The gang discusses two papers that look at the effects of climate change on cold adapted species, as well as the possibility of evolutionary rescue as a means of preserving this biodiversity. Also, it gives them all a great excuse to just talk about weasels (and somehow badgers as well). Meanwhile, Curt invents alternative Nintendo canon, James wants a giant robot spider body, and Amanda invents personalities for pictures of weasels.

Up-Goer Five (Amanda Edition):

Today our friends talk about how when things get warm it is bad for lots of things that live. Our friends look at long things with hair that need to eat more. These long things with hair that need to eat more are either dark or white. They are white when it is cold and dark when it is warm and that helps them hide. But with things turning more warm every year, it is getting too different for these long things with hair that need to eat more. Now sometimes they change from dark to white when it is still too warm, or, more often, they are still white when it is time to be dark. One paper says that this means the long things with hair that need to eat more get eaten more often by big things with big teeth and pointed fingers and hair, or by big things that fly that have no teeth and pointed fingers and no hair. The other paper says that maybe we need to look at some parts of the world that no one cares about and save them for animals, because these are places where the long things with hair that need to eat more that change color from dark to white and back to dark may be able to live.

References: 

 Atmeh, Kamal, Anna Andruszkiewicz, and Karol Zub. "Climate change is affecting mortality of weasels due to camouflage mismatch." Scientific reports 8.1 (2018): 7648. 

 Mills, L. Scott, et al. "Winter color polymorphisms identify global hot spots for evolutionary rescue from climate change." Science 359.6379 (2018): 1033-1036. 

The gang returns to a favorite topic, the link between morphology and ecology. Specifically, they look at two studies that use the morphology of ammonites and early fish as a proxy for ecological complexity. Also, James enjoy controlling giant robots, Curt considers the impact of branding, and Amanda tries a new 14% beer with all of the expected consequences. So enjoy as we get completely sidetracked talking about feet, eating zoras, how Amanda is secretly Tien from Dragon Ball, Warhammer 40k, and Deadpool. So, it’s one of those podcasts. <EDITOR’S NOTE: Actual science talk starts at roughly 16 minutes in>

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

Our friends talk about two papers that look at the way things look and how that changes what you can do to live. The first paper looks at things with long arms and hard covers that move through the water. The paper talks about how old things with long arms are the same and different to things with long arms that live today. It also looks at how these things with long arms change how they look and what they do as they get older. The paper shows that the old things often changed how they looked and do very different things as they got older. Also, the older things with long arms are doing things that are very different from the new things with long arms.

The next paper talks about other things that move through water and are good to eat. It looks at the mouths of these things that are good to eat to see if the mouths have become more different over time. Some people think that the mouths might have become different very early on, while other people think the mouths slowly got more different over time. This paper says that the mouths in the past were probably not as different as the mouths today, since a new group of things that are good to eat has appeared that have very very different mouths.

References:

 Walton, Sonny A., and Dieter Korn. "An ecomorphospace for the Ammonoidea." Paleobiology 44.2 (2018): 273-289. 

 Hill, Jennifer J., et al. "Evolution of jaw disparity in fishes." Palaeontology (2018).