Welcome to BioAudio: The Teaching Podcast. After many years teaching biology in universities in the UK and in Canada I've come to the conclusion that we can do ...
Beaver, Otters and Wolves: Ecosystem Engineers and Trophic Cascades
Send us a textToday on the BioAudio podcast Prof Alex Mills returns to talk about how we recognize and describe an "ecological community" and the unique roll of keystone species, ecosystem engineers and apex predators. We will also talk about three famous trophic cascades, where the removal or introduction of a species has consequences that rebound across the entire system.
--------
24:17
Disease Ecology: Parasites in Community Ecology
Send us a textThis week on the BioAudio podcast we are talking about disease ecology with Prof Dan Becker. It's a field that combines mathematical modeling, ecology, evolution, medicine, veterinary science... and he actually got into this as a cultural anthropologist interested in social justice. How do you get from social justice to the fate of vampire bats in a fragmented ecosystem? tune in to find out in this episode of the BioAudio podcast where we explore community disease ecology in wild populations.
--------
34:21
Natural vs Sexual Selection: Darwin's two great ideas
Send us a textIn this episode of the BioAudio podcast we revisit Natural Selection and Sexual Selection. I am joined by Professor Alex Mills and we are going to compare and contrast these two ideas. We talk about what kept Darwin up at night and how he solved the problem of the peacock's tail.
--------
24:28
The Tangled Bank: Evolution and Species Interactions
Send us a textIn this episode Prof. Gordon Fitch explains the ways that individuals from two different species can interact in the wild, and the evolutionary consequences of this for species evolution and the stability of ecosystems. We cover competition, predation, mutualism, commensalism and the co-evolution of species... we even manage to work in Darwin and Taylor Swift! This is what Darwin referred to as the "tangled bank", complicated to unravel and critical to survival.
--------
27:19
How to read a scientific paper
Send us a textIn this episode Prof. Erin Fraser joins me for part two of our introduction to primary scientific literature. This time... did you know most of us don't read these "papers" from start to finish? in this episode we try to demystify the process and we admit... we have to look up words just like everyone else!
Welcome to BioAudio: The Teaching Podcast. After many years teaching biology in universities in the UK and in Canada I've come to the conclusion that we can do better than text books. I always want something more flexible, that can be updated with new topics and new discoveries. After years avoiding textbooks… I've created BioAudio a collection of discussions to accompany lectures in university biology courses . So let's ditch the textbook and just listen.