Learn more about one of the initiatives discussed in the podcast, the Magnolia masphi fragrance, in this podcast episode from Beyond the Journey.

You can read recent expose on timber industry misinformation here.  

Learn more.

You can find links to more of Dr. Ellis Soto's work on his personal website and more music on Spotify and SoundCloud. 

More information on Writing for Impact and Influence can be found here. 

Our guests were here to chat about a recent research trip to the Falkland Islands, and more specifically, about the gentoo penguins they were studying on those islands. 

Pictures from the trip can be viewed on YouTube.

Be sure to check out the fantastic Birds of a Feather Talk Together podcast, cohosted by guest John Bates.

Learn more about island vegetation restoration at Roots in the Ground, which describes the work of Giselle Hazell, discussed in the episode.

Our discussion was focused on how scientists can effectively convey truth to a variety of audiences in our current political and technological context, as well as a number of other topics that will be of interest to all scientist–communicators.

Potential contributors to the One Health special issue can find more information here. 

Read Dr. Reeder's latest paper, Ecological countermeasures to prevent pathogen spillover and subsequent pandemics | Nature Communications.

Read their article in BioScience.

Captions are available on YouTube.

Captions are available on YouTube.

Read the article here. 

Captions can be found on YouTube. 

Captions are available on YouTube. 

Captions are available on YouTube.

Captions are available on YouTube.

Captions are available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2G-6AEwJE8Y

Our guests were:

Lara Roketenetz, Director of the University of Akron Field Station, in Ohio. She is also currently serving as President of the Organization of Biological Field Stations. 

Rhonda Struminger, Codirector and Cofounder of the Centro de Investigaciones Científicas de las Huastecas "Aguazarca" (CICHAZ), in Calnali, Hidalgo, Mexico. She is also affiliated with the University of Padova, in Italy, and is Cochair of the OBFS's International Committee. 

 Chris Lorentz, Professor of Biological Sciences at Thomas More University and Director of Ohio River Biology Field Station. He is currently serving as Past President of OBFS. 

Learn more about OBFS and their ongoing efforts on their website.

Captions can be found on YouTube.

Our first guests were Sinlan Poo, who is Curator of Research at the Memphis Zoo and affiliated with Arkansas State University, and Prosanta Chakrabarty, who is Curator of Fishes and a Professor at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science. Dr. Chakrabarty is also the current President of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, one of the organizations that convened the meeting. They joined me to talk about the ZooMu symposium, which was held as part of the meeting. Read more about zoo and museum collaboration in BioScience.

 Next up, I sat down with Karen Caceres from Old Dominion University. She spoke about Florida cottonmouths and how they manage to live on small islands that typically lack freshwater resources. 

Maisie MacKnight, PhD candidate at Penn State, gave a talk about fieldwork and the ways in which it can be made safe and inclusive for all participants. We discussed her talk, as well as some of her other work. 

Oliver Shipley, Research Professor at Stony Brook University in New York, and Maria Manz, a graduate student at Stony Brook University, joined me to talk about sharks, their movement, and the ways that scientists study them. 

 Erin Anthony, President of the Virginia Herpetological Society, chatted with me about her organization's public outreach efforts, as well as herps native to Virginia.

Last, I was joined by Sarah Yerrace, a master's student at the University of Washington in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. Her talk was focused on the invasive lionfish, and we chatted about a new approach to surveying their abundance at deep ocean depths.

Captions are available on YouTube. 

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Over the past 30 years, efforts to recover gray wolf populations in the United States have been broadly successful, with many regions now sporting robust populations of the charismatic carnivore. Writing in BioScience, wolf experts David E. Ausband and L. David Mech describe the conservation landscape and also the obstacles that wolves face as their populations expand into their historical ranges.

"Remarkable wolf conservation success yields remarkable challenges," say the authors, as 6000 wolves now occupy habitat across 11 states. These growing populations now face significant threats as they attempt to colonize human-dominated areas, among them "fragmented habitats and barriers to dispersal, as well as increased encounters with humans, pets, and livestock."

In response to those concerned about wolves’ potential impacts to prey populations and domestic livestock production, many jurisdictions have ramped up wolf efforts. For instance, in Wisconsin, "the legislature requires a public hunting or trapping season whenever wolves are delisted from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) list of Endangered species." In contrast, wolves are seen as desirable in other areas, such as Colorado, where voters recently passed a ballot initiative to reintroduce them in the state. The authors caution that such pro-reintroduction initiatives, which may seem initially promising for wolves, could have the unintended consequence of setting precedent for laws barring reintroduction and thus complicate management. An uncertain regulatory regime, say Ausband and Mech, could cause major fluctuations in wolf populations, with dire consequences for conservation efforts.

The answer to this quandary, the authors suggest, is thoughtful management that carefully considers the needs of diverse stakeholders: "Future wolf conservation in the United States will be affected by the ability of managers to predict colonization and dispersal dynamics, to reduce hybridization and disease transmission, to mitigate and deter wolf–livestock conflicts, to harvest wolves sustainably while satisfying diverse stakeholders, to avert a reduction in tolerance for wolves due to a disinterest in nature, and to engage diverse stakeholders in wolf conservation to avoid management by ballot initiative or legislative and judicial decrees." Only through such science-informed management, argue Ausband and Mech, can the present success of wolf conservation be built on in the future.

