The Best Biome

Our conservation spotlight this episode highlights the Monarch Butterfly as we chat with Katelyn Strack, an education Ambassador with Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. We get an update on their population trends, information on how to help preserve them, and chat a bit about our favorite bugs.

Nicole then shares a few special grassland pollinators that many are unaware of: beetles and their 100 million year old relationship with flowers, how the Large Blue Butterfly convinces ants to take care of it, and a few other fun friends including... crustaceans?

Learn more about Xerces Society on their website.

Read the full USFWS EPA ruling on monarchs here.

Primary Sources:

• Fallon, C. 2020. Notes from the Other Orders: Beetles as Pollinators . Xerces Society.
• Pollinator Syndromes . US Forest Service.
• The ant, the butterfly and their chemical warfare with an oregano plant . PBS News.
• Dajose, L. These Beetles Have Successfully Freeloaded for 100 Million Years . Caltech California Institute of Technology.
• Smokebush . In Defense of Plants.
• Tussenbroek, B., et al. 2012. Meso-fauna foraging on seagrass pollen may serve in marine zoophilous pollination . Marine Ecology Progress Series, Vol. 469, 1-6.
• Knauer, A., Bakhtiari, M., Schiestl, F. 2018. [Crab spiders impact floral-signal evolution indirectly through removal of florivores](

ALERT: NEW FAVORITE BIRD DROPPED. In this episode of The Best Biome, Rachel lets us live vicariously through bobolinks, the "lackadaisical migrants", whose home is wherever they are and whose destination is wherever they're going. With habitat use that spans grasslands across the western hemisphere and a lengthy migration unlike any other, the bobolink is an unpredictable traveler. But that's exactly what makes them so special!

In this episode's Conservation Spotlight, Allan discusses the battle brewing between the federal government and buffalo on public lands. We cover the American Prairie Reserve's canceled leases, the concerns of tribal organizations, and vendetta-driven grazing policies that ignore science. Most importantly, we talk about what you can do to get involved.

Actions Items:

• Provide a public comment on the Bureau of Land Management's proposed changes to grazing permits here.
• Learn more about the Indian Buffalo Management Act and contact your representatives!

Primary Sources:

• Renfrew, R., A. M. Strong, N. G. Perlut, S. G. Martin, and T. A. Gavin (2020). Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. [https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.boboli.01 ](

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We open the episode with an update on the Lesser Prairie Chicken delisting, why all hope is not lost, and some interviews with experts in the field: Dr. Jackie Augustine (Executive Director, Audubon of Kansas) and Stacy Hoeme (Co-Lead, Lesser Prairie Chicken Landowner Alliance).

The deep dive for this episode is led by Allan on the origin of cows: the mighty aurochs. Humans have lived and traveled alongside cows farther back then recorded human history. They shaped ancient and modern human pastoralist societies and we're finally giving them a spotlight on the pod.

Primary Chicken Sources:

• Leave a comment on the Lesser Prairie Chicken delisting on the FWS Federal Register here
• Lesser Prairie-Chicken Landowner Alliance website
• Audubon of Kansas website

Email Jackie Augustine your fan-mail or chicken stories at: aok@audubonofkansas.org

Primary Cow/Auroch Sources:

• Rossi, C., Sinding, MH.S., Mullin, V.E. et al. The genomic natural history of the aurochs . Nature 635 , 136–141 (2024).
• "The Story of Aurochs is More Complicated Than We Thought" by Andrew Coletti, Atlas Obscura. 12/12/2024.
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility: Bos primigenius

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In our final episode of Season 4, The Best Biome team discusses the state of grasslands conservation in the current year (and what an eventful year it has been). We discuss the most significant threats and daunting challenges that we'll need to meet head on to protect our underappreciated and overlooked ecosystems. Topics include rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act, attacks on research funding, extraction on public lands, the truth behind grazing leases, and much, much more.

Of course, we have plenty of good news to share as well! Join us as we bid 2025 farewell and get ready for whatever next year will bring.

Note: There is some occasional strong language used in this episode, as a result of our passion about these topics.

