The Future of Biodiversity Research

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And with MIDI Health, you can get help and stop pushing through it alone The experts at MIDI understand that all these symptoms can be connected to the hormonal changes that happen around menopause And Mitty can help you feel more like yourself again Many healthcare providers aren't trained to treat or even recognize menopause symptoms MIDI clinicians are menopause experts They're dedicated to providing safe, effective, FDA approved solutions for dozens of hormonal symptoms, not just hot flashes Most importantly, they're covered by insurance ninety one percent of MIDI patients get relief from symptoms within just two months You deserve to feel great T book your virtual visit today at joinMitty. com That's join mIdi. com I know Sorry Hey Meredith. Hey Benji, how's it going? It's going well. How's it going? Excellent, excellent. Yeah, it's now a good time to talk. I know you're pretty busy. Yeah, this is perfect. We just wrapped up. Yeah, yeah. So Benji Jones, senior correspondent here at Vox, covering the biodiversity, the environment. I mean, usually I feel like I'm catching you between reporting trips to you know, bat hospitals in Australia or chasing cougars in Mexico. So I'm glad that I caught you on this on this field reporting trip. where are you now I am right here in New York City. I'm in the middle of Prospect Park Exotic in Brooklyn the exotic reaches of Brooklyn Yeah, exactly. onn a beautiful sunny day, I should add. Oh yeah, describe what you see and hear around you. Yes. So I'm like twenty minutes from my house in the middle of Prospect Park. It's one of my favorite places in New York. It feels like more a little more rustic than Central Park, for example, because there's like scruffy forests and ponds and turtles. we saw like a bunch of turtles And swans today. Oh no And I'm listening to the sound of children in the distance. When we got here, there were dogs running everywhere. So it was a little bit chaotic, but just like very New York in every way. And we actually just ran into a large birding group and they were like freaking out because they had just seen a Mississippi A Mississippi in the sky that was like hovering around us while we were here. So there's just like all walks of life in the park and that's why I love Prospect Park and New York, obviously. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. so what are you up to in the wilds of Prospect Park? So while most people probably try to avoid bugs in the park I just set up a giant bug trap to try to find a new species of insect. I'm hoping that we will find a species that is new to science that no one has discovered before right in the middle of New York City I mean, I guess if I think about a new species in Prospect Park, what comes to mind is like a great De and a pug mix at the dog field or something wild. So why is it important to find a new species of bug Yeah, so what's so incredible about insects in general is that there are so many unknown species still. So we're looking specifically for a new species of what's called a parasitoid wasp, which is a wasp that lays its eggs and other insects and also flies in the family foridae, which are known as the scuttle flies. And the reason we're focusing on those two insect groups is that they're famous for having so many unknown species, tens of thousands that have yet to be described. And when we're talking about the value of Maintaining something like parasitoid wasps or flies, it may not seem that important, but insects run the world. They're so important for pollination, they clean up our poo. they do all these sort of hidden tasks all around us. And so there's a really strong argument even if you're just thin about selfishly thinking about humans to protect them, but first you need to know what actually exists Right. So I guess why have this quest in the middle of New York City? Like why not look for a new species in some remote jungle Be it's easy. Look I love your story. It's right. It's literally my neighborhood. It's my community. I want to know what animals I share my home with, but I also just think that doing this project in the middle of New York helps show just how unknown the world is. If you can find something new to science in the middle of the largest city in the country and the most densely populated metropolis, you can find a new species anywhere. And so I think if we do find something new and the scientist that I've talked to say that it's very likely that we will, I think it will just really highlight the fact that our world is still so unknown. that me both exciting but also just inspiring in the face of the larger story that I often tell and hear about about the decline of insects, the decline of biodiversity. So this is like, look, there's still this incredible opportunity for discovery So are you right by your trap right now? Yeah Yeah do a few feet away Could you kind of walk around it and describe what it looks like? Okay, we're not that close, actually. Not that close. Okay Trop is behind a fence right now because we had to go in with this guy Howard. Oh, hey, ye, hey, How Hi. Hi,s very nice to meet you. Howard is a forest ecologist