On this episode of Big Biology, we talk with Professor Emeritus at University of Washington and recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Ray Huey. Ray is well known for his work on the thermal physiology of lizards, but has also worked broadly in physiology, ecology, and evolution. In our conversation with Ray, we first discuss his paper, an “Acynical Guide to Graduate School,” and its ongoing relevance to graduate students. We then talk about his career path into thermal biology, how he became interested in the science of mountaineering, and his philosophy for writing science.

Art by Keating Shahmehri. Find a transcript of this episode on our website.

Can we study evolution in the wild? Are some species “super-evolvers”?

On the episode, we talk with Alison Derry, a professor of biology at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and Andrew Hendry, a professor in the Department of Biology at McGill University, Canada. This episode is the second we’ve done on the team’s work, and Andrew was also a guest on our first episode in the series. This conversation was recorded live in front of an audience at Kenai Peninsula College, in Soldotna, Alaska.

The college is just a few miles from the lakes where Alison, Andrew, and many of their colleagues and students carry out experiments on threespine sticklebacks. We ask Alison and Andrew about their research on the rapid evolution of these fish, which were recently reintroduced to the lakes, and how the introduction of two distinct stickleback ecotypes are affecting the evolution of zooplankton in the lakes. We also discuss the central position of sticklebacks in the food web and how the sticklebacks are impacting the ecosystems now as well as how they likely impacted the lakes in the evolutionary past.

Art by Keating Shahmehri. Audio from Hunter Morrison at KDLL. Find a transcript of this episode on our website.

We have finished Season 6 of Big Biology. Learn more about the future of the podcast.