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 rightsholders and stakeholders through their broader inclusion in the scientific process, writes Bonney in a Viewpoint article introducing the section. Moreover, he says, "Indigenous and local peoples’ in situ knowledge practices have the potential to make significant contributions to meeting contemporary sustainability challenges both locally and around the globe."             In this episode of BioScience Talks, Bonney and Danielsen join us to discuss the special section as well as the broader future for community-based monitoring.

BioScience Talks

Empowering Communities through Local Monitoring

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 Their Own Words: Nalini Nadkarni

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 fossil fuel divestment reaching a record high.            In this episode of BioScience Talks, coauthor Jillian Gregg, who is with the Sustainability Double Degree program and the Department of Crop and Soil Science at Oregon State University, joins us to discuss the latest climate update and the urgent actions needed ensure the long-term sustainability of human civilization. Notes: For our discussion on extreme climate event attribution, we would like to clarify that current methods do not assess whether individual events are caused by climate change, but instead assess whether these events (floods, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, fires) are larger, more intense, or more frequent, as a result of climate change.Links to some of the resources we discuss: Carbon Brief summarizes extreme weather events Al Gore Climate Reality Training Exeter University YouTube on how they are becoming carbon neutral We refer to the "Princeton group," which is the Climate Central Surging Seas site for visualizing sea level rise 

The Climate Emergency in a COVID Year

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, Bailey, and Harris join us to discuss this model of inclusive sustainability and the ways in which it can be brought to bear in service of ecosystems and the humans who inhabit them. Please visit Dr. Bailey's podcast, The Creature Connection.

Blackologists and the Promise of Inclusive Sustainability

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. 

The COVID-19 Pandemic, Viral Evolution, Vaccines, and Variants

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.

Environmental DNA and RNA May Be Key in Monitoring Pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2

This episode is the next in our oral history series, In Their Own Words, featuring John E. Burris, emeritus president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

In Their Own Words: John E. Burris

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.

Urban Ecology, Segregation, and the Work of the Baltimore Field Station

George Chacko (University of Illinois) and Steve Gallo (American Institute of Biological Sciences) discuss using article citations to generate "clusters" that reflect scientific communities.

Using Citations to Find Scientific Communities

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.  

In Their Own Words: Thomas Lovejoy

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.  

Indigenous Systems of Management for Healthier Fisheries

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.  

SlothBot: Engaging the Public with Robot Ecology

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.  

In Their Own Words: Peter Raven

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.  

In Their Own Words: Alan Covich

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 Subscribe on iTunes. Subscribe on Stitcher. Catch up with us on Twitter.  

Virtual Meetings in the Pandemic Era: American Society for Gravitational and Space Research

A monthly podcast that features in-depth discussions of recently published BioScience articles. Each episode of the interview series will delve into the research underlying a highlighted article, providing the listener with unique insight into the author's work.

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BioScience Talks

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