with the Prospect Park Alliance, the nonprofit that manages the park. That's a leaf hopper. Oh that's an interesting one. ye. Wow, that's so cool. cool. To your knowledge has anyone discovered a new species in Prospect Park? True my knowledge, no, but again, most of the Wildlife studies that have been done in Prosper Park are the usual suspects. You know, The dragonflies and damerfies, butterflies and morphs, bees. No one's gone out looking for flies here yet? I don't want to say nobody, but we don't have a fly list. We have a list of some other insects.. don't have a fly list. Yet We are in eyesight of the trap and I can describe it if that's helpful. Perfect. Yeah, I'm really curious. Okay. so Part of the reason why signage was very important to say what we're doing is that it does just look like a tent from the distance. but if you can imagine It's just like a sheet of black mesh that is supported by tent poles and some white mesh that drapes over it an arc. And the trap is designed in such a way that as insects fly upwards, they get funneled into a bottle that is attached to the trap and full of ethanol. Oh look Uh Bas Yeah, I think that's a parasitid wasp. Amazing. So basically, we're gonna have bottles and bottles of dead bugs with DNA intact that we can then send to a lab for analysis So we're really looking for tiny little wasps and tiny little flies. Those are where a lot of the unknown species are, and we're trying not to capture big butterflies, dragonflies, bumblebees, things like that. And so the opening for the bottle of ethanol where they're getting trapped is very small and too small to capture something like a monarch So how did you come up with this project? God. A few years ago, I ended up connecting with a fly researcher named Emily Hartop, who is at a Natural History Museum in Berlin. And within about ten minutes in her office, she convinced me that flies are incredible. and she just ran through all these different species of forward flies, the Scuttle flies, one of the types of flies that we're trying to collect here U Some of them like decapitate ants, some of them mimic ant larva. L they have all these crazy behaviors. And I was like, okay, there is this whole unknown world of flies And when I was with her, she mentioned this term called dark taxa. Okay in describing the Suttleflies. and as she explained to me at the time, Dark Taxa are animal groups in which the majority of their species are still undescribed, still unknown to science. And so that really just sparked curiosity for me to be like, okay, there is so much that we don't know. I realize just so much of our insect diversity and really of most invertebrates. so like crustaceans, a lot of stuff in the ocean, totally unknown. L about ninety percent of life Plus or minus there becausecause no one really knows, but about ninety percent of life is still undescribed, which is just like ninety percent. Yeah, the majority of life on our Eth. That's like a majority more than just majity. The super majority of life on Eth is still totally unknown. and that just like blows my mind. And like, yes, we're not talking about lions and tigers and all the other big things out there that are super charismatic, they're like Darwin or whatever found We're talking about stuff that you really need to carefully look for. One of the things that I learned from this fly researcher, Emily, is that she has done trapping using similar traps that we're putting up in New York in Los Angeles and she discovered over forty new species of flies in the family foriday, those Suttle flies. And so I was like, all right, if people can do this in LA, like why not Why don't we try doing this in New York And over East coast, west coast thing. Exactly by coastal flies. So I was just like, dude, let's try to do this in New York, especially because I'm sorry, but New York is better and bigger. And I think it's even more exciting to find something new in the middle of New York. And also like it's just not very hard. likeike literally, I mean well As the people with me today can attest, it was not that easy to set up this trap, but mostly because I don't like camping at all. and it was basically like setting up a tent and sort of hated the whole process and it's still a little janky There is another steak and I'm not sure why Everyone was like, you have to be an idiot not to know how to set it up. So I'm sure I'll like somehow fail There's no poison in here, right I'm sure the flies won't fault you for it. Exactly. The bar is low for them. Maybe not. Maybe they're judgy. So what is your biggest hope for what you'll discover with this project? A fly just landed on me Also that Mississippi kite is in a tree right above us, which is very cool. That's very cool I mean Yeah, so like I don't think we're going to make a dent. any kind of meaningful dent in the like pursuit of unknown life. We're not gonna to describe dozens of new species. We're not going to help close these giant gaps in the tree of life. But each insect has its own role in the ecosystem, that's how it evolved. And so my hope is that we find something new, a new animal species that It's not been described before. it's unknown to science. And we can also and with that information help tell the world, educate folks just about how much there is still to discover and how important discovery is when we think about trying to reverse some of these pretty horrible trends in terms of what's happening to biodiversity Support for this show comes from OdDu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing OdDu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. 