BioScience Talks

American Institute of Biological Sciences

We hope you enjoy these in-depth discussions of recently published BioScience articles and other science stories. Each episode of our interview series delves into the research behind a highlighted story, giving listeners unique insight into scientists' work. read less
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Episodes

On Site at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
Sep 28 2023
On Site at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
This episode of BioScience Talks was recorded on location at the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Norfolk, Virginia, and features a range of presenters and organizers.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.
Wolf Recovery and Its Challenges, with David Mech and David Ausband
Sep 6 2023
Wolf Recovery and Its Challenges, with David Mech and David Ausband
For today's episode, we were joined by L. David Mech, from the US Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center and the University of Minnesota in St. Paul and David E. Ausband, from the Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, at the University of Idaho. They were here to talk about the successful recovery of gray wolves in North America, and in particular, the challenges associated with that success. Below is a brief article describing their BioScience article.____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.
Under the Weather with John Van Stan: Scientists Should Spend More Time in the Rain
Jun 14 2023
Under the Weather with John Van Stan: Scientists Should Spend More Time in the Rain
For today's episode, we're joined by Dr. John Van Stan, Associate Professor at Cleveland State University in the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, where he runs the Wet Plant Lab. A description of the article follows, and captions can be found 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.