Big Biology

What do we mean by ‘extreme ecological events’? What’s more important to a population, more frequent extremes or changes to average conditions? How should we link the performance of individuals to the success or failure of entire populations?

On this episode, we talk with Mark Denny, Stanford University professor of marine science and former director of the Hopkins Marine Station. In his 2019 paper, “Performance in a variable world,” Mark reviewed how organisms perform in highly variable environments -- a problem that has taken on new urgency as climates change. We also talk about extreme ecological events -- what they are, why they occur, and how they affect organisms. Often, extreme conditions arise from unusual combinations of otherwise normal patterns of variation in multiple underlying factors. Predicting the effects of climate extremes therefore requires holistic approaches to monitoring environments coupled with an integrative understanding of animal physiology and behavior.

This episode of Big Biology is sponsored by the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. Founded in 1892, Hopkins Marine Station is the oldest marine laboratory on America’s west coast conducting research that addresses fundamental questions at every level of marine biology, from genes to ecosystems.

Cover art: Keating Shahmehri

Season 4 of Big Biology will kick off at the end of August. Before then, Art and Marty have a few updates to share:

We're looking for new interns to join our team and help produce the show! Also, we're hiring an executive producer to help with management and episode production. The application is available on the USF career page for a limited time - please consider applying!

Please send us an email at [email protected] with any questions.

Is artificial light at night partly responsible for insect declines? How does it affect nocturnal insects, especially fireflies and other species that need darkness to thrive?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Avalon Owens (@avalonceleste), a PhD candidate at Tufts University whose research aims to better understand the effects of artificial light at night (or ALAN) on insects. We discuss what light at night is doing to insect populations, why some insects are attracted to light, and how lights might be compromising the pollination services and disease risks mediated by some insects. We also discuss the fascinating light-centered behavior of the fireflies, specifically how man-made light disrupts their ability to find mates. We close with ideas about what you can do to help reduce the effects of artificial light on wildlife broadly. Spoiler alert: turn ‘em off or buy some damn curtains!

This episode is sponsored by the Zoological Lighting Institute. Recognizing that natural light is a central aspect of animal health and ecological function, The Zoological Lighting Institute promotes scientific research to improve understanding of what artificial changes in light mean for animals and the human communities that depend on them. Through education on light pollution, ZLI hopes that proper and sustainable approaches to care and development of light sources can be taken by communities around the globe.

Photo: Lupines and Fireflies No. 3 by Mike Lewinski (CC BY 2.0)

What has COVID-19 taught us about preparing for future epidemics? Can we trigger innate immune responses – our first lines of defense - to mitigate novel infections? Can we use live-attenuated vaccines (LAV) meant for other infections to protect us while we develop specific vaccines for new pathogens?

On this episode, we talk to virologists Konstantin Chumakov and Robert Gallo about their recent paper entitled “Old vaccines for new infections”. They and their colleagues argue that we can fight novel pathogens, like SARS-COV2, by stimulating our innate immune systems with live-attenuated vaccines developed for other pathogens (e.g., measles, rubella, polio). Such an approach might buy us time, particularly for front-line health workers or the most vulnerable among us, while pathogen-specific vaccines are developed. Many LAVs are cheap, easy to distribute, and already available where SARS-COV2 is common but its vaccine is not. We talked with Chumakov and Gallo about the prospects of using the LAV approach for future pandemics, why we didn’t use them to control COVID, and the possible mechanisms by which these old vaccines wield their surprising power.

Image: Number of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of June 16, 2021 (collated by Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus). Total number of people who received all doses prescribed by the vaccination protocol. This data is only available for countries which report the breakdown of doses administered by first and second doses.

What is agency? How does it evolve? Do non-living things have agency?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Tufts University professor Michael Levin about his recent article in Aeon magazine called ‘Cognition all the way down’. In it, Mike and Dan Dennett discuss the phenomenon of agency and what it means for biology, basic to medical. We discuss with Mike what it means to be an agent - whether you’re a metabolite, a cell, or a human - and how agency affects and is affected by evolution. We discuss how agents at different levels of organization influence each other, how agency research could change our thinking about the ethics of artificial intelligence, and how the internet has expanded collective human agency by broadening our cognitive horizons.