 Captions for this episode are available on YouTube.

Peri Lee Pipkin, University of California Botanic Garden, Claremont University
Conner Philson, University of California, Los Angeles; Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory
Valentina Alvarez, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Katherine Charton, University of Wisconsin
Lauren Orton, Sauk Valley Community College
Rebecca Kauten, Iowa Lakeside Laboratory

News about this year's event.
Learn more about our Congressional Visits Day, and stay tuned for the next event.

 Captions are available on YouTube.

• Learn more about the book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/peter-gleick/the-three-ages-of-water/9781541702271/
• Dr. Gleick's personal website: www.gleick.com
• The article in the Kyiv Independent: https://kyivindependent.com/peter-gleick-a-call-to-condemn-attacks-on-water-systems-in-ukraine/
• Closed captions can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/etWCiDxnSBw

Become a SACNAS member.

Donate to SACNAS.

Learn more about the 2023 National Diversity in STEM (NDiSTEM) Conference in Portland Oregon, 22–26 October.

Closed captions are available on YouTube.

Scientists need to get out of the lab and into the rain, say an interdisciplinary group of researchers led by John T. Van Stan of Cleveland State University. Writing in the journal BioScience, the authors make the case that human observation of storm events (be it rain, snow, or occult deposition) is key to understanding wet weather and its myriad effects on the natural world.

Recently, Van Stan and colleagues noted a trend in the scientific community towards relying on remote sensing to study storms and their consequences: "Natural scientists seem increasingly content to stay dry and rely on remote sensors and samplers, models, and virtual experiments to understand natural systems. Consequently, we can miss important stormy phenomena, imaginative inspirations, and opportunities to build intuition—all of which are critical to scientific progress." This type of "umbrella science," they warn, can miss important localized events. For instance, in describing rainwater's flow from the forest canopy to the soils, the authors note that "if several branches efficiently capture and drain stormwaters to the stem, rainwater inputs to near-stem soils can be more than 100 times greater."

The authors also point out that important phenomena like low-lying fog events, vapor trapped beneath forest canopies, and condensate plumes may escape remote detection, yet be sensible to scientists on the ground. At the broader scale, these oversights can affect Earth systems models, which often underestimate canopy water storage. They argue that these errors may represent a "large potential bias in surface temperatures simulated by Earth systems models."

Direct observation, however, has merits beyond remedying the shortcomings of “umbrella science.” Van Stan and colleagues see intrinsic value in firsthand storm experiences – not only for natural scientists, but also students studying climate change impacts on ecosystems. They claim that this immersive method enhances understanding, incites curiosity, and strengthens bonds with nature, thereby enriching environmental education, inspiring research, and preparing the future scientific community.

An audio version of the article is available here.

If you're interested in applying for the EPPLA or in joining us in Washington, DC, for our next Congressional Visits Day, please visit the links above.

Captions can be found on YouTube.

Captions can be found on YouTube.

Captions can be found on the YouTube version: https://youtu.be/gqzXjUoJYyE

Captions can be found in the YouTube version.

Captions available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/2eT9WXCiY8A

A captioned version can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jUCk6ghBoLU

Read our Diversity Heroes contribution from Dr. Steward Pickett.

The accompanying transcript was computer generated and has not been edited.

Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length.

Learn more about Leopold's Preserve and plan a visit here.

A description of the book follows:

This book examines the critical issue of environmental pollutants produced by the textiles industry.

Comprised of contributions from environmental scientists and materials and textiles scientists, this edited volume addresses the environmental impact of microplastics, with a particular focus on microfibres released by textiles into marine and freshwater environments. The chapters in Part I offer environmental perspectives focusing on the measurement of microplastics in the environment, their ingestion by small plankton and larger filter feeders, the effects of consuming microplastics, and the role of microplastics as a vector for transferring toxic contaminants in food webs. Written by environmental and material scientists, the chapters in Part II present potential solutions to the problem of microplastics released from textiles, discussing parameters of influence, water treatment, degradation in aquatic environments, textile end-of-life management, textile manufacturing and laundry, and possible policy measures. This is a much needed volume which brings together in one place environmental research with technical solutions in order to provide a cohesive and practical approach to mitigating and preventing environmental pollution from the textiles industry going forward.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental conservation and management, environmental pollution and environmental chemistry and toxicology, sustainability, as well as students and scholars of material and textiles science, textile engineering and sustainable manufacturing.

Read more about the article: According to the authors, media messaging consistently described direct causality between zoonotic disease spread and land use change, despite the fact that only 53% of the surveyed peer-reviewed literature made this association. The authors delve into theoretical scenarios that would demonstrate the difficulty of tracing the real risk of zoonotic spillover, emphasizing that the “complexity of pathogen responses to land change cannot be reduced to one-size-fits-all proclamations.”