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Your favorite sundress, your comfiest concert tea, your most breathable bedsheets. All of your staples and a whole lot more are made from cotton. It's the comfortable, breathable, and durable material that only gets better with every wash So next time you shop, check the tags for cotton It's the fabric of our lives. So this this might be kind of a basasic. question, but What exactly is it new species. Like what do you what do you mean by that? What level of What animal are we talking about here Surprisingly not at all a basic question. veryery complicated. because Taxonomy is quite complicated, the system that we use to catalog life on Earth. So I guess the first thing I'll say is that there's an important distinction between discovery and description. So discovery is like, okay, we find something we being like usually scientists, taxonomists, find something that we don't think Anyone has found before. there was recently, for example, a big announcement of expeditions across the oceans to try to discover new species and they found like eleven hundred newly discovered species. so things that taxonomous thought have not been found before. But when that comes to like fruit flies Yeah. so when it comes to a little different. Yeah. so like You and me walking around pretty much anywhere, we're encountering flies all the time. Also we have a bunch of kids here. Hold on. Okay, hold on hold on a second. Oh kids seem to have b so. What are you doing for sampling insects. Very sweet. U Okay, so Your question about like How do we know if something is new, what it means to discover a new species? Description is the formal process for actually determining that something is a new species. That's when you name it. And that basically means you have to publish a record of the specimen that you found with evidence that they're unique among all the other flies or wasps that are out there. You also have to comeb through different museum collections, all these old academic articles to make sure that no one has described this species before. So it's this whole sort of due diligence process to prove that this is actually new. And at that point it is like officially a new species ot it. But it's like surprisingly complicated. Yeah, yeah. So you have like, there's the like, oh, I think we've seen something new. Exactly. But that's a very different or just like the start of a very long process. Yeah, it's a ton of work. Finding a fly in a haystack. Literally. And like just for like if it's helpful for this project, so we are going to the first step after we collect all these insects through our trap. is to barcode them. And that basically means we will sequence a portion. and by we, I mean, I'm not doing this. A lab in Canada is doing it called the Center for Biodiversity Genomics We'll sequence a portion of the genome for each specimen And that portion of the genome is called a barcode. and they basically have databases of genetic barcodes of all these species that scientists have collected. And so when we start sequencing our specimens, they can compare the barcode of our specimens to databases of barcodes to see if there's a match. And it's kind of like collecting fingerprints at a crime scene and then running it through like an FBI database of people's fingerprints and then if there's a match, you're like, oh, this might be a suspect. it's very similar except for the fingerprint in this case is a section of the DNA of the species. And that's only the first step because ye it only matches what's in the database. that doesn't mean that couldn't be a match to something else that's been described in some corner of a natural history museum. That's exactly right. So it's those kinds of experts who will make the final determination that, look, we think that this is actually totally new, undescribed, and that that's when we would get to name something new, which is obviously the best part of this whole process. In some ways, it's actually easier to discover something new now because of advances in genetic sequencing, like we can sequence enormous quantities of specimens pretty quickly and cheaply now and so you can do what we did, which is set up a trap, it passively is collecting stuff and then run it through sequencing and databases, like that's fairly fairly easy in the past It was all kind of these big expeditions. Oen they were usually they were white scientists who would go to foreign countries, collect a bunch of stuff and just take it from that country. and so it was very much like a Western s extractive practice of describing new species, but it was it was I mean, back in the fourteen, fifteen hundreds, whatever, So much had been undescribed. I mean, there was a point in history where Like Western scientists were like, lookook, a giraffe. let's name