The Best Biome

We open the episode with an update on the Lesser Prairie Chicken delisting, why all hope is not lost, and some interviews with experts in the field: Dr. Jackie Augustine (Executive Director, Audubon of Kansas) and Stacy Hoeme (Co-Lead, Lesser Prairie Chicken Landowner Alliance).

The deep dive for this episode is led by Allan on the origin of cows: the mighty aurochs. Humans have lived and traveled alongside cows farther back then r...

In our final episode of Season 4, The Best Biome team discusses the state of grasslands conservation in the current year (and what an eventful year it has been). We discuss the most significant threats and daunting challenges that we'll need to meet head on to protect our underappreciated and overlooked ecosystems. Topics include rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act, attacks on research funding, extraction on public lands, the t...

'Tis the season FOR TERROR! Fortunately, nature is pretty metal and has no shortage of scary phenomena to discuss. On our Halloween episode of The Best Biome, we bring you three terrible tales of body horror... from the perspective of plants! These are guaranteed to strike fear into your fiber, send a shiver through your leaves and make your chlorophyll run cold. If these give your houseplants nightmares, you can't say we didn't wa...

In this month's Best Biome, Nicole tells the story of a grassland ecosystem so rare and so endangered that neither of her co-hosts had any idea it existed! We're talking about the once-ubiquitous canebrake ecosystems of the eastern United States, which were quite literally American bamboo forests, complete with their own prehistoric red pandas. Find out what happened to the unique rivercane landscape, and what's being done to save ...

Our view of nature is often constrained by the idea of competition: life as a zero-sum game, where the victorious survive, and the defeated fade into extinction. But not every relationship in life is competitive! Sure, as living things, we must always be aware of our enemies, but our survival is just as closely tied to our social entanglements- our family, friends, neighbors, and communities.

In a rebuttal to the hyper-competitive ...

Phytoremediation. A fun word to say, but what does it mean? Turns out it's quite simple: using the superpower many plants naturally have to heal our wonderful Earth from terrible soil contaminants. Allan pulls us off the dark abyss edge that is our current world to deliver a wonderful tale of plants.

Primary Sources:

• Gerhardt KE, Gerwing PD, Greenberg BM. Opinion: Taking phytoremediation from proven technology to accepted pra...

The Best Biome finally reps reptiles properly as Nicole tells us all about an enormous lizard of the South American grasslands. Buckle up for voracious appetites, raging hormones, and an unexpected peek into the evolution of endothermy. This is: the world's hottest reptile.

Primary Sources:

• Tattersall, G., et al. 2016. Seasonal reproductive endothermy in tegu lizards.
• Hervas, L., et al. 2024. Mitochondrial function in skeleta...

This month on The Best Biome, Rachel takes us on a trip to the wetter, saltier cousin of grasslands: seagrass meadows! Is she making a desperate reach to connect the dots, or is she absolutely right that "seagrass meadows are the grasslands of the oceans?" Decide for yourself, dear listener, and get ready to think more about seaweed than you have in a while. Plus, there's manatees! A very special episode awaits.

Primary Sources:

The grasslands of Japan are beautiful, full of volcanos, and revered by the people living there. Japan's unique model of conservation method of Satoyamas is one we wish the US would model - one where people push to thrive alongside the environment, not claim or set it aside. Allan hosts this episode and the five minute math break in the middle has been severely shortened (though stick around past the credits for a bit more).

Prima...

In the final episode of the season for The Best Biome we lay out some concerns we have for the conservation of our beloved grasslands under a second term of the Trump administration. It's a hard discussion, but one we felt we needed to have. And boy was it a long one. If you don't feel up to listening now, we understand, though we still recommend you check out the action items at the end (see timestamps below to skip there). Much ...

A big animal can make big changes in their environment... and cause big problems for the people who live alongside it. African Elephants have a fascinating relationship to the savanna and the people who call it home, where it is equal parts feared and revered. The world of elephant conservation is complicated, and in this episode, Nicole examines the nuanced stories of these beautiful beasts and the conflicts that surround them.

Pr...

Happy Halloween from your grasslands PR Team! This month, Rachel confronts one of her worst childhood fears to bring us a tale of the strange and slithering: a group of animals so odd and cryptic that the existence of many species was only confirmed after their habitat was bulldozed. We're delving into the fascinating world of worm lizards, a world full of unknowns that still begs to be explored. After all, how can we learn about ...

Possibly the best episode of all time (according to me, Rachel). Allan gives us EVERYTHING. Great science, high quality takes, crying with laughter, investigative reporting and red string conspiracy boards. To what end?? Drafting porcupines, well-known "tree-lovers," into the Best Biome (grasslands). Potentially. Hear us out!

+++ Primary Sources +++

• North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum). Alaska Department of Fish and G...

Bees know more than you. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but they definitely know more than you realize! From complex problem solving to tool use to wing-sparkle navigation, bees illuminate our understanding of insect cognition. In this episode, Nicole invites us to perceive the world as our buzzy, bumbly friends might, in beautifully smooth 240 fps.

Primary Source:

• Buchmann, S. 2023. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the T...

Desertification is a major threat to many grasslands, so let's study the best real-world example: The Horqin Grassland, aka the Horqin Sandy Lands. How has this landscape changed over time, what can it teach us about the future of arid grasslands, and which approaches by Inner Mongolia and China to fight desertification give us hope? We love a hopeful story, and this certainly is one.

Primary Sources:

• Visual timeline of land d...

We get patriotic (kinda) in this special episode where all three hosts work together to petition for new national symbols for the US of A. New floral emblem, new national symbol, and a brand new category all-together. Why do we love non-native national symbols? Who knows. Do better, America.

Photos and more are at our site.

Primary Sources:

• As if this silly episode could have any. Do let us know who picked the best emblem tho...

The fastest land animal in North America, second fastest in the world: the graceful, wonderful, pronghorn. Nicole shares all the reasons these icons of the American prairie are truly the best from their evolutionary history to their epic stare battles between each other and rump flashes to warn of predators.

Primary Sources:

• Kitchen, D. 1974. Social Behavior and Ecology of the Pronghorn. Wildlife Monographs, No. 38., pp 3-96.
• ...

Patas Monkeys are weird little guys with fabulous mustaches and very intricate relationships with a special tree on the African savannah. We talk acacias, ants, and the Lorax as Allan tries to make Nicole love just a single primate.

Photos and more are at our site.

Primary Sources:

• Palmer, T., Stanton, M., Young T., Goheen, J., Pringle, R., and Karban, R. 2008. Breakdown of an ant-plant mutualism follows the loss of large herb...

This is a special podcast swap episode where we host Kindred Podcast's Power of Fire episode. Learn about the history of fire, how it shapes the landscape and people that live there.

Speakers: Tony Incashola Jr., forest manager for CSKT (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes), and Stephanie Gillin, information and education program manager and former wildlife biologist for the CSKT at the Flathead Indian Reservati...