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One Species at a Time

75 Episodes

6 minutes | Dec 5, 2013
Delal a kar
Palau, an island nation of 20,000 people in the western Pacific, is on a collision course with modernization. As a Western way of life takes hold in this archipelago, a modern ailment is taking hold with it. Christopher Kitalong has a foot in both worlds. He grew up in Palau and is getting a degree in ethnobotany in the U.S. He thinks a nondescript native tree may hold the answer to Palau’s epidemic, and Kitalong is determined to ask the right questions. read more
6 minutes | Nov 12, 2013
Dolphins
You have probably seen cans of tuna in your local supermarket marked “dolphin safe.” That label means the tuna was fished in a way that spares most dolphins from being killed in the tuna fleet’s giant nets. In this podcast, biologist and guest reporter Matt Leslie brings us a story about tuna, the intertwined fate of fisheries and dolphins, and the work of scientists. It’s a story that lies behind the label of every can of tuna. It spans two generations of scientists and a revolution in scientific methods. Matt reports from a dolphin morgue in La Jolla, California, USA. read more
6 minutes | Oct 28, 2013
Right Whale
Hear how research unfolds at sea. Playing female whale calls into the water, researcher Susan Parks suddenly finds herself the center of attention of a group of male North Atlantic Right Whales. Will she be able to gather crucial data before a breaching whale crashes down on her boat? Download a transcript of this podcast Image Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) read more
6 minutes | Oct 15, 2013
Honey Bees
Have you heard the buzz about bee colonies collapsing? Entomologist Noah Wilson-Rich wanted to study ways to keep bees healthy, but grant money proved elusive. In this podcast, Ari Daniel Shapiro ventures into a cloud of honey bees to learn about the unique way one bee scientist is managing to help bees and fund his research at the same time. Download a transcript of this podcast Image Credit: John Baker, Flickr: EOL Images. CC BY. read more
6 minutes | Sep 30, 2013
Mexican long-nosed bats
The batman of Mexico has his own bat-cave. He just shares it with 4,000 Mexican long-nosed bats. In this episode, join researcher Rodrigo Medellin as he descends into the Devil’s Cave just north of Mexico City. It’s a journey that started decades ago when Medellin was on a game show as a boy. He lost the game show, but won a prize far more valuable—for himself, his students, and Mexico’s bats. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Tepoztlán. read more
6 minutes | Sep 10, 2013
Parasitic Wasps
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where one organism stops and another begins. That’s especially true with the kind of evolutionary arms race that takes place between parasites and their unwilling hosts. It’s biological warfare at the level of the genes. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Athens, Georgia, USA. Podcast transcript read more
5 minutes | Sep 4, 2013
New Species in the Old World
You don’t always have to venture into the heart of a rain forest to discover a new species. Sometimes all you have to do is look more closely, right where you are. In Europe, experts and enthusiasts alike are looking high and low, from alpine meadows to underground caves, in search of Old World species new to science. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from France. Download a transcript of this podcast Image Credit: Courtesy of Ari Daniel Shapiro. read more
6 minutes | Aug 20, 2013
Iron-oxidizing bacteria
If you were driving along a highway in Maine - located on the east coast of the United States - past pine trees and summer cottages, you might not give a ditch of rust-colored water a second thought, unless you had the bad luck to drive into it. In this week’s podcast, Ari Daniel meets some scientists who are wading into the rusty water and finding a whole ecosystem of unusual life forms. Download a transcript of this podcast read more
6 minutes | Jul 31, 2013
Bittersweet nightshade
Some species are born invaders, like bittersweet nightshade, a non-native vine with purple flowers and red berries. So what makes it such a successful space invader while other foreign plants never make it? It turns out the answer may be right underfoot. Ecologists Jean Burns and Angela Brandt have devised clever experiments to get to the root of the matter. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Cleveland, Ohio. Download a transcript of this podcast read more
6 minutes | Jul 17, 2013
Moths
Like moths to a flame, some people are irresistibly drawn to the woods at night. Carrying bed sheets and armed with special lights and lures, they come seeking moths. In July 2012, in 49 states and numerous countries across the world, scientists and ordinary folk alike fanned out to get a closer look at these insects during the first ever National Moth Week - now an annual event across the world. National Moth Week 2013 is July 20-28. Learn more at: http://nationalmothweek.org/ read more
6 minutes | Jul 10, 2013
Saltwater crocodiles