The authors found that as the literature moves from primary research to review articles and commentaries, and finally to webpages, the “overstating of the evidence” increases, with 78% of secondary papers implying the land use–zoonotic spillover association and all but one of the sampled webpages making this association. The authors also noted that secondary sources and webpages often failed to mention the uncertainty associated with their conclusions.

The potential consequences of simplistic messaging and a lack of proper communication regarding zoonotic spillover can erode credibility, neglect local community’s specific needs when it comes to policy making, and detract attention from other factors that can lead to zoonotic spillover, say Mader and colleagues. The authors recommend more accurate, nuanced, and explanatory dissemination of the studies on zoonotic spillover risk, arguing that such an approach would also benefit science more broadly. As the authors conclude, “if the goal of science communication is to improve understanding, it must strike a balance: sufficient simplicity to be grasped by as broad an audience as possible but sufficient nuance to capture the complexity of an issue and contribute meaningfully to the discussion around it, especially when it goes viral.”

According to the special section authors, although the variety of ecosystems have some responses in common, most ecosystem responses to climate change are unique and are the result of a combination of region-specific drivers, human activities, and interactions between multiple climate drivers. In the lead peer-reviewed article, Julia Jones of Oregon State University and Charles Driscoll of Syracuse University introduce and describe the section, explaining the conceptual framework behind the processes driving these ecosystem changes and the logistics of and varied results from the 28 LTER research sites that were used to collect the data.

A contribution from Hugh Ducklow (Columbia University) and colleagues describes the varied ocean ecosystem responses to climate change, as well as broader and more consistent marine physical system changes, such as declining sea ice and changes in the ocean surface layer. Tackling coastal ecosystems, Daniel C. Reed (Marine Science Institute) and colleagues use long-term ecosystem research at seaside sites to demonstrate the importance of site-based, long-term research for understanding the “natural capacity of coastal ecosystems to resist and adapt to climate change and the types of human interventions that effectively mitigate them.”

Back on land, Amy R. Hudson (US Department of Agriculture) and colleagues compare diverse drylands’ responses, revealing consistent warming across sites but variability in droughts and their subsequent effect on primary production. Discussing forest and freshwater ecosystems, John L. Campbell of the USDA Forest Service and colleagues delve into how these tightly linked ecosystems are directly and indirectly impacted by climate change, and how primary production is being affected.

The special section is rounded out by a Viewpoint article from Michael Paul Nelson of Oregon State University, who reflects on environmental scientists’ duty to not only tell the stories of climate impacts but also advocate for mobilization and change. In Nelson’s words, “our love and knowledge create a new kind of work for us in the face of the climate crisis. Beyond the work of revealing and explaining our ecosystems, we are called also to do the work of caretakers for those ecosystems.”

During the excavation of Mayan tombs, little did the archaeologists know that the fossils they discovered in the tomb stones would fundamentally alter our understanding of the earliest origins of coral reef fishes. Located just 500 kilometers from the point where an asteroid impact reconfigured the world's biological systems 66 million years ago, we find the earliest origins of three typical reef fish groups. Their presence in Mexico just 3 million years after this impact finally reconciles the conflict between the fossil and phylogenetic evidence for the earliest origins of reef fishes. The incorporation of these fossils into a global reconstruction of fish evolutionary history reveals a new picture of the early biogeography of reef fishes, with strong Atlantic links. From locations associated with biological destruction and societal collapse, we see evidence of the origins of one of the world's most diverse and spectacular marine ecosystems: coral reefs.

Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length.

The abstract of their article follows.

Transformative governance is key to addressing the global environmental crisis. We explore how transformative governance of complex biodiversity–climate–society interactions can be achieved, drawing on the first joint report between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to reflect on the current opportunities, barriers, and challenges for transformative governance. We identify principles for transformative governance under a biodiversity–climate–society nexus frame using four case studies: forest ecosystems, marine ecosystems, urban environments, and the Arctic. The principles are focused on creating conditions to build multifunctional interventions, integration, and innovation across scales; coalitions of support; equitable approaches; and positive social tipping dynamics. We posit that building on such transformative governance principles is not only possible but essential to effectively keep climate change within the desired 1.5 degrees Celsius global mean temperature increase, halt the ongoing accelerated decline of global biodiversity, and promote human well-being.

The abstract of the article follows.

Because biodiversity loss has largely been attributed to human actions, people, particularly those in the Global South, are regularly depicted as threats to conservation. This context has facilitated rapid growth in green militarization, with fierce crackdowns against real or perceived environmental offenders. We designed an undergraduate course to assess student perspectives on biodiversity conservation and social justice and positioned those students to contribute to a human heritage-centered conservation (HHCC) initiative situated in Uganda. We evaluated changes in perspectives using pre- and postcourse surveys and reflection instruments. Although the students started the course prioritizing biodiversity conservation, even when it was costly to human well-being, by the end of the course, they were recognizing and remarking on the central importance of social justice within conservation. We present a framework for further integration of HHCC approaches into higher education courses so as to conserve the integrity of coupled human and natural systems globally. DEI.

The abstract of their BioScience article follows.

