Whale gut microbes, inbred ibexes, African Americans in evolutionary biology, and cryptic crow species

In the inaugural episode of the Molecular Ecologist Podcast, a panel of contributors to The Molecular Ecologist recap the science they've been reading and writing about over the past month. On this episode:

Kelle Freel talks about a nifty study of the microbes that help whales digest plankton, by Carolyn A. Miller et al. (doi: 10.1038/s41396-019-0549-y)

Patrícia Pečnerová describes how endangered Alpine Ibex populations have lost genetic diversity but are still purging deleterious mutations, as described in a paper by Christine Grossen et al. (doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-14803-1)

R Shawn Abrams recaps his post about the history of African Americans studying evolution, and what it will take to broaden the diversity of the field, citing a recent paper by Joseph Graves (doi: 10.1186/s12052-019-0110-5)

Jeremy Yoder discusses a study that finds substantial hybridization between the endemic Northwest crow and the much more widespread American crow, by David Slager et al. (doi: 10.1111/mec.15377)

You can find more from The Molecular Ecologist at molecularecologist.com, follow updates on Twitter at @molecologist, or find us on Facebook at The Molecular Ecologist.

The music in this episode is Leroy Anderson's "The Syncopated Clock," performed on piano by Markus Staab and available under a Creative Commons license via Musopen.