BioScience Talks

Natural history collections are a crucial resource to many scientific endeavors, and their value has been bolstered by recently undertaken digitization efforts. However, many opportunities remain to improve collections' usability, ensure that their contributions are properly credited, and protect them from a perilous budget environment that, in many cases, threatens their long-term survival. Writing in BioScience, Sara E. Miller, Lisa N. Barrow, Sean M. Ehlman, Jessica A. Goodheart, Stephen E. Greiman, Holly L. Lutz, Tracy M. Misiewicz, Stephanie M. Smith, Milton Tan, Christopher J. Thawley, Joseph A. Cook, and Jessica E. Light provide an overview of the challenges and pose solutions. Dr. Miller joins us in this episode to discuss the article and the future of the field.

• Read this article in BioScience.
• Listen to our episode on collections in the COVID-19 era.
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Shade from urban trees has long been understood to offer respite from the urban heat island effect, a phenomenon that can result in city centers that are 1–3 degrees Centigrade warmer than surrounding areas. Less frequently discussed, however, are the effects of tree transpiration in combination with the heterogeneous landscapes that constitute the built environment.

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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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. Douglas Futuyma, professor emeritus of ecology and evolution at Stony Brook University, in Stony Brook, New York. 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.

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The pandemic resulting from SARS-CoV-2 has had profound impacts on the conduct of scientific research and education: A large proportion of field research has ground to a halt, and research and science education were forced to move online. In light of these developments, the nation's biodiversity infrastructure—natural history collections housed in museums, herbaria, universities, and colleges, among other locations, and often available digitally—are ready to play an even larger role in enabling important scientific discoveries. Further, collections may also be instrumental in preventing or mitigating future infectious outbreaks. Two recent BioScience publications, linked below, highlight these issues.

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.

• Read the Editorial in BioScience.
• Read the Viewpoint in BioScience.
• Listen to our earlier discussion of the Extended Specimen Network.
• Learn more about the BLUE project.
• Learn more about BCEENET.
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Evaluating shifts in the health of dynamic ecosystems is often difficult—for instance, rivers with intermittent flows and populations with varied dispersal characteristics might look very different from one month to the next. In this episode of BioScience Talks, we're joined by Núria Cid and Thibault Datry of INRAE, in Lyon, France, who discuss their new framework for a metacommunity approach that aims to help researchers overcome these challenges.

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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 Dr. Judith Weis of Rutgers University. She 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.

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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 Dr. Gregory Anderson, who is with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. 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.

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Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, efforts to provide adequate testing and healthcare have at times been stymied by shortages of medical supplies. To help address one such shortage, a team at the University of Louisville designed a novel 3D-printed swab made of a pliable resin material. 

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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Despite ongoing efforts to increase DEI among STEM faculty, participation rates of faculty members of color remain lower in STEM fields than in other academic disciplines.

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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