meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Science Quickly

How the Wolves Change the Forest

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2020

⏱️ 5 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

New research tracked the canines in northern Minnesota for years to see just how they reshape their ecosystems. Audio of wolves inside Voyageurs National Park, courtesy of Jacob Job . 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is a passenger announcement. You can now book your train on Uber and get 10% back in credits to spend on Uber eats.

0:11.0

So you can order your own fries instead of eating everyone else's.

0:15.0

Trains, now on Uber. T's and C's apply. Check the Uber app.

0:20.0

This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Jason Goldman.

0:28.6

We literally get down on our hands and knees and start slowly sifting through the leaf litter looking for bits of hair or a little chunk of bone.

0:39.0

Tom Gable is tracking a predator. In fact, he's tracking a whole pack of him.

0:44.0

Oh it's very much like a crime scene investigation.

0:47.0

Since 2015, the University of Minnesota Conservation Biologist has used GPS collars to track 30 wolves inside Voyager's National Park.

1:04.0

Those collars led Gable and his team to kill sites.

1:08.0

And there, amid the leaf litter, were bloodied bits of fur and bone.

1:13.0

Clues about how wolves alter the ecosystems they live and hunt and kill in.

1:19.0

The long-term study is, in a way, a quest to broaden a science story that goes back 25 years.

1:25.0

For wildlife ecologists, the story of the reintroduction of wolves to the Greater

1:30.4

Yellowstone Ecosystem on January 12, 1995 has become canonical.

1:36.6

The story goes something like this.

1:39.2

As the elk grew to fear the wolves, they changed where and how they foraged. That gave willows, cottonwoods, and

1:46.4

aspens a better chance to grow near streams. It also meant more riverside berries for foraging grizzly bears, and it led to alterations in the flow of those streams, sending water in new directions.

1:59.0

Wolves outcompete coyotes for access to prey, so coyote populations plummeted, which led to a rise in fox,

2:07.0

rabbit, and ground-nesting bird numbers, and so on.

2:10.5

Ecologists called this row of biological dominoes a trophic cascade.

2:15.0

Regardless of your inclination, I think it's hard not to be like, wow, this is amazing, right?

2:19.0

If that is true, that's really incredible.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scientific American, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scientific American and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.