Bioscience Talks

Natural resource managers worldwide face a growing challenge: Global change increasingly propels ecosystems on strong trajectories toward irreversible ecological transformations. As once-familiar historical ecological conditions fade, managers need new approaches to guide decision-making. In a special section in BioScience, three dozen authors, led by National Park Service (NPS) ecologist Gregor Schuurman and US Geological Survey social scientist Amanda Cravens, describe the Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD) framework, designed for and by managers. The collection of articles is focused on understanding and responding to the challenges of stewarding ecological systems in a time of intensifying global change.            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 c

The American institute of Biological Sciences, publisher of the BioScience Talks podcast, mourns the loss of visionary ecologist Thomas E. Lovejoy III. Dr. Lovejoy was the AIBS President in 1994. In 2012, he received the AIBS Outstanding Service Award, an award given annually in recognition of individuals’ and organizations’ noteworthy service to the biological sciences. Earlier this year, he joined us for an episode of our oral history series, In Their Own Words, which we republish here in memoriam. A version of this interview was also published in BioScience. Lovejoy died on December 25, 2021 in McLean, Virginia. He was 80.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Dr. Michael Lesser, Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire. He's here to talk about his recent BioScience article, which details the ways that coral is affected by nutrients, climate change, and other stressors— and what those interconnected stressors mean for the future of reefs.

The task of training an effective cadre of biodiversity scientists has grown more challenging in recent years, as foundational skills and knowledge in organismal biology have increasingly required complementary data skills and knowledge. Writing in BioScience, Dr. Anna K. Monfils, of Central Michigan University, and colleagues identify one way to address this training conundrum: biodiversity collections. Biodiversity collections operate at the nexus of foundational biological practice and contemporary data science, a product of their role as curator of not only specimens themselves but also the specimens' associated data and network of data resources (referred to as the "extended specimen").            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 collecti

In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Liz Browne, who has bachelor of science degree with honors from the University of Tasmania, and Scott Carver, disease ecologist at the University of Tasmania. They discuss the pathogen transmission, and in particular, the way that Sarcoptes scabiei, the mite responsible for mange, passes between members of different species, as well as the implications for epidemiology generally. Learn more in their recent BioScience article.

In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by previous guest Paolo D'Odorico, professor of hydrology and the Chair of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. We're also joined by Willis Jenkins, Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics at the University of Virginia, where he is also Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. Our guests discuss their recent article in BioScience water security and the ways that our values play into its management, with implications for Indigenous rights, ecosystem health, economies, environmental justice, and more. 

Over recent decades, community-based environmental monitoring (often called "citizen science") has exploded in popularity, aided both by smartphones and rapid gains in computing power that make the analysis of large data sets far easier.             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

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Nalini Nadkarni is a professor of biology at the University of Utah.  Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length.

In a year marked by unprecedented flooding, deadly avalanches, and scorching heat waves and wildfires, the climate emergency's enormous cost—whether measured in lost resources or human lives—is all too apparent. Writing in BioScience, a group led by William J. Ripple and Christopher Wolf, both with Oregon State University, update their striking 2019 "World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency" with new data on the climate's health. The news is not good.            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 foss

Historically, shared resources such as forests, fishery stocks, and pasture lands have often been managed with an aim toward averting "tragedies of the commons," which are thought to result from selfish overuse. Writing in BioScience, Drs. Senay Yitbarek (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Karen Bailey (University of Colorado Boulder), Nyeema Harris (Yale University), and colleagues critique this model, arguing that, all too often, such conservation has failed to acknowledge the complex socioecological interactions that undergird the health of resource pools.The authors, who describe themselves as Blackologists (“'not simply scholars that are Black but, rather, are scholars who deliberately leverage and intersect Blackness into advancing knowledge production"), elucidate a model in which researchers' life experiences provide "unique perspectives to critically examine socioecological processes and the challenges and solutions that arise from them." In this episode of BioScience Talks, Yitbarek, Bail

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Charlie Fenster, Professor at South Dakota State University, Director of Oak Lake Field Station, and President of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), Dr. Pam Soltis of the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, Director of University of Florida Biodiversity Institute, AIBS Board Member, and Past President of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, and Paul Turner, Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University and Microbiology Faculty Member at the Yale School of Medicine. They describe their recent article in BioScience, "Pandemic Policy in the Vaccine Era: The Long Haul Approach," in which they discuss vaccines, viral evolution, and the ways that the life sciences community must contribute to a robust international response in order to meet the present and future global challenges to human health and wellbeing. 

A discussion of environmental DNA and RNA (eDNA and eRNA, respectively) and its potential for pathogen monitoring. eDNA and eRNA approaches work through the collection of a sample (often from an aquatic source), whose genetic contents are then sequenced to reveal the presence and prevalence of pathogens. This conversation focuses on two cases, that of a herpesvirus that causes cancers among as turtles, and SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Our guests are Jessica Farrell and David Duffy of the University of Florida's Whitney Lab and Sea Turtle Hospital and Liam Whitmore, of the University of Limerick, in Ireland. Read the article in BioScience here. The authors' case study is written up here.

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. John E. Burris is emeritus president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. He is also a past president of AIBS. Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length.Read this article in BioScience.

Dr. Morgan Grove of the USDA Baltimore Field Station joins us to discuss urban ecology, segregation, environmental justice, and the efforts of the USDA Forest Service's Baltimore Field Station, including the Stillmeadow Peace Park and the Baltimore Wood Project. Learn more.

George Chacko (University of Illinois) and Steve Gallo (American Institute of Biological Sciences) discuss using article citations to generate "clusters" that reflect scientific communities. The clustering methodology may have broad implications for science, ranging from better peer review to the uncovering fraud—and more. Read the article.

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations. Dr. Lovejoy is a Professor at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Virginia, Explorer at Large with the National Geographic Society, and Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation. He is also a past president of AIBS. Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length. Read this article in BioScience. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.  

Before European colonization, populations of Pacific salmon were successfully managed by the Indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest since time immemorial. Colonization and its associated fisheries management practices have depleted stocks and disrupted the complex social–ecological systems that underlie them.  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 may revitalize these fisheries and bolster the fishing communities that depend on them. Read this article in BioScience. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.  

Despite having a professed trust in the science, many members of the public fall short when it comes to making choices that protect the environment and support informed decision-making. To help excite and inspire broad audiences to have a greater appreciation for and engagement with science, our guests today, Jonathan Pauli, associate professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Magnus Egerstedt, robotics professor at Georgia Tech, have created SlothBot. The forest-canopy-dwelling robot, which mirrors its biological counterparts in many ways, offers an exciting platform for learning—about robotics, ecology, and more. Read this article in BioScience. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.  

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations.  Today, we are joined by Peter Raven, president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, in St. Louis, Missouri. He is also a past president of AIBS. Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length. Read this article in BioScience. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.  

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words. These pieces chronicle the stories of scientists who have made great contributions to their fields, particularly within the biological sciences. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations.  Today, we are joined by Alan Covich, Professor of Ecology at the Odum School of Ecology, at the University of Georgia. He is also a past president of AIBS. Note: Both the text and audio versions have been edited for clarity and length. Read this article in BioScience. Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.