in community dynamics. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in Thrush and Dayton 2010. Annual Review of Marine Science v2. © Annual Reviews.
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Ecological ratchets tighten their grip on marine ecosystems. Loss of top predators and habitat destruction removes environmental heterogeneity created by large and old organisms and decreases the depth and extent of sediment bioturbation and bioirrigation. Illustration by Fiona Martin. Published in Thrush and Dayton 2010. Annual Review of Marine Science v2. © Annual Reviews.
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Decadal distribution of sediment community oxygen consumption—an indicator of carbon supply to the benthos—in the Pacific Arctic region measured using shipboard sediment incubation experiments. Black dots identify the station locations. Graphic by Fiona Martin. Published in Grebmeier 2012. Annual Review of Marine Science v4. © Annual Reviews.
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Schematic diagram illustrating where autotrophic processes occur and which particular organisms using alternative carbon fixation pathways play a prominent role in the ocean. Recently, it became clear that these pathways provide important contributions to carbon fixation in many oceanic environments, most notably deep-sea hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, the meso- and bathypelagic ocean, oxygen deficiency zones, redoxclines, and euxinic waters. Graphic by Fiona Martin. Published in Hügler and Sievert 2011. Annual Review of Marine Science v3. © Annual Reviews.
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Examples of different types of rapid radiations along the three major axes of adaptive radiation. Representative illustrations of radiations along these axes are shown: ecological novelty without species richness (pygopodid Aprasia lizards); microhabitat-driven radiations with extensive microallopatry (Malili lakes Caridina shrimp); repeated parallel speciation (Timema walking sticks and benthic/limnetic stickleback); nonadaptive radiations (Batrachoseps salamanders); sexual radiations (Habronattus jumping spiders and Paramormyrops electric fishes); and classic adaptive radiations (Malawi cichlids, Hawaiian picture-wing Drosophila, and Hawaiian silversword alliance). Illustrations by Fiona Martin. Published in Martin and Richards 2019. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics v50. © Annual Reviews.
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Vector illustration of a salamander by Fiona Martin. Published in Chen and Poss 2017. Annual Review of Genetics v51.

Process

Adobe Illustrator was my tool of choice at Annual Reviews, and is still my primary tool today. Now I’ve branched out to incorporate other software in my workflow—such as Procreate to capture the expressiveness of pen-and-ink and watercolor (while retaining layers for editability), ArcGIS for detailed maps, and Datawrapper for responsive, interactive charts.

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