WEBVTT - Bonus Episode! Ecology 101 with Jesslyn Shields 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:05.000 Hi. I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.320 production of I Heart Radio. We sold our loft in Chicago, 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:10.480 moved into an r V, and now we're talking in 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.200 the country full time with our dog Finn, exploring America's 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.040 national parks, and today we're talking about ecology with our 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:24.160 shows researcher Jescelyn Shields. Why don't you introduce yourself and 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.159 what you do? Hi, you guys. I'm happy to be 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.640 here today. I am a freelance science writer. I work 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.280 a lot for how stuff works, and I am the 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.360 researcher for your show. I love it. And you've been 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:40.640 adding such a wonderful segment about wildlife and ecology and 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:44.800 really helping us learn and understand the nuances that each 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:47.919 national park is facing. Um, when it comes to that, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:53.120 the importance of each of those ecosystems and the wildlife. Yeah, well, 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.320 it's fascinating stuff and I love diving into it with 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.319 you guys. So we have to start off, what are 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.319 some of the things that ecologists study? Well, Um, it 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.880 depends on the ecologists that you ask. Um. Ecologists would 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:13.080 probably say they study the interaction of organisms with their environment. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.920 But the truth is this is such a huge complicated 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.600 thing to focus on that most ecologists look at ecology 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:24.680 through a specific lens. Oh, like a population ecologist. That's 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:29.679 exactly right, um. Population ecologists study the population of a 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.960 single organism, So how they're distributed over ecosystem. What factors 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.959 contribute to a population growing or shrinking? Um? Why the 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.600 organism does what it does? So that could be an elk, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.959 or it could be mushroom. Interesting. Um. Can you give 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:50.680 us another example of this, um? Yeah. For instance, UM, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.760 salmon dies after it reproduces UM. So when you're studying 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.520 all the salmon and what they're doing together that a 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:02.560 population ecologist would do at um. Or you know, there 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.280 might be a huge explosion to mosquitoes in a certain 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.680 place and population ecologists would study that too. Wow. So 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.959 these are the type of questions that population ecologists try 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:20.120 to answer. That's right. And actually there is one step 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.919 up from a population, which is a community. So community 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.960 ecologists look at how different organisms within the ecosystem interact. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:32.640 So this would be like how the wolves and yellow 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.600 stones suddenly change the interactions between the other animals and 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.440 plants in the ecosystem totally. That's a great example Yeah. 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.880 So the existence of top predators that impacts change the 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.680 interaction of all the other organisms in the ecosystem. So, 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.000 for example, you get elk acting different leak when you 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.840 introduce wolves. Um, so that means that riverside willows grow bigger, 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.760 which attracts beavers because they make these dams, which makes 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:02.520 more habitat for otters and fish and ray waiting birds. Um. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.919 And the wolves go after coyotes, and coyotes sort of 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.560 um compete with things like hawks and foxes, so they 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.760 do their thing. Yeah. So basically, community ecologists are interested 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.320 in why and how these behaviors affect those interactions. Sure, yeah, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:25.239 that's and you know, however, the interactions between like the 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:30.880 plants and the micro rise in the soil everything, Um, 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:35.760 how they all interact and why. Wow. Yeah. Another thing 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.160 I find fascinating is ecosystem ecology and how it takes 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.480 all that population and community ecology can teach us and 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.280 add the layer of non living things like whether soil chemistry, 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.080 how energy flows. Yes, so, an ecosystem is an area 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.240 that houses a specific set of organisms and also non 0:03:54.320 --> 0:04:03.040 living elements like you know, dirt water that work together 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.480 to create its own special thing. Whether it be what 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.000 you find in the Mohabi desert or among the giants 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:13.160 a quiz. So the borders that contain an ecosystem are 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:17.000 really blurry though, and they are mostly defined by humans. 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.000 So organisms find little places to live and work. And 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.000 even in the borders of ecosystems. Um, like in a 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:28.120 tide pool on the beach. It's in the water and 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.919 it's not really that much like the forest that's just 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.920 ten ms away, but they still affect each other. Um. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.560 They bleed into each other more than you might think. Also, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.719 because ecosystem science takes into consideration a biotic or non 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.440 living stuff that impacts the system, ecologists who study them 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.120 often examine how ecosystems are changing due to things like 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.960 climate change or um how we change the use of 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.880 the land, like a forest that turned into an agricultural field, 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:02.480 for instance. Right, So it college to study populations of organisms, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.840 communities of organisms, and ecosystems, which include both living and 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.400 non living things interacting in a particular place. Is the 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.240 ecosystem of the largest unit of ecology. If ecosystems bleed 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.760 into each other, it seems like there might be even 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:21.000 bigger systems to study. That's a great question. Um. Yes, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.240 one thing the science of ecology teaches us is that 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.440 there is no disconnecting one thing from another thing on 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.520 this whole planet. So if we use our current climate 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.679 situation as an example, decisions made by one nation state 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.200 regarding something like coal fired power plants can affect both 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.200 