Category: Podcast

The Central Indo-Pacific (or CIP if you’re stuck for time) is a highly diverse region of the ocean. But how did it get to be this way? That’s what I’m going to be discussing, based on facts collated from the primary literature.

Sources for this episode: 1) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Eocene (online) [Accessed 17/01/2021]. 2) Siqueira, A. C., Bellwood, D. R. and Cowman, P. F. (2019), Historical biogeography of herbivorous coral reef fishes: The formation of an Atlantic fauna. Journal of Biogeography: DOI: 10.25903/5cd265eb0a405. 3) Renema, W., Bellwood, D. R., Braga, J. C., Bromfield, K., Hall, R., Johnson, K. G., Lunt, P., Meyer, C. P., McMonagle, L. B., Morley, R. J., O’Dea, A., Todd, J. A., Wesselingh, F. P., Wilson, M. E. J. and Pandolfi, J. M. (2008), Hopping Hotspots: Global Shifts in Marine Biodiversity. Science (321): 654- 657. 4) Ivany, L. C., Patterson, W. P. and Lohmann, K. C. (2000), Cooler winters as a possible cause of mass extinctions at the Eocene/Oligocene boundary. Nature 407: 887- 890. 5) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Coral (online) [Accessed 17/01/2021]. 6) Miller, E.C., Hayashi, K. T., Song, D., Wiens, J. J., (2018) Explaining the ocean’s richest biodiversity hotspot and global patterns of fish diversity. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285: 20181314. 7) Jones, K. R., Klein, C. J., Halpern, B. S., Venter, O., Grantham, H., Kuempel, C. D., Shumway, N., Friedlander, A. M., Possingham, H. P. and Watson, J. E. M. (2018), The Location and Protection Status of Earth’s Diminishing Marine Wilderness. Current Biology 28: 2506- 2512.

As far as I am aware, the separate elements and studies that I mention have not been collated into one paper. So, although our discussion is based off scientific literature, it might potentially be best to view it as just that- a discussion. I mention this note of caution simply because I am not an expert in this field.

Building on our discussion of the Red Queen hypothesis last week, we’re going to go through a theorem which is similarly chess-themed but goes against our hypothesis from episode 20. This theory holds that, rather than continual evolution being necessary for a species to survive, natural selection can sometimes allow genes to be lost from the gene pool.

Sources for this episode: 1) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Black Queen hypothesis (online) [Accessed 15/01/2021]. 2) Morris, J. J., Lenski, R. E. and Zinser, E. R. (2012), The Black Queen Hypothesis: Evolution of Dependencies through Adaptive Gene Loss. mBio 3(2): e00036-12. 3) Willey, J. M., Sherwood, L. M. and Woolverton, C. J. (2017), Prescott’s Microbiology (Tenth Edition, International Edition). New York: McGraw Hill Education. 4) Allen, R. C., Popat, R., Diggle, S. P. and Brown, S. P. (2014), Targeting virulence: can we make evolution-proof drugs? Nature Reviews Microbiology 12(4): 300- 308.

This week, I’m going to discuss the Red Queen Hypothesis, which sounds intimidating but is actually rather straightforward. Not only is it an evolutionary theory, but it’s also a reminder that biologists really like finding obscure reasons to name things…

Sources for this episode: 1) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Red Queen Hypothesis (online) [Accessed 14/01/2021]. 2) Thain, M. and Hickman, M. (2004), The Penguin Dictionary of Biology (11th edition). London: Penguin Books Ltd. 3) Scoville, H., ThoughtCo (updated 2019), What Is the Red Queen Hypothesis? (online) [Accessed 14/01/2021].

Happy Darwin’s Day! On the anniversary of Darwin’s birthday on 12th February 1809, I thought it would be fun to release a special episode covering some aspect of Darwin’s life or theories. Today, we’re going to discuss the health of Darwin’s children and of Darwin’s immediate family, using a 2017 paper by Hayman et al.

Sources for this episode: 1) Hayman, J., Álvarez, G., Ceballos, F. C. and Berra, T. M. (2017), The illnesses of Charles Darwin and his children: a lesson in consanguinity. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 121: 458- 468. Information on the immediate family of Charles Darwin can also be found on Wikipedia, whether his article or the article on the Darwin-Wedgewood family.

This week, I’m going to do something a little different and talk through a process we hear a lot about, but which isn’t often discussed as a process outside biology classrooms very much- evolution. This episode will be a little different from my usual, as it’s mainly going to be me talking rather than drawing on sources. Instead, this discussion is going to be based on my biological education so far.

Apoptosis is the phenomenon by which cells commit suicide in an orderly and programmed fashion. But why is it important? And what happens if it goes wrong? Today, we’re just going to introduce the topic briefly and give some examples of why it is biologically useful.

Sources for this episode: 1) Alberts, Johnson, Lewis, Raff, Roberts, and Walter (2008), Molecular Biology of the Cell, Fifth Edition. Abingdon: Garland Science, ‘Taylor and Francis Group LLC’. 2) Thain, M., and Hickman, M. (2014), The Penguin Dictionary of Biology, 11th edition. London: Penguin Publishing Group.

Eye colour is one of the first examples of genetic inheritance talked about in schools across the country. But what is it that these genes really do? What causes eye colour from a functional perspective? As we’ll see on the podcast today, it’s all to do with the pigment melanin…

Sources for this episode: 1) Sturm, R. A. and Frudakis, T. N. (2004), Eye colour: portals into pigmentation genes and ancestry. Trends in Genetics 20(8): 327- 332. 2) Alberts, Johnson, Lewis Raff, Roberts, and Walter (2008), Molecular Biology of the Cell, Fifth Edition, p.786. Abingdon: Garland Science, Taylor and Francis Group LLC.

Assortative mating is essentially the recognition that theory isn’t always perfect and that, however desperately biologists might want some simplicity in the world, organisms don’t just encounter each other like gas molecules- it’s not a random process. In fact, it can even give evolution a helping hand…

Sources for this episode: 1) Thain, M., and Hickman, M. (2014), The Penguin Dictionary of Biology, 11th edition. London: Penguin Publishing Group. 2) Nishi, A., Alexander, M., Fowler, J. H. and Christakis, N. A. (2020), Assortative mating at loci under recent natural selection in humans. BioSystems 187 (2020) 104040.

Hi everyone, Vince here with a quick update- the podcast now has an accompanying website! From now on, you can head to ‘www.biopedia.co.uk’ to access all our episodes, as well as a blog featuring extra content. Thank you all for sticking with the show and I’m excited to add new content!

The adaptive landscape is an important method for biologists, ecologists, and geneticists to visualise the process of evolution. But what is it, and how does it work? This week, we’re going to discuss what the adaptive landscape actually is, so while there are going to be some sources listed, there’s also a bit of general discussion as well.

Some sources for this episode: 1) Martin, C. H. and Wainwright, P. C. (2013), Multiple fitness peaks on the adaptive landscape drive adaptive radiation in the wild. Science 339: 208- 211. 2) The Wikipedia article for ‘Fitness Landscape’ has quite a good visual guide for rugged landscapes. 3) Script writing was reinforced by my previous education on the topic.