Stable isotope analysis of teeth and bones is regularly applied by archeologists and paleoanthropologists seeking to reconstruct diets, ecologies, and environments of past hominin populations. Moving beyond the now prevalent study of stable isotope ratios from bulk materials, researchers are increasingly turning to stable isotope ratios of individual amino acids to obtain more detailed and robust insights into trophic level and resource use. In the present article, we provide a guide on how to best use amino acid stable isotope ratios to determine hominin dietary behaviors and ecologies, past and present. We highlight existing uncertainties of interpretation and the methodological developments required to ensure good practice. In doing so, we hope to make this promising approach more broadly accessible to researchers at a variety of career stages and from a variety of methodological and academic backgrounds who seek to delve into new depths in the study of dietary composition.

The authors distributed pre- and post-event surveys to individuals who are incarcerated in a state prison and a county jail as part of the Initiative to Bring Science Programs to the Incarcerated (INSPIRE) program, through which scientists present informal scientific lectures in carceral settings. This sort of engagement is particularly important, say the authors, given the growing emphasis among funding agencies and in academia on broadening the reach of science to include scientifically underserved groups, through DEI and other initiatives.

The results of the surveys were striking, with 100% of the scientist participants reporting that they would recommend the program to their colleagues. Scientists who gave lectures also reported an increased interest in taking action on issues related to social justice, with one respondent stating, “It has motivated me to take more actions. A couple of years from now, I plan to design programs for young adults from minority families.”

The experience also produced significant counterstereotypical effects, in which negative preconceived notions were dramatically shifted by their experiences. "My interaction with incarcerated individuals really opened my eyes. Previously, these individuals were a number or statistic that I hear on the news. After meeting individuals, I felt empathy for people in this situation," said one respondent.

The authors are hopeful about the prospects for the expansion of such programs, for the benefit of scientists and people who are incarcerated alike. They note that the program is cost-effective and accessible, as they calculated that if only 10% US scientists were to engage in similar work, that would result in a ratio of 95 scientists per correctional facility, and "every incarcerated person in the United States would have access to a scientist’s presentation."

Authors Nalini Nadkarni, Jeremy Morris, JJ Horns join us on this episode of BioScience Talks to discuss the article and the promise of greater public engagement with science.

Additional Resources

The Go To Prison Handbook 

More peer-reviewed publications.

Learn more about science in prisons.

The youth in custody program.

Writing in the journal BioScience, AIBS scientists Stephen A. Gallo, Joanne H. Sullivan, and DaJoie R. Croslan describe the results of a survey disseminated to thousands of MSI-based scientists aimed at elucidating discrepancies in grant review participation between MSI-based scientists and those who work at traditionally White institutions (TWIs). The survey questions addressed a range of topics, including the scientists' recent funding and peer review experiences, as well as their motivations for engaging in the grant review process. 

The survey results point to serious issues in grant review: Only 45% of respondents from MSIs reported participating in the grant review process, compared with an earlier survey's finding that 76% of scientists from TWIs were. This mismatch cannot be accounted for by differences in frequency of grant submission (which is roughly the same) or in scientist preferences, say the authors—76% of MSI scientists reported an interest in taking part in grant review.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by the article's authors to discuss these and other findings described in their article—as well as the ways that these issues might be best addressed through DEI initiatives and other approaches.

            According to the section authors, the RAD framework gives managers three general pathways for responding to change: They can take actions to resist the change, they can accept it, or they can try to direct the change to produce desirable outcomes. The NPS has honed the RAD framework with an expanding circle of parks and adaptation partners over the past half-dozen years, with federal natural resource management agencies collaborating to develop guidance for stewarding transforming ecosystems. The special section can be found in the January issue of BioScience.

For this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Dr. Schuurman to discuss the RAD framework and the special section that describes it.

More about the RAD framework can be found on web pages maintained by the NPS and USGS.

            The authors describe a module that leverages this feature of biodiversity collections to produce a holistic student learning experience. The module, “Connecting students to citizen science and curated collections," was designed by the authors with six learning goals in mind, ranging from plant specimen collection in the field to the deposition of data in national or international databases. Students also learned about the value of large data sets and the role of community members' contributions to them.

            The authors reported strong learning results, stating that, according to a postmodule assessment, "the students felt well prepared, very well prepared, or totally prepared to use foundational and emerging plant collecting skills including maintaining a field notebook (89%), collecting specimens in the field (94%), and depositing specimens (89%) and digital data (92%) into national and international data repositories."

            Joining us on this episode are authors Anna Monfils, Professor at Central Michigan University and Director of the Central Michigan University Herbarium, Erica Krimmel, Information Scientist with the iDigBio Project at Florida State University, and Travis Marsico, Professor of Botany at Arkansas State University and Curator of the Arkansas State University Herbarium. They discussed the learning model they designed from implementation to next steps.

            Publishing in BioScience, handling editors Rick Bonney, of Cornell University, Finn Danielsen, of the Nordic Foundation for Development and Ecology (NORDECO), and numerous colleagues share an open-access special section (already downloaded thousands of times) that highlights numerous community-based monitoring programs currently underway. 

            In an article on locally based monitoring, Danielsen and colleagues describe the potential for monitoring by community members—who may have little scientific training—to deliver "credible data at local scale independent of external experts and can be used to inform local and national decision making within a short timeframe." 