The city of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory lies in the heart of crocodile country. In the 1950s, saltwater crocodiles were shot, skinned, and turned into shoes and handbags. After hunting was banned in the 1970s, crocodile numbers climbed. Now there’s a croc for every man, woman, and child in Darwin. Can the human citizens learn to live alongside their toothy neighbors? Image Credit: Gerald and Buff Corsi. CalPhotos. CC BY-NC-SA read more
6 minutes | Jun 24, 2013
Island Fox
In this episode, reporter Molly Samuel journeys to Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of California, to look into the mystery of the island’s tiny foxes, descendants of gray foxes who rafted over from the mainland more than ten thousand years ago and branched off to form a new, smaller species. Despite weighing a mere three pounds, these diminutive grey foxes thrived and for millennia they reigned as the island’s top predator. But twenty years ago, their numbers began to plummet, from three thousand in the early 1990s to fewer than one hundred by 2000. read more
6 minutes | Jun 11, 2013
Ediacaran Fauna Fossils
In this episode, journey back in time to learn about Ediacaran Fauna, a diverse group of organisms that lived in the world's oceans about 580 million years ago. We’ll meet Dickinsonia rex, a sort of living bathmat without eyes or a mouth, and other strange denizens of the primordial slimebed. Paleontologists Mary Droser and Jim Gehling explain how they’re working to reconstruct this ancient ecosystem by studying fossils and shed light on the enduring evolutionary puzzle of how and why the first complex life forms arose. read more
5 minutes | May 29, 2013
Scottish Wildcat
Scottish Wildcats or Felis sylvestris grampia have been around since the last ice age. A symbol of strength and independence, the cats used to roam the whole of Great Britain, but researchers believe there are now fewer than 400 left in the rugged highlands. We journey to Highland Wildlife Park in Scotland to learn about the threats that have this secretive species on the run and what the Cairngorms Wildcat Project is doing to help protect them.  Download a transcript of this podcast read more
6 minutes | May 14, 2013
Monarch Butterflies II
As they wing their way across North America, millions of migrating monarch butterflies form a living river of orange. In this episode, the second of two podcasts on monarchs, we’ll meet citizens young and old who are dipping a toe in that river in the name of science and of beauty. Download a transcript of this podcast Image Credit: Victoria Reeder, iNaturalist.org. CC BY-NC-SA read more
6 minutes | Apr 30, 2013
Monarch Butterflies
Every year monarch butterflies begin a journey north from their overwintering grounds in Mexican forests. The epic migration spans generations and the better part of a continent. In this first of two episodes, we’ll meet a pair of women united by their fascination with this iconic insect. Mexican geographer Isabel Ramírez and American biologist Karen Oberhauser are working to save monarch habitat on both ends of this remarkable insect’s 2,500 mile journey. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports. read more
5 minutes | Apr 17, 2013
Beetles and Moths
How much trouble can an unassuming black beetle no bigger than your fingernail be? Plenty, as we learn in this episode of One Species at a Time. Tiny stowaways like the European Gazelle beetle are arriving on container ships and wreaking havoc with native ecosystems. Long-standing pests like the gypsy moth have been joined by new exotic species that are crowding out North American fauna. Ari Daniel Shapiro journeys to the forests of Oregon to meet the beetles. Download a transcript of this podcast read more
5 minutes | Apr 1, 2013
Seagrass
The species that was Àlex Lorente’s passion was an extraordinarily long-lived seagrass, once common along the coast of his native Spain. Tragically, Lorente himself was not to enjoy a long life: he died in 2012 at the age of 37. But his colleagues in marine conservation are working to make sure the links Lorente forged between scientists and fishermen survive, for the good of the Mediterranean that he cherished. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports. Download a transcript of this podcast read more
5 minutes | Mar 20, 2013
Bowhead Whale
Writer Karen Romano Young takes an icebreaker to Barrow, Alaska, to join in the festival of Naluqatak and learn about the intimate relationship between the Inupiat Eskimos and the bowhead whale. Listen as she tells Ari Daniel Shapiro how the whole community turns out for whale hunt, how the bowhead nourishes the Inupiat, both physically and spiritually—and how the hunt is proving to be an unexpected gift to scientists. read more
6 minutes | Mar 6, 2013
Red Swamp Crawfish
For centuries, human commerce has played a role in distributing plant and animal species around the globe. But not every species can claim the title of circumnavigator. In this week’s episode, Ari Daniel Shapiro journeys to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. to meet a tiny Magellan, the star of an unlikely story that has come full circle. Download a transcript of this podcast read more
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