Primary Sources:

Rachel's Sources:

•

Jack Hatzimemos, Georgetown Environmental Law Review, "The Single Most Impactful Day of Deregulation in EPA History", Mar. 20, 2025

•

More Than Just Parks: "Mike Lee is Still Trying to Steal Your Land", Nov. 5, 2025

•

Inflation Reduction Act Rollback Tracker

****

•

Columbia Law Climate Backtracker

•

Bill McKibben: The Crucial Years, "A Different Kind of Leader Gives A Different Kind of Speech", Oct. 1, 2025

•

Heather Cox Richardson, "Letters from an American" Oct. 16, 2025

****

Nicole's Sources:

•

Center for American Progress: "The Trump Administration's Expensive Push to Sell Out Public Lands to the Highest Bidder" Sep. 22, 2025

•

More Than Just Parks: "Trump Administration Decides Endangered Species Act Will No Longer Be Followed" Nov. 21, 2025

•

Works for Nature: "Voters Deliver Big Wins for Conservation Funding in 2025." Nov. 10, 2025

•

H.R. 1:

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act

https://morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/trump-administration-decides-endangered?triedRedirect=true

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administrations-expansive-push-to-sell-out-public-lands-to-the-highest-bidder/

Allan's Sources:

•

ProPublica and High Country News, "Wealthy Ranchers Profit from Public Lands", Dec. 2, 2025

•

Center for Biological Diversity: "Trump Administration sued over attempted removal of BLM's Public Lands Rule" Nov. 10, 2025

•

NYT: "The US is funding fewer grants in every area of science and and medicine", Dec. 2, 2025.

•

Union for Concerned Scientists: Attacks on Science

•

[Lawfare Litigation Tracker](

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'Tis the season FOR TERROR! Fortunately, nature is pretty metal and has no shortage of scary phenomena to discuss. On our Halloween episode of The Best Biome, we bring you three terrible tales of body horror... from the perspective of plants! These are guaranteed to strike fear into your fiber, send a shiver through your leaves and make your chlorophyll run cold. If these give your houseplants nightmares, you can't say we didn't warn you.

Primary Sources:

Nicole's Sources:

• https://planttalk.colostate.edu/topics/insects-diseases/1452-aster-yellows/
• https://agsci.colostate.edu/agbio/ipm-pests/aster-leafhopper-and-aster-yellows/

Rachel's Sources:

• Texas Plant Disease Handbook by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension (https://plantdiseasehandbook.tamu.edu/landscaping/trees/cottonwood-and-poplar/)
• Mushroom Monday, Cracked Cap Polypore (https://www.mushroommonday.com/post/cracked-cap-polypore-fulvifomes-robiniae)

Allan's Source: Torres-Cruz, Terry J., et al. "Insects visit Fusarium xyrophilum pseudoflowers on the host Xyris surinamensis (Xyridaceae) and carry fungal DNA on their bodies." bioRxiv (2024): 2024-03. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.03.05.583517

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In an episode chock full of PSA's, Nicole gives us a full slate of reasons to appreciate the ever-charismatic rattlesnake (and some helpful strategies for not dying on your next hike). From venomous vaccines that prevent unexpected disease, to prenatal predator practice, there's a lot to like about your local grassland rattlers. They have almost certainly helped far more than they've ever harmed- just don't touch them, please.

Primary Sources:

• Beauvais, T.F. and Adler, K. 2014. Massasaugas, Michigan, and the American Origins of Snakebite Therapy. Herpetological Review.
• Smith, C., and Schuett, G. 2022. Ultrasound of fetal rattlesnake caudal luring. The Royal Society Publishing.
• SciNews. Iranian spider-tailed viper tricks bird. YouTube.

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In this month's Best Biome, Nicole tells the story of a grassland ecosystem so rare and so endangered that neither of her co-hosts had any idea it existed! We're talking about the once-ubiquitous canebrake ecosystems of the eastern United States, which were quite literally American bamboo forests, complete with their own prehistoric red pandas. Find out what happened to the unique rivercane landscape, and what's being done to save it today. Let the search for 30 ft.-tall grasses become your new obsession!

Also, check out these great organizations doing rivercane restoration! Cherokee Preservation Foundation Rivercane Restoration Alliance Chattooga Conservancy

Primary Sources:

• Phylogenetic relationships and natural hybridization among the North American woody bamboos (Poaceae: Bambusoideae: Arundinaria) March 2010 https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3732/ajb.0900244
• Campbell, Julian. 2012. Growth of Cane. Bluegrass Woodland Restoration Center. https://bluegrasswoodland.com/uploads/Arundinaria__Growth_of_Cane_.pdf
• Giant Cane and Other Native Bamboos: Establishment and Use for Conservation of Natural Resources in the Southeast USDA - NRCS 2021 https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3732/ajb.0900244

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Our view of nature is often constrained by the idea of competition: life as a zero-sum game, where the victorious survive, and the defeated fade into extinction. But not every relationship in life is competitive! Sure, as living things, we must always be aware of our enemies, but our survival is just as closely tied to our social entanglements- our family, friends, neighbors, and communities.

