BioScience Talks

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.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has produced numerous challenges for scientific societies and organizations, including the necessity to quickly move large in-person meetings to a fully online format. Joining us on this episode of BioScience Talks is Dr. Kevin Sato, past president of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research and chair of the organizing committee for the 2020 ASGSR Virtual Meeting. He describes the planning and execution of this novel event and provides an early look into the society's plans for 2021.

• The ASGSR 2020 Virtual Meeting
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Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, US science leaders and others have expressed frustration with the lack of an informed and coherent federal response, a sentiment that echoes objections to the handling of other pressing issues, such as climate change. Writing in BioScience, an assemblage of the past presidents of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) have issued an appeal for the reinvigoration of sound policy and governance through the careful consideration of sound science.

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 [email protected])

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On 29 October 2020, the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced the "successful recovery" of the US gray wolf population, with US Secretary of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt stating that the species had "exceeded all conservation goals for recovery." These claims have been rebutted by numerous experts, who argue that the delisting decision is premature.

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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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 Paul Ehrlich, president of the Center for Conservation Biology and Bing Professor of Population Studies Emeritus at Stanford University. 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.
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• 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 Marvalee Wake, professor of the Graduate School in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She 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.
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Fences are one of humanity's most frequent landscape alterations, with their combined length exceeding even that of roads by an order of magnitude. Despite their ubiquity, they have received far less research scrutiny than many human-built structures. Alex McInturff, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Barbara, joins us on this episode of BioScience Talks to discuss fence ecology.

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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. Each month, we will publish in the pages of BioScience, and on this podcast, the results of these conversations.  Today, we are joined by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York City, and host of COSMOS: Possible Worlds.

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

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The keys to conserving large mammals, such as bears, often lie in better understanding their ecophysiology. Armed with knowledge about the animals' energy needs, conservationists can encourage actions that better preserve populations and ensure that their habitats will be able to sustain them both now and as the climate continues to rapidly change. In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Dr. John Whiteman of Old Dominion University, who describes efforts to characterize metabolisms among large mammals from India to the Arctic—and the ways that this work fuels the broader scientific endeavor.

• 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.

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 Dr. Gene E. Likens, emeritus president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and a distinguished professor at the University of Connecticut. He previously served as president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

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

• Read this article in BioScience.
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• Catch up with us on Twitter.