Welcome to Speciose Weekly!

Hi! Nick Minor here. I’m a graduate student and evolutionary biologist based at University of Wyoming. I study how nature gets more diverse, a long and rich history that extends all the way back some 3.7 billion years.

That story is taking place right now too, in real time. Most people think evolution is a long, gradual process. But when faced with intense environmental change—sound familiar?—life tends to “find a way” quite rapidly. This evolution has consequences for the ecosystems we live in, for how we coexist with other species, and ultimately, for what the future of life on earth looks like—and these consequences are surprisingly concrete.

In the past, I’ve written about a variety of scientific topics for Birding Magazine and for Audubon. But here, I’d like to do something broader, something more ambitious: weave together threads from ecology, evolutionary biology, urban design, policy, economics, and even ethics—all to sow a more whole vision of the world, where humans are right in their place among the many other species on our planet.

Sounds cool. What do I get if I subscribe?

This weekly newsletter will provide a wholly different perspective on our shared planet than anything in the mainstream media. Here, I will:

  1. Report on news that concerns humans and our non-human neighbors, and show how our past, present, and future are entangled.

  2. Provide commentary on current events with perspectives from the biodiversity sciences. These perspectives will frame the world not as disembodied pieces in a void, but rather as a living whole.

  3. Cultivate new, refreshing narratives, pulling back from an anthropocentric view, and putting our everyday lives, culture, politics, and economy in context within the biosphere.

Yes, there will be lots of science. But whereas my Speciose publication on Medium will focus mostly on cutting-edge scientific research, this weekly newsletter will focus more on culture and current events—all through the lens of eco-evolutionary thinking.

If you like what you see here, please consider supporting this work on Patreon.

How will it be formatted?

Like everything else, the format of this newsletter is subject to evolution. Still, you can expect a roughly consistent format.

  1. First, we’ll have an introduction, which will frame the contents of the newsletter to come.

  2. Second, we’ll go through some of the news that pertains to biodiversity issues, and to human relationships with the environment and other species. Mostly, these will be headlines, brief summaries, and links to more information or sources. While the contents of this section may overlap with other news sources, my goal is to be decidedly non-anthropocentric here. There are a great many “stories of our time” that involve humans together with many other species. These stories deserve to be reported on too—not just the latest stock market action or political whingeing.

  3. Third, we’ll go through some cool new science. Consider this newsletter your finger on the pulse of the primary literature, drawing from the frontiers of ecology, evolutionary biology, economics, urban design, environmental justice, and a variety of other fields (again, all pertaining to biodiversity). This section will keep you apprised of how human knowledge is expanding right now, and how our new knowledge my improve and deepen our relationship with other species.

  4. Fourth, we’ll have a short, bullet-pointed shout-outs section, where I’ll lift up some people, organizations, or ideas that have inspired me or my audience recently.

  5. Finally, we’ll have a feedback section. If you have feedback of any kind—photo, video, audio, written, or otherwise—I would love to hear from you! Let’s make this newsletter a community space. To do so, simply respond directly to this newsletter.

Last but not least, Friday editions of newsletter will be retrospective, meaning that it will look back on the past week. Paying subscribers will receive an additional post on Mondays that is forward-facing. It will focus on upcoming phenological events, important political happenings, opportunities for activism, etc. to keep an eye out for in the coming week.

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News and insights focused on biodiversity

People

Biologist & science writer based in wild Wyoming.