living and non living things thousands of miles across the 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.840 ocean in really big ways. So ecologists talk about two 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.400 other levels or units of space and interaction, right, Yeah, 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.720 So they talked about the a biome, which is confused 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.440 with an ecosystem a lot of times. It's just a 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.040 general term to describe habitat type where organisms in their 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.480 environment interact and generally the same way, but it's not 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.680 specific to any one place on the globe. Um. For instance, 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.880 a desert is always going to have plenty of extreme 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.880 temperature fluctuations and not much water and not very many 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.279 large plants. So the organisms in a desert are going 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.000 to be adapted to those conditions, and there's a good 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.360 chance they've evolved to act and looked look like organisms 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.200 and other desert biomas all over the world, So like 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.680 animals that we talked about earlier in this season, like 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.880 that life exclusively in caves, who are generally small, with 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.760 slow metabolisms and sightless, but with good hearing, touch and smell. Yes, 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.800 they got that way because their surroundings required them to 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:46.440 evolve in this direction. Another example is like in North America, 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.560 we have that North American kangaroo rat, which um is 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.919 an Arches National park. Um. So it evolved under the 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.960 same or similar conditions to this little mouse in Austria 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.600 called the Australian hopping mouse in the out back. Oh yeah, 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.360 I really wish we saw one of those in the Arches. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.920 That would have been such a great thing to Yeah. Yeah, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.960 they're really they're really adorable. Um. And so there's also 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.480 this little jumping rodent in North Africa and Asia and 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.280 the Middle East called the Jeroba and it's very very 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.480 similar to those and so they you know, evolved similar 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.760 ways of being through just living in similar types of places. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.720 That's really fascinating. So what would be the next level 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:40.000 up from a BioMA, Well, basically it's Earth. One level 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.560 up from there. It's the last level that you call 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.520 it just concerned themselves with, and it's called the bias sphere, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.760 which is Earth. Um, it's atmosphere the geology and everything 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.280 that hangs out on this planet. Um. Although Earth isn't 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.840 like entirely a closed system. Yeah, because my beloved Jurassic 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.680 Park dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor. Right, I'm sorry, 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:07.600 I'm not over condolence this, um exactly. And so a 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.240 lot of water got here to our planet, um through 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.520 just being brought here by asteroids when the planet was 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.320 being formed. Um. The biosphere, like an ecosystem, has to 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.800 draw a sort of artificial boundary around what we call 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.120 this planet, um. And that's what ecologists got. We've got 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.400 this planet, and so that's what that's what they call 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.000 the biosphere. Huh. So, what are some aspects of an 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.320 ecosystem or a biome that make it is what it is? 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.880 It seems like deserts end up with strangely, strangely familiar 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.160 features like animals and plants, regardless of where you are 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.120 in the world. Ecology seems pretty complicated. But can you 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.400 built it down to a couple of elements that make 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:50.000 an ecosystem what it is? That's a tough question, um, 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.520 And you're right. Ecology is difficult to study because everything 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.920 you look at within the discipline of ecology is so 0:08:56.000 --> 0:09:00.880 tangled up and interconnected and everything is affecting everything else. 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.000 There are biotic factors that decide what specific place is 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.240 going to be like, so, um, what kind of predators 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.200 hang out? What kind of animals and plants provide competition 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.080 or some sort of benefit for each other like food 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.800 or shelter. Wow, So these biotic factors are part of 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.679 what makeup who can live and survive there? Yes? Um, 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.280 And then there's also a biotic factors like nonliving things, 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.280 which include temperature, moisture, sunlight, elevation. So these are the 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.040 elements that have nothing to do with organisms in the 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.640 ecosystem right, Um, but they influence them just as much 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.400 as living things do. And on top of that, sometimes 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:40.920 it's even hard to know where one organism ends and 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.160 the other begins, or where an organism ends and the 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.760 environment begins. Um. But yeah, I think you can generalize 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.240 very broadly and say there are two elements that drive ecology, 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.040 that make an ecosystem what it is. Can you guess 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.839 what they are? M? No, But that's why we wanted 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.360 you on to help exactly. And I can't wait to 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:23.199 get to this after a really quick short break. Hi, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.000 I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia and 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.720 today we're talking with our researcher Jesslyn Shields about ecology. 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:33.160 So right before the break, you asked us what two 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.400 elements drive ecology? You left us stumped because we're trying 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.760 to retain this and really really pack it in. Well, 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:42.880 I'm going to give you a hint and I bet 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:44.280 you're going to guess what they are on like the 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.319 next fifteen seconds. Perfect. Let's take a really extreme place 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.360 like the Majabi Desert where Death Valley National Park is. 