that. I'm thinking giraffe has a good buzz t. Exactly. So it was easier to visibly see new stuff hundreds of years ago, obviously. But in some ways, I think we're actually in sort of like a golden age of discovery now because of these new sampling techniques. And because of the simple fact as I mentioned that just still, so much of these smaller animal groups are totally unknown Yeah Do you think there'll ever be a point when we'll know all the species on Earth I I don't know, because I mean, part of it is that even the term species is squishy No, because I think there's a point where we will know all Vvertebrates, so stuff with backbones, birds, fish, mammals. I think for insects, it's possible. when we get into smaller stuff like nematodes, bacteria, fungi, like that stuff is just so hard to discover, so hard to find. And at that point we're like talking about such enormous quantities of species that it's like, does it make sense to find every species of nematode? maybe? But I think as you get into smaller and smaller organisms, it is much harder. And so I think we could discover at least most animal species If we see investments in discovery taxonomy less likely when we go into even smaller animal groups So it's sort of like where is that line for it to be worth trying? Yeah, ye Yeah. I think for bacteria and fungi, like it just seems hard What does it mean to sign up for just like this kind of impossible project then in terms of like the quest of finding, cataloging, understanding a whole family of flies that could have millions of potential unknown dark species Yeah, I mean, I think that if you are Like too me, discovery is one of the most exciting aspects of science of biology. So yes, like the excitement around discovering a fly is probably less than something big and charismatic, but because Even individual fly species have some function in their ecosystem, whether they're pollinators, they're food for other insects, which are food for birds, which are food for mammals or whatever it is getting to I think like revealing some of the hidden diversity, revealing the hidden roles they're playing, like there's so much excitement in that. And I think also just like helps us better understand like The ecosystems around us and I guess I think about them sort of like machines, like really complicated machines that have like big gears, but also like tiny little nuts and bolts. and each fly is maybe like one of those tiny little bolts that plays some role in keeping that machine alive. And so I think there is real value and just ' getting a a little bit of a clearer picture of just how this machine is working, especially when it's ecosystems that are what give us drinking water, they're what clean the air, they're what provide food. Our food is pollinated by all sorts of insects. just there is so much value in just like each individual animal in the ecosystem I guess I'm struck by just the wonder in these teeny creatures. Yeah. For listeners at home that might find themselves wandering through Prospect Park or Central Park or somewhere in LA or anywhere in between like what what do you want people to see When they think about this tiny mysterious world of flies that we know so little about I mean, I guess For me and I hope for other people leararning about This hidden diversity in our backyards has like really opened my world up And as soon as you start to shift your gaze towards like the smaller stuff and you just like pause for a moment on a walk and you just see little tiny creatures like buzzing all around you. like each one has its own life, its own purpose. And as you start to pay attention to those smaller things, I think it just makes the world feel like much fuller and more exciting. And like Like the community is bigger Yeah So, u If do you do find something that is totally new. What are you thinking about naming it You got like The Benjafly or something in your b. Its like apparently very much not cool to name something your after yourself. It' you' a faux. it But I think I don't know. I also kind of want like like this is such a public facing project. like anyone walking through the park gets to see this happening. So I sort of want input from folks. So if you have an idea of what we should name, a new fly or a new wasp or anything else that we discover this's new Let us know Fine Awesome, Well, I'll let you guys. I know you have more traps to set up throughout the day. So thank you so much for your time. and Oh my God. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll keep you posted. hopefully we willll have news to share soon. Yeah. I'll talk to you later. Already have cheers. Bye. This episode was produced by Meredith Hotenot and me, Kristna Aala We had editing from Lissaab and fact checking from Melissa Hirch. I did the mixing and sound design with music from Noam Hasenfeld Sally Helm has her own fly dilemma Joanna Salatarov is on TV. And Bird Pinkerton got yanked through the opening in the wall For its slam shot She looked at the talent holding her arm And then she looked at the rest of the birds standing in front of her Are you? she said. The bird nodded Did it was fllaped them. Thanks as always to Brian Resnik for co creating the show with Bird and Noam.