            Community-based monitoring efforts also have the potential to empower Indigenous rightsholders and stakeholders through their broader inclusion in the scientific process, writes Bonney in a Viewpoint article introducing the section. Moreover, he says, "Indigenous and local peoples’ in situ knowledge practices have the potential to make significant contributions to meeting contemporary sustainability challenges both locally and around the globe." 

            In this episode of BioScience Talks, Bonney and Danielsen join us to discuss the special section as well as the broader future for community-based monitoring. DEI

            Although fossil fuel use dipped slightly in 2020, a widely predicted result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors report that carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide "have all set new year-to-date records for atmospheric concentrations in both 2020 and 2021." Furthermore, 16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, reflecting metrics such as greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content, and ice mass, have also set disquieting records. However, there were a few bright spots, including fossil fuel subsidies reaching a record low and fossil fuel divestment reaching a record high.

            In this episode of BioScience Talks, coauthor Jillian Gregg, who is with the Sustainability Double Degree program and the Department of Crop and Soil Science at Oregon State University, joins us to discuss the latest climate update and the urgent actions needed ensure the long-term sustainability of human civilization.

 
Notes: For our discussion on extreme climate event attribution, we would like to clarify that current methods do not assess whether individual events are caused by climate change, but instead assess whether these events (floods, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, fires) are larger, more intense, or more frequent, as a result of climate change.

Links to some of the resources we discuss:

• Carbon Brief summarizes extreme weather events
• Al Gore Climate Reality Training
• Exeter University YouTube on how they are becoming carbon neutral
• We refer to the "Princeton group," which is the Climate Central Surging Seas site for visualizing sea level rise

Please visit Dr. Bailey's podcast, The Creature Connection.
DEI

Read the article in BioScience here.

The authors' case study is written up here.

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In this episode, we're joined by Will Atlas, a salmon watershed scientist with the Wild Salmon Center; Andrea Reid, citizen and member of the Nisga’a Nation, in British Columbia, and an assistant professor with the University of British Columbia; and William G. Housty of the Heiltsuck First Nation and the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department. Our guests describe how a return to traditional management and other DEI efforts may revitalize these fisheries and bolster the fishing communities that depend on them.

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• The ASGSR 2020 Virtual Meeting
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In this episode BioScience Talks, we're joined by AIBS President Charles Fenster, Director of the Oak Lake Field Station, which is affiliated with South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota. He discusses the article with us, and the conversation is followed by a presentation of the article by the past presidents, themselves. 

(Enter the contest described by emailing your guess to bioscience@aibs.org)

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Writing in BioScience, independent ecologist Carlos Carroll and colleagues argue that the declarations of recovery should be based on a more ambitious definition of recovery than one requiring the existence of a single secure population. Instead, they propose a framework for the "conservation of adaptive potential," which builds on existing agency practice to enhance the effectiveness of the Act. The authors argue that such an approach is particularly crucial in light of climate change and other ongoing threats to species.

On this episode of BioScience Talks, Dr. Carroll is joined by coauthors Adrian Treves, Bridgett vonHoldt, and Dan Rohlf to discuss the recent USFWS action as well as prospects for gray wolf conservation.

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• Read Dr. Whiteman's 2019 BioScience article.
• Read more about polar bear diets (and body temperatures).
• Wildlife SOS
• Free the Bears
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Photograph: Mike Lockhart.

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Writing in BioScience, Joy Winbourne and her colleagues present an overview of the current understanding of tree transpiration and its implications, as well as areas for future research. Their work, derived from tree sap flow data, reveals the complexity and feedbacks inherent in trees' and urban zones' responses to extreme heating events.

Dr. Winbourne joins us on this episode of BioScience Talks to discuss the newly published article, as well as directions for future research and the prospects for using trees to better mitigate urban heat in the face of a changing climate.

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In this episode BioScience Talks, we're joined by representatives from the collections and science education communities. Guests included John Bates, Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Field Museum of Natural History; Pam Soltis, Florida Museum of Natural History, the University of Florida; Gil Nelson, iDigBio, Florida Museum of Natural History, the University of Florida; Barbara Thiers, New York Botanical Garden; Anna Monfils, Central Michigan University, the BLUE Project; Janice Krumm, Widener University, BCEENET (Biological Collections in Ecology and Evolution Network); Liz Shea, Delaware Museum of Natural History, BCEENET; Carly Jordan, George Washington University, BCEENET; and Joseph Cook, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico.

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In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Dr. Gerald Grant, who describes the process by which such tools are developed and manufactured, as well as their potential to quickly fill this and other gaps in the medical supply chain.

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In this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Dr. Maria Miriti, whose recent article in BioScience, The Elephant in the Room: Race and STEM Diversity, discusses these shortcomings, their causes, and some of the ways in which they may be best addressed in the future.

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In this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Dr. Crystal Icenhour, CEO of Aperiomics, and Dr. Robbie Barbero, Chief Business Officer of Ceres Nanosciences. Both companies have recently ramped up efforts to improve the prospects of broad-scale testing for the novel pathogen in human patients.