If you missed our first chat with Mike on the role of bioelectric fields in development, tissue regeneration, and evolution, check that out here.

Photo: Douglas Blackiston and Sam Kriegman

How do organisms cope with long periods of tough conditions where regular life is impossible?  How do some animals turn down their metabolism to levels so low that they can appear dead?  How do animals emerge from such deep, low activity states?

In this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Jason Podrabsky, a professor of biology at Portland State University, about diapause – a remarkable physiological state in which organisms turn down their metabolic rates to a bare minimum. Diapause is a way of living through harsh conditions while spending as little energy as possible. We talk with Jason about how organisms enter diapause, what happens inside them during diapause (more than you would think!), and how they reboot their systems to emerge from diapause. We focus on Jason’s work with the amazing annual killifish. In some species in this group, embryos can go into diapause and survive for months in the dry mud of ephemeral ponds, waiting for the next rain to arrive.

Photo: Claire Riggs and Jason Podrabsky

Can selection act on ecosystems, societies, or planets such that some persist and others disappear? Must such systems reproduce to evolve?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute (@GSI_Exeter) and a Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter. In his 2021 Trends in Ecology & Evolution paper “Survival of the Systems,” Tim outlined his idea that large, complex systems--such as grasslands, coral reefs, and even human economies--are subject to a kind of natural selection based on their ability to persist.  Tim argues that systems better able to extract and recycle resources will spread across landscapes and outcompete other such systems.

This episode is produced in collaboration with Trends in Ecology & Evolution (@Trends_Ecol_Evo). TREE, published by Cell Press, is a monthly review journal that contains polished, concise and readable Reviews and Opinions in all areas of ecology and evolutionary science. It aims to keep scientists informed of new developments and ideas across the full range of ecology and evolutionary biology--from the pure to the applied, and from the molecular to the global. Visit: http://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution.

Are genes the prime movers in evolution, or is causality distributed across multiple levels of organization?  What role do organisms play in evolution?  Could organismal agency, the propensity to respond actively to selective forces, affect standard evolutionary theory?

On this episode, we talk with Denis Walsh, a professor and philosopher of biology at the University of Toronto, about his book Organisms, Agency, and Evolution. The Modern Synthesis, which combines Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Mendel’s theory of genetic inheritance, was a giant leap forward in our understanding of the evolution of populations. Denis argues, however, that the extreme abstraction required by the synthesis derails our understanding of evolution. What’s needed instead, he suggests, is renewed focus on organisms. Because organisms have agency, they in effect construct the environments they experience, which in turn affects how selection acts on them. This view reestablishes organisms – not genes – as the central unit of evolution, just as Darwin’s ‘struggle for existence’ emphasized.

Photo credit: Blue Dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina) by Saspotato (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

What is CRISPR? Who are the key players behind its discovery? And what does it mean for science both now and in the future?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk to renowned author Walter Isaacson (@WalterIsaacson) about his new book, Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. We break down the rich history of the gene editing CRISPR-Cas9 system--from its initial discovery in bacteria to the current ethical considerations for using it in humans. We also talk about the life of Nobel Prize winning scientist Jennifer Doudna, who, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, initially proposed CRISPR as a way to edit DNA and modify traits to fight disease. We then close with a discussion of what CRISPR-Cas9 means for the future of gene editing and just how far it could, or rather should, go.

Why are some corals more resilient to bleaching than others? How should we leverage genetic and epigenetic information to conserve coral diversity?

On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Hollie Putnam (@HolliePutnam), a professor at the University of Rhode Island, about threats to coral reefs and the steps she and her colleagues are taking to preserve coral diversity. Warming oceans disrupt the relationships between corals and their symbiotic algae, which can lead to coral bleaching. Warming also alters the composition and function of the entire coral holobiont, the diverse community of other organisms that live together with corals and their algae. Hollie’s lab studies the causes of coral bleaching and the physiology of coral holobionts, both to understand the basic biology of corals and to selectively breed corals that can better tolerate future ocean conditions.     

This episode is sponsored by Journal of Experimental Biology. The journal is published by the Company of Biologists, a not-for-profit that has been supporting and inspiring the biological community since 1925. JEB is at the forefront of comparative physiology and biomechanics.