Podcast
The Best Biome
Hosted by Grassland Groupies · EN
Three prairie biologists make the ever-growing argument for why grasslands are the world's best biome. Features hosts Rachel Roth, Nicole Brown, and Allan Saylor of Kansas-based nonprofit Grassland Groupies.
10episodes
Episodes
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[S5E1] If You Mess with The Bull
Mar 2601:16:54Tap to summarizeWe 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 +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.
Transcribe →[S4E9] State of the Grasslands 2025
Dec 1102:25:55Tap to summarizeIn 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?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share\&utm_medium=web\&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]( This podcast is powered by Pinecast.
Transcribe →[S4E8] The Spookiest Biome!
Oct 900:44:59Tap to summarize'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 +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.
Transcribe →[S4E6] Rivercane Reverie
Aug 1401:01:26Tap to summarizeIn 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 +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.
Transcribe →[S4E5] Sunflower Politics
Jul 1000:53:50Tap to summarizeOur 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) +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.
Transcribe →[S4E4] Healing the World (and Heavy Metals) with Plants
Jun 1200:55:04Tap to summarizePhytoremediation. 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. +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org.
Transcribe →[S4E3] The Hottest Reptile (Tegus)
May 8, 202500:48:58Tap to summarizeThe 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. +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org.
Transcribe →[S4E2] The (Second) Best Biome
Apr 10, 202501:04:35Tap to summarizeThis 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 +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org.
Transcribe →[S4E1] Satoyamas: Aso-Kuju Grasslands
Mar 13, 202500:55:00Tap to summarizeThe 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. +++ More of Our Work +++ Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org.
Transcribe →[S3E11] The Environment under Trump
Dec 12, 202401:57:18Tap to summarizeIn 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 +++ More of Our Work +++ Grassland Groupies' Website Facebook TikTok Twitch Bluesky +++ Contact Us +++ Text/Call: (316)-512-8933 info@grasslandgroupies.org +++ Support Us +++ Bonfire Merch Store CashApp: $GrasslandGroupies Or... donate directly to our org.
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