Aperiomics, whose core technology uses deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing to test for tens of thousands of bacteria, virus, fungus, and parasite at once, has launched a SARS-CoV-2-specific test, with the aims of increasing test availability and delivering crucially important public health data. Ceres Nanosciences's flagship Nanotrap particle technology enables the capture, concentration, and preservation of low abundance analytes from complex biological samples. The technology is presently being tested with the SARS-CoV-2 and is expected to help in improving the accuracy of existing testing protocols.

Image credit: NIAID-RML, CC BY 2.0.

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This year's podcast release is being released during Space Science Week 2020, which is being held virtually in light of COVID-19. Click here to learn more.

Interviewees included:

• Kevin Sato, Immediate Past-President
• Doug Matson, President
• Phoebe Wall, Stanford University
• Rylee Schauer, BioServe, Colorado University Boulder
• Pamela Flores, BioServe, Colorado University Boulder
• Robert Ferl, University of Florida
• Anna-Lisa Paul, University of Florida

Learn more:

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• Learn more about ASGSR's 2020 meeting in Houston
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• Closing music courtesy of Lakey Inspired.

• Read the 2016 article in BioScience.
• Listen to our 2016 interview with Dan Salkeld.
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Writing in BioScience, Sara M. Lewis of Tufts University and her colleagues aim to fill the gap with a broad overview of the threats facing these diverse and charismatic species—as well as potential solutions that may lead to their preservation into the future. Lewis and colleagues catalog numerous threats, foremost among them habitat loss, followed closely by artificial light and pesticide use. The future is not bleak, however, and the authors describe considerable opportunities to improve the prospects of bioluminescent insects, including through the preservation of habitat, reduction of light pollution, lowered insecticide use, and more-sustainable tourism. Dr. Lewis and coauthors Candace Fallon and Michael Reed join us on this episode of BioScience Talks to shed light on these challenges and opportunities. Listeners are also invited to read Dr. Lewis's book on fireflies, linked below.

• Read this article in BioScience.
• Read Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies
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Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Elaine Horn-Ranney joins us on this episode of our Impact Series to discuss Perf-Fix, what it takes to run a start-up, and some of the many other potential applications for Tympanogen's technology.

• Learn More about Tympanogen.
• Check out Tympanogen on the NASA Explorers show,
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One such acroecosystem is coffee's. On shade-coffee farms, the coffee plant is consumed by numerous pests, including the green coffee scale, coffee berry borer, and coffee rust disease. In turn, these species are regulated by a variety of natural enemies, through processes of often staggering complexity. In a major BioScience Overview article, John Vandermeer of the University of Michigan and his colleagues aim to untangle such complexities and get at the heart of pest control in the coffee system, emphasizing the intersection of ecology with "the burgeoning field of complex systems, including references to chaos, critical transitions, hysteresis, basin or boundary collision, and spatial self-organization."

Dr. Vandermeer joins us on this episode of BioScience Talks to discuss the coffee agroecosystem—and the many species and dynamics that underlie it.

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To shed light on this critical institution, American Institute of Biological Sciences chief scientist Stephen Gallo and his colleagues recently published the results of a major survey. It is joined by a grant review report from Publons, a company housed within Clarivate Analytics that helps researchers track their research and review outputs and works to encourage greater recognition of scientists' work.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Stephen Gallo and Matthew Hayes, director of Publons, who discuss the survey results and shed light on the future of peer review.

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• Read the AIBS survey results.
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Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length.

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Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length.

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Please register for the 2020 Annual SICB Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. See http://sicb.org/meetings/2020 for details.

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In this inaugural episode, we interviewed Dr. Crystal Icenhour, CEO of Aperiomics, a life sciences company located in Loudoun County, Virginia. The company uses a technique called shotgun metagenomic sequencing identify every known bacteria, virus, fungus, and parasite (over 37,000) found in a given patient sample. Through this revolutionary technique, they are able to identify pathogens that would escape detection using traditional means. We chatted about the technology itself, and just as important, the pathway from innovation to helping patients in need.

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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Greg Backus, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, and Jason Delborne, Associate Professor of Science Policy and Society at North Carolina State University's Genetic Engineering and Society Center, describe a potential solution. Threshold-dependent gene drives could limit the spread of wild-released gene drives to target populations, increasing control and reducing the risk of unchecked spread. The authors joined us on this episode of BioScience Talks to discuss the potential of these gene drives—and also some of the questions of controllability, spread, and ecological uncertainty that relate to them.

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• Learn more about comms training at ASGSR.
• Register for the ASGSR meeting and training.

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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Mitch Cruzan, of Portland State University, in Oregon, describes the history of a particular invasive species, the slender false brome. Originally introduced in Oregon as part of a US Department of Agriculture program, the grass has undergone a hybridization process that enabled it to take hold in much of the state. By understanding the rapid adaptation of the false brome to Oregon's landscapes, it may be possible to unravel the mechanics of future invasions, before they endanger native species.