In a rebuttal to the hyper-competitive view of ecology, Rachel shares evidence from a growing field of botany that dares to look at how plants behave by applying social theory to their choices. There are many conversations happening among the plants of our grasslands that we haven't been hearing, and it's time to unpack the complexity of these interspecies relationships if we want to really understand how this ecosystem works.

Primary Sources:

• Cahill Lab - University of Alberta: https://cahilllab.ca/
• Megan K. Ljubotina and James F. Cahill Jr., “Effects of Neighbour Location and Nutrient Distributions on Root Foraging Behavior of the Common Sunflower,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286, no. 1911 (2019): 20190955 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0955
• Mónica López Pereira et al., “Light-Mediated Self
• Organization of Sunflower Stands Increases Oil Yield in the Field,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 30 (2017): 7975–80. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618990114
• James F. Cahill Jr., “The Inevitability of Plant Behavior,” American Journal of Botany 106, no. 7 (2019): 903-5. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1313
• Robin W. Kimmerer, “Asters and Goldenrod,” in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013)

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Phytoremediation. A fun word to say, but what does it mean? Turns out it's quite simple: using the superpower many plants naturally have to heal our wonderful Earth from terrible soil contaminants. Allan pulls us off the dark abyss edge that is our current world to deliver a wonderful tale of plants.

Primary Sources:

• Gerhardt KE, Gerwing PD, Greenberg BM. Opinion: Taking phytoremediation from proven technology to accepted practice. Plant Sci. 2017 Mar;256:170-185. Epub 2016 Dec 5. PMID: 28167031.
• Lee, Jae. (2013). An overview of phytoremediation as a potentially promising technology for environmental pollution control. Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering. 18.

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The Best Biome finally reps reptiles properly as Nicole tells us all about an enormous lizard of the South American grasslands. Buckle up for voracious appetites, raging hormones, and an unexpected peek into the evolution of endothermy. This is: the world's hottest reptile.

Primary Sources:

• Tattersall, G., et al. 2016. Seasonal reproductive endothermy in tegu lizards.
• Hervas, L., et al. 2024. Mitochondrial function in skeletal muscle contributes to reproductive endothermy in tegu lizards.
• Herrel, A., et al. 2013. Aggressive Behavior and Performance in the Tegu Lizard Tupinambis merianae. Chicago Journals.

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This month on The Best Biome, Rachel takes us on a trip to the wetter, saltier cousin of grasslands: seagrass meadows! Is she making a desperate reach to connect the dots, or is she absolutely right that "seagrass meadows are the grasslands of the oceans?" Decide for yourself, dear listener, and get ready to think more about seaweed than you have in a while. Plus, there's manatees! A very special episode awaits.

Primary Sources:

• Rundell, Katherine. 2024 Vanishing Treasures. Penguin Random House. ISBN: 9780385550826 - Bookshop Affiliate Link
• Ocean Portal - Pamela L Reynolds: Seagrass and Seagrass Beds: https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plants-algae/seagrass-and-seagrass-beds
• O’Brien, K. R., et al. (2018). Seagrass ecosystem trajectory depends on the relative timescales of resistance, recovery and disturbance. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 134, 166–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.09.006
• de Fouw J, Madden CJ, Furman BT, Hall MO, Verstijnen Y, Holthuijsen S, Frankovich TA, Strazisar T, Blaha M and Van Der Heide T (2024) Reduced seagrass resilience due to environmental and anthropogenic effects may lead to future die-off events in Florida Bay. Front. Mar. Sci. 11:1366939. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1366939

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The grasslands of Japan are beautiful, full of volcanos, and revered by the people living there. Japan's unique model of conservation method of Satoyamas is one we wish the US would model - one where people push to thrive alongside the environment, not claim or set it aside. Allan hosts this episode and the five minute math break in the middle has been severely shortened (though stick around past the credits for a bit more).

Primary Sources:

• Chakraborty, S. (2018). The Interface of Geology, Ecology, and Society: The Case of Aso Volcanic Landscape. In: Chakraborty, A., Mokudai, K., Cooper, M., Watanabe, M., Chakraborty, S. (eds) Natural Heritage of Japan. Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism. Springer, Cham.
• Sustaining Aso's Grasslands. Japanese Ministry of the Environment.
• Aso's Wildlife. Japanese Ministry of the Environment.
• Direct download: Satoyama in Japan: For Nature-Based Solutions (2022 Report). Japanese Ministry of the Environment.

