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:

1. https://www.elephantvoices.org/ - great general information hub on elephants, plus home of The Elephant Ethogram.
2. The Fingernail Problem: How a Common Interpretive Technique Fuels Negative Attitudes and Harmful Stereotypes. National Association of Interpreters.
3. 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:

1. 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.
2. Guynup, Sharon. (2021, June 6). “Race against time”: Saving the snakes and lizards of Brazil’s Cerrado. Mongabay Environmental News.
3. 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
4. García, E. R. (2021). Offspring and adult chemosensory recognition by an amphisbaenian reptile may allow maintaining familiar links in the fossorial environment. Peerj.
5. 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.
6. 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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