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• Learn about Evolutionary Biology: A Plant Perspective.
• Writing for Impact and Influence.
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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Phillip Higuera (University of Montana), Dr. Alex Metcalf (University of Montana), and their colleagues suggest that a more holistic framework would consider the crucial human element of social-ecological systems. By doing so, managers could work toward outcomes that best fit the ecological needs and human priorities inherent in the system. The work they describe here is focused on fire-prone landscapes, but the approach is broadly applicable across a range of systems.

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Interviewees included:

• Robert Ferl, University of Florida
• Samantha McBride, ASGSR Student President
• Michael Roberts, International Space Station National Laboratory
• Mark Weislogel, Portland State University
• Kasthuri Venkateswaran, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Learn more:

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• Attend the 2019 Annual Meeting in Denver, CO.
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• Closing music courtesy of Lakey Inspired.

To meet the robust promise of digital collections, the Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) has developed a national agenda that leverages new techniques and capabilities to create what they call the Extended Specimen Network. Members of BCoN join us on this episode of BioScience Talks to describe the newly conceived network and to talk about its potential to change the way science is performed—both now and in the future. Pictured above are our guests at a National Press Club briefing where they formally released their report (from left to right: David Jennings, Andrew Bentley, Linda Ford, Anna Monfils, Jennifer Zaspel, John Bates, Barbara Thiers, and Robert Gropp). Photograph: Samuel Hurd.

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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Paolo D'Odorico of the University of California, Berkley, and his colleagues present these questions through the framework of human rights, delving into the various ways in which food availability and inequality are affected by trade. Drawing from a wealth of data, the authors find that, broadly speaking, trade tends to reduce food inequality. But joining us in this episode of BioScience Talks, Dr. D'Odorico cautions that more complex phenomena may lie beneath the surface, confounding simplistic explanations. 

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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Thomas Campagnaro of the University of Padova, in Italy, and his colleagues elucidate one possible route to better landscape preservation. In their article, the authors describe Natura 2000, the world's largest conservation network. Based in the European Union, the network relies on strong governance, flexible designations, and scientific expertise to produce reliable conservation outcomes.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, Dr. Campagnaro is joined by coauthors Tommaso Sitzia, also of the University of Padova, and Erle Ellis, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, to discuss the network and the prospects for scaling it up to a planetary scale.

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Richard Pelikan, a bioinformatician at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, and Austin Schwinn, a data scientist at Exaptive, joined us on this episode to discuss the collaboration, epigenetics, chromatin looping, and the future of understanding human disease. Images discussed in the podcast can be found below the links.

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• Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
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            Dr. White joins us on this episode of BioScience Talks to discuss statistical power, his own analyses, and his recommendations for future conservation efforts.

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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Liz Koziol, of Kansas University, and her colleagues describe the current state of knowledge about plant microbiomes, and specifically, the mutualistic relationship between plant species and the fungi that live in and among their roots—mycorrhizal fungi. The authors argue that "reintroduction of the native microbiome and native mycorrhizal fungi improves plant diversity, accelerates succession, and increases the establishment of plants that are often missing from restored communities."

In this episode of BioScience Talks, Koziol joins us to discuss her article and to describe the potential ecological benefits of grassland restoration efforts that include the reintroduction of native plant microbiome species.

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Writing in BioScience, Dr. Jeffrey Powell and his colleagues describe recent work in tracking the spread of this important vector. Using newly available genomic techniques, they cross-referenced the historical divergence of A. aegypti populations with known records of ship movements and disease spread. The results paint a picture of a species that traversed slave and other trade routes to the New World and beyond.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, Powell joins us to discuss his work and to elaborate on the evolution and movements of this deadly "domesticated" mosquito species.

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• AIBS's Team Science Event

For this episode of BioScience Talks, we are joined by Dr. Dietram Scheufele, who discusses the poll's results and also the ways in which synthetic biologists might best engage the public—as experts and as listeners—during and after the field's entrance onto the public and regulatory stage.

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Photo credit: Kyle Cassidy, Annenberg School for Communication.

Writing in BioScience, Alan Wilson of Auburn University, Eric Nagy of the Mountain Lake Biological Station at the University of Virginia, and their colleagues present an assessment of the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site programs. They compared the scientific outcomes of demographically matched participants and non-participants and found substantial differences between the two groups. For instance, participants in the REU Site programs were more likely to obtain a STEM PhD and to receive awards, make scientific presentations, and publish the results of their research.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, Wilson and Nagy join us to explain their assessment approach and describe the research opportunities at the REU Site programs at their institutions.

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Learn more:

• Visit the Allan Lab Online.
• Read more about the mammalian meat allergy.
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            Writing in BioScience, William Arlidge, E. J. Milner-Gulland, and colleagues present a unified framework to address these challenges: global mitigation hierarchies. These mitigation hierarchies encompass a four-step process of harm avoidance, minimization, remediation, and offsetting. The authors argue that by implementing such processes, global conservation priorities can be established in a way that bridges gaps in current regulatory regimes and enables more effective conservation. In this episode of BioScience Talks, Arlidge and Milner-Gulland join us to explain the approach in more detail and describe the possible paths to implementation.