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In the final episode of the season for The Best Biome we lay out some concerns we have for the conservation of our beloved grasslands under a second term of the Trump administration. It's a hard discussion, but one we felt we needed to have. And boy was it a long one. If you don't feel up to listening now, we understand, though we still recommend you check out the action items at the end (see timestamps below to skip there). Much love to you all, and we'll be back in March.

Timestamps: (00:00:00) Introduction (00:04:37) Nicole: Implications of DOI Changes (00:33:00) Brain Bleach Success Stories (00:35:45) Rachel: EPA Changes and the Author of Project 25 (01:09:58) Allan: The Fall of Science (01:41:06) Action Items (01:55:57) Outro

Action Items:

• Learn more about the Monarch conservation plan and show your support (public comment period opens TODAY Dec 12 24): http://fws.gov/monarch
• Earthjustice Environmental Law - Rapid Response Legal Fund thru Dec 31: https://earthjustice.org/
• North American Grasslands Conservation Act: https://actforgrasslands.org/
• Engage with Citizen Science in your area: https://scistarter.org
• Citizen Science Projects by Federal Agencies: https://www.citizenscience.gov/catalog/

Inaction is not an option when it comes to fighting for what you believe in and those you love... but you don't have to do it all. Take care of yourself.

Arm Yourself With Knowledge:

• Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen (Bookshop affiliate link)
• The Endangered Species Act Overview and Impact on Private Property
• Trilateral Committee’s work on buffalo | grasslands conservation
• Visitor Spending Effects - Economic Contributions of National Park Visitor Spending
• EPA Enforcement Data and Results
• Climate Disinformation Database | Mandy Gunasekara - EPA Project 2025 Author
• League of Conservation Voters: Lee Zeldin’s score card (incoming EPA admin)
• EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights: Journey to Justice
• The Second Trump Administration Will Put Profit Over People and Opinions Over Facts. But We’re Prepared to Fight Back!Union of Concerned Scientists
• Attacks on Science. Union of Concerned Scientists

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A big animal can make big changes in their environment... and cause big problems for the people who live alongside it. African Elephants have a fascinating relationship to the savanna and the people who call it home, where it is equal parts feared and revered. The world of elephant conservation is complicated, and in this episode, Nicole examines the nuanced stories of these beautiful beasts and the conflicts that surround them.

Primary Sources:

• https://www.elephantvoices.org/ - great general information hub on elephants, plus home of The Elephant Ethogram.
• The Fingernail Problem: How a Common Interpretive Technique Fuels Negative Attitudes and Harmful Stereotypes. National Association of Interpreters.
• Sieber, C. 2019. Zoos Called It a ‘Rescue.’ But Are the Elephants Really Better Off? The New York Times Magazine.

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Happy Halloween from your grasslands PR Team! This month, Rachel confronts one of her worst childhood fears to bring us a tale of the strange and slithering: a group of animals so odd and cryptic that the existence of many species was only confirmed after their habitat was bulldozed. We're delving into the fascinating world of worm lizards, a world full of unknowns that still begs to be explored. After all, how can we learn about an animal that's virtually impossible to observe in the wild? A fanged and ferocious creature that creeps below our feet, hearing our every step, and slipping ever deeper into the darkness...

Primary Sources:

• Baeckens, S., García‐Roa, R., Martín, J., Ortega, J., Huyghe, K., & Damme, R. V. (2016). Fossorial and durophagous: implications of molluscivory for head size and bite capacity in a burrowing worm lizard. Journal of Zoology, 301(3), 193–205.
• Guynup, Sharon. (2021, June 6). “Race against time”: Saving the snakes and lizards of Brazil’s Cerrado. Mongabay Environmental News.
• García, E. R. (2020). How to maintain underground social relationships? Chemosensory sex, partner and self recognition in a fossorial amphisbaenian. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237188
• García, E. R. (2021). Offspring and adult chemosensory recognition by an amphisbaenian reptile may allow maintaining familiar links in the fossorial environment. Peerj.
• Ribeiro, L. B., Gomides, S. C., & Costa, H. C. (2020). A New Worm Lizard Species (Squamata: Amphisbaenidae: Amphisbaena) with Non-autotomic Tail, from Northeastern Brazil. Journal of Herpetology, 54(1), 9.
• Ortega, J. (2021). Going underground: short- and long-term movements may reveal the fossorial spatial ecology of an amphisbaenian. Movement Ecology.

