Episode 1: Biodiversity Past, Present, and Future

Dragonfly team members and instructors Kevin Matteson, Katie Feilen and Amy Sullivan discuss the following required readings for this discussion as well as their own research backgrounds.

Notable quotes:

“They turned out to be undercover police!” (while describing interactions with people during fieldwork in NYC) – Kevin

“Don’t even get me started on tropical tree biodiversity!” (describing tropical fieldwork) -Katie

We know that we don’t know how many species there are on earth but I am constantly surprised by how many new species we are discovering.” (breaking down Mora et al. article)- Amy

Readings Discussed

Mannion, P. D., Upchurch, P., Benson, R. B., & Goswami, A. (2014). The latitudinal biodiversity gradient through deep time. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 29(1), 42-50.

Mora, C., Tittensor, D. P., Adl, S., Simpson, A. G., & Worm, B. (2011). How many species are there on Earth and in the ocean?. PLoS biology, 9(8), e1001127.

Primack, R. (2010). What is biological diversity? Chapter 2 In Essentials of Conservation Biology 5th Ed. (pp. 23-50). Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc.

Transcript of Podcast