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Writing in BioScience, Jiangxiao Qiu of the University of Florida and his colleagues describe this state of affairs and propose an alternative approach to understanding the interplay of social and ecological spheres: causal chains. The authors describe these chains as an "approach to identifying logical and ordered sequences of effects on how a system responds to interventions, actions, or perturbations." The idea was originally formed as result of a workshop funded by the Packard Foundation, and Dr. Qiu joins us in this episode to discuss causal chains and their implications for the future of policy and management.

Learn more:

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This special episode brings together the foremost thought leaders in space-related biology and physical science, highlighting the broad spectrum of research being conducted at unique venues such as and the ISS.

Interviewees included:

• Cindy Martin-Brennan, Executive Director of ASGSR
• Anna-Lisa Paul and Robert Ferl, University of Florida
• Michael Roberts, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space
• Ken Savin, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space
• Jonathan Clark, Baylor College of Medicine and the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

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• Closing music courtesy of Lakey Inspired.

• Read the article.
• Check out an earlier episode on nature's mental health benefits.
• Does contact with nature prevent crime?
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• Learn more about the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research Annual Meeting.
• Read the article.
• Learn more about wildlife trade in Vietnam.
• The search for slow lorises (video).
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Abstracts are now being accepted for the 2018 Annual SICB Meeting in San Francisco. See http://sicb.org/meetings/2018 for details.

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            For this episode of BioScience Talks, Dr. Testa shares more details about hypoxia, its causes, and perhaps most important, the ways in which forecasting it can help us understand and plan for the future of the bay.

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Writing in BioScience, E. Ashley Steel of the USDA Forest Service and her colleagues detail the effects of these newly available data and describe the ways in which the knowledge they enable will assist future management efforts. Key among data-enabled innovations is the incorporation of measurements over time and space to create a holistic view of river thermal regimes that the authors dub the "thermal landscape," which has broad implications for the future of river science. She joins us on this episode of BioScience Talks to describe the article and the future of the field.

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For this episode of BioScience Talks, Dr. McCormick describes the range of applications spawned by new research involving the endocrine system, which refers to the set of glands that deliver hormones directly to the circulatory system. These new applications span the measurement of birds' altered stress hormones in response to ecotourism to drone-collected blowhole spray from whales, which may contain hormonal clues about the species' broader health. Other applications include the monitoring of human-introduced endocrine disruptors in aquatic systems and various hormonal changes induced by urbanization, hunting, invasive species, habitat disruption, marine noise, and many other potential stressors.

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• Writing for Impact and Influence.

For this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Dr. Thomas Newsome of Deakin University and the University of Sydney. Writing in BioScience, Newsome and his colleagues use gray wolves and other large predators as case studies to explore the effects of human-provided foods. They find numerous instances of species' changing their social structures, movements, and behavior when these resources are available. Perhaps most concerning, they've found that human-fed populations often form distinct genetic subgroups, which could lead to future speciation events.

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• Writing for Impact and Influence.

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In this episode of BioScience Talks, we spoke with Dr. Treena Burgess of Murdoch University in Western Australia, who also holds an adjunct appointment with the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. She describes her recent article in BioScience, written with Michael Wingfield. In it, the authors articulate seven scenarios of pathogen movement and disease epidemics, as well as the biosecurity risks that arise from poorly controlled germplasm movement. The dangers are significant, with economically important eucalypt plantations and native ecosystems both facing significant threats.

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• Read Michael Wingfield's previous BioScience article on the topic.
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In this episode of BioScience Talks, we look at the human microbiome from an environmentalist's perspective. What are the health benefits of microbiota from environmental sources? What are the threats of altered microbiota? How should we manage the landscapes that play host to this crucial microbial diversity?

To help answer these questions, we spoke with Craig Liddicoat of the University of Adelaide and the South Australian government's Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources. Liddicoat and his colleagues recently published an article in BioScience that shines a light on the myriad benefits of preserving environmental microbiomes and proposes a unifying conceptual framework for the multidisciplinary approach needed to tackle this emerging research area.

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For this episode of BioScience Talks, we spoke with Dr. Bridget Deemer of the US Geological Survey. Deemer and her colleagues recently embarked on a systematic effort to synthesize reservoir greenhouse-gas data. The results, described in BioScience, point to reservoirs as a substantial yet often unrecognized source of greenhouse gases.

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• Keep up with Dr. Deemer's research.
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• Read Dr. Smith's earlier work in BioScience on polar bears.
• Read Dr. Smith's work on bear spray efficacy.
• Read Dr. Smith's work on firearm efficacy against aggressive bears.
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• Australian Citizen Science Association
• US Citizen Science Association
• European Citizen Science Association

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• Read the report and access related materials.
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• Read the workshop report on complex data integration.
• Learn more about the upcoming AIBS Council Meeting.
• Read the AIBS workshop report on Changing Practices in Data Publication.

• Read the article describing the intervention.
• Read Amy Pohler's Smart Girls blog about the results.
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• Read the article by Joseph Veldman and colleagues.
• See figure 2 discussed in the podcast.
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The article is part of a BioScience Special Section on Tropical Forest Responses to Large-Scale Experiments.

In this episode, I'm joined by Drs. Xandra Breakefield and Mikolaj Zaborowski, two Harvard Medical School researchers working at the forefront of the field.