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Possibly the best episode of all time (according to me, Rachel). Allan gives us EVERYTHING. Great science, high quality takes, crying with laughter, investigative reporting and red string conspiracy boards. To what end?? Drafting porcupines, well-known "tree-lovers," into the Best Biome (grasslands). Potentially. Hear us out!

+++ Primary Sources +++

• North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum). Alaska Department of Fish and Game- North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum). (n.d.).

Porcupine Fossils:

• Gelbart, M. (2016, July 6). The extended pleistocene range of the Porcupine (erethizon dorsatum). GeorgiaBeforePeople. https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/the-extended-pleistocene-range-of-the-porcupine-erethizon-dorsatum/

Antibiotic Quills:

• Roze, U., Locke, D. C., & Vatakis, N. (1990). Antibiotic properties of porcupine quills. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 16(3), 725–734. doi:10.1007/bf01016483

Geographic Differences in Behavior:

• Griesemer, S., R. DeGraaf. 1996. Denning pattern of porcupines, Erithizon dorsatum . Canadian Field Naturalist, 110/4: 634-637.
• Ilse, L., E. Hellgren. 2001. Demographic and behavioral characteristics of North American porcupines (Erethizon dorsatum) in pinyon-juniper woodlands of Texas. The American Midland Naturalist, 146/2: 329-338.
• Sweitzer, R., J. Berger. 1992. Size-related effects of predation on habitat use and behavior of porcupines. Ecology, 73: 567-875.

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Bees know more than you. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but they definitely know more than you realize! From complex problem solving to tool use to wing-sparkle navigation, bees illuminate our understanding of insect cognition. In this episode, Nicole invites us to perceive the world as our buzzy, bumbly friends might, in beautifully smooth 240 fps.

Primary Source:

• Buchmann, S. 2023. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees. Island Press.
• Support us and indie bookstores when you buy the book through this Bookshop.org link!

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Desertification is a major threat to many grasslands, so let's study the best real-world example: The Horqin Grassland, aka the Horqin Sandy Lands. How has this landscape changed over time, what can it teach us about the future of arid grasslands, and which approaches by Inner Mongolia and China to fight desertification give us hope? We love a hopeful story, and this certainly is one.

Primary Sources:

• Visual timeline of land deterioration and reversals. (Image)
• https://www.scitepress.org/PublishedPapers/2021/110202/110202.pdf
• Song, C., Wang, S., & Lu, W. (2021). Landscapes in the Horqin Sandy Land: Patterns And Processes. Proceedings of The International Conference on Water Resource and Environment. https://doi.org/10.5220/0011020200003354
• Huang, W., He, Y., Wang, H., Zhao, X., & Zhu, Y. (2023). Long-term effects of restoration on the links between above-and belowground biodiversity in degraded Horqin Sandy Grassland, northern China. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1128187
• Chen, Q., Yang, X., Kwon, S., Li, Y., Liu, J., & Zhang, K. (2023). Woody plant cover trends and potential drivers in the Horqin Temperate Steppe, Northeast China: Remote Sensing-based computation and modeling. Ecological Indicators, 146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109789
• Serod, Tsedevdorj. (2018). Population changes behind grassland degradation in Horqin region of Inner Mongolia , China. Research of One Health. https://www.academia.edu/109077058/Population_changes_behind_grassland_degradation_in_Horqin_region_of_Inner_Mongolia_China

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We get patriotic (kinda) in this special episode where all three hosts work together to petition for new national symbols for the US of A. New floral emblem, new national symbol, and a brand new category all-together. Why do we love non-native national symbols? Who knows. Do better, America.

Photos and more are at our site.

Primary Sources:

• As if this silly episode could have any. Do let us know who picked the best emblem though.

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The fastest land animal in North America, second fastest in the world: the graceful, wonderful, pronghorn. Nicole shares all the reasons these icons of the American prairie are truly the best from their evolutionary history to their epic stare battles between each other and rump flashes to warn of predators.

Primary Sources:

• Kitchen, D. 1974. Social Behavior and Ecology of the Pronghorn. Wildlife Monographs, No. 38., pp 3-96.
• Bender, L., Rosas-Rosas, O.,Hartsough, M., Rodden, C., Morrow, P. 2019. Effect of predation on adult pronghorn Antilocapra americana (Antilocapridae) in New Mexico, Southwestern USA. Mammalia, 2019, Vol 83, Issue 3 p.248-254.
• On the Move: Pronghorn Migrations Across Seasons. The Nature Conservancy and National Wildlife Federation.

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