Survivor - Animal Edition: How are some species adapting to a human-altered world?

If you’ve ever watched the TV show Survivor, you know the rules: outwit, outplay, outlast.

But in the animal kingdom, Survivor isn’t a game– in a very real way, it’s adapt, or…

And as climate change intensifies and human disasters reshape the environment, animals are being forced to come up with new ways to cope- fast!

In this season 6 premiere, host Dr. Kaylee Byers explores some winning (and losing) survival strategies. First up, wildlife biologist Dr. Kendall Calhoun takes us into the aftermath of wildfires to see how different animals are adapting to an ever-changing landscape. Then, evolutionary biologist Dr. Cara Love brings us to her work in Chernobyl, where a population of wolves is living a  radioactive life– and their genomes could even offer clues for cancer treatment.

Highlights

• 04:58 Deer vs. Squirrels – Who’s Built to Survive a Wildfire?
• 12:27 Barry the Bear – The 500-Pound Bear Who Moved In After a Fire
• 19:57 Chernobyl’s wolves – Survival in a Radioactive World 



Sources

1. FACT SHEET: Climate change and wildfires - Climate Institute
2. Movement behavior in a dominant ungulate underlies successful adjustment to a rapidly changing landscape following megafire - Movement Ecology
3. 40 Years After Chernobyl, Wolves May Be Adapting to Live With Radiation - Science Alert
4. Signatures of Radiation-Induced Stress and Putative Selection on Immune Targets in Chornobyl Wolves - Molecular Ecology
5. Surviving in a poisoned land: Chernobyl's wildlife is different, but not in the ways you might think - BBC
6. What We Know About the Chernobyl Animal Mutations - ThoughtCo.