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.680 Have you ever driven through Death Valley? Um? We haven't 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.640 driven through Death Death Valley, but my predeployment training took 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:05.040 place in Twin Palms in California, also own as the Stumps. Um, Well, 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.760 what do you think of when you think of twenty 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:12.760 nine Palms or Death Valley National Park? Exactly? You basically 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.760 just cracked half the ecology code. So temperature, right, Um, 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.640 Because animals and plants have biological requirements, mostly having to 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.240 do with the enzymes that act as catalysts that make 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:29.840 their bodies work. Never underestimate the power of chemistry, y'all. Um. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.800 These enzymes only work within a range of temperatures, so 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.880 the chemical reactions that make an American pike as body 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.720 work crap out, like when the temperature gets above seventy 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.400 five degrees faheit. Um. Other animals like grizzly bears and 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.480 yellow stone don't have internal chemistry that functions that well 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.160 in the cold, so they pack on the pounds during 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:51.160 the summer to insulate them and then they find a 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.880 nice warm place to hibernate over the winter. UM. So 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.679 you'll notice that most of the bid diversity in the world, 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:03.080 so bidovers means um, the most of the different types 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.920 of living things on this planet and live in one place, 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.520 which um is the tropical places on the equator. And 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.280 that's because the tropics stay nice and warm. It's a 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.520 good temperature for most plants and animal animal ends times 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:20.120 to function. Wow, what do you think the other element 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.240 that drives an ecosystem is Well, if we're talking about 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.400 a desert like Death Valley, which is really hot but 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.280 it's also really dry, that's exactly right. Water and temperature 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.480 are the two main things that decide what type of 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.760 ecosystem is going to be in a particular place. UM. 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:40.480 So the water situation also has to do with chemistry. Actually, 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.000 because plants are at the base of basically every food 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.040 chain on the entire planet, and because plants require both 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.679 sunlight and water to photosynthesize, that's where they make their 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:57.560 own food exactly. Um. See I paid attention in school. Yea, yeah, 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.719 I mean animals need water are to make a t 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.679 P um, and so do plants. UM. A t P 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.840 is an enzyme found in all living things that carries 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.720 energy around on ourselves. So in biomas with very little water, 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.720 like the desert and the tundra, the plants will be 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.760 smaller and fewer and farther between UM, and as a result, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.480 so all the animals. So what about like rainforest type 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.640 environments like Olympic National Park. Well, Olympic National Park is 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.560 a temperate rainforest. Um, so you're gonna have like lower 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:32.400 temperatures than you would like in the Amazon rainforest. The 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:37.319 Amazon is real warm and um. Olympic National Park has 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.480 like a like plenty of water. So um, A lot 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.599 of animals and plants and fungi and all kinds of 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.640 things are gonna want to live there, but not quite 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:53.200 as many as like around the equator. Gotcha, Um, there's 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.839 not enough room in the tropical rainforests for all the 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.440 animals and plants to live there. So organisms adapt to 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.440 the place where there's some space open. And the crazy 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:08.400 thing about this planet is there's literally something living and 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.679 almost every nook and cranny on this planet. UM. I 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.120 think that there's one place that there was a paper 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.640 that just came out that there is a geothermal spring 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:23.040 in Ethiopia that they couldn't find anything, not even little 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.400 extreme of file micro organisms. UM. If you think about 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.120 the way that our planet, life on the planet evolved, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.560 like it was pretty crappy place to live for a 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:38.840 really long time. So you know, like things are good 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:42.000 at living all sorts of places, like even in Yellowstone 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:47.400 and those like crazy UM and that crazy volcanic environment 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:53.520 is just like things are living everywhere. That's um. And 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.680 speaking of you'll notice when you look at a globe, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:03.800 the three four of the planet is covered with salty water. Um. 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.840 You really don't want to live there, but some things do. UM. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.400 Since water availability is an issue in the ocean, marine 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:15.800 biomas differ in things like temperature, pressure, oxygen content, light availability, 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.160 all kinds of things like that, UM, but water is 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:24.840 not generally a problem for them. UM. So basically that's ecology. 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:31.040 Insert shrucking emoji from me. That's a lot to go over. 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.120 I mean that was just like a what a role 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.200 one of knowledge and excitement. Um, yeah, for sure. We 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.520 went over so many amazing lessons and this is just 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.840 psychology one o one, Yeah, this is just the beginning. 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.920 You've been listening to park Landia, a show about national parks. 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.920 Park landis a production of by Heart Radio, created by 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.680 Matt Carouac, Brad Carouac and Christopher has e otis produced 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.280 and edited by Mike John's. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis. 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.560 Our researchers Jecelyn Shield. A special thing goes out to 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.880 Gabrielle Collin's Crystal Waters and the rest of the Parklandia 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.720 crew and Hey listeners. If you're enjoying the show, leave 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.440 us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.520 like you find our show. You can keep up with 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.120 us on social media as well. Check out our photos 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.080 from our travels on Instagram at parkla India pod and 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.600 join in on the conversation in our Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.680 From our podcast my Heart Radio, visit the heart Radio 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.040 app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.560 and as always, thank you for listening.