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Transcript

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0:01Who are the characters behind science? This is Science Behind the Glass, Illuminating the Human Side. In this podcast, we unveil the human side of laboratories and science. Scientists share personal experiences and we discuss their meanings from different perspectives and fields of research. Welcome to another episode of Science Behind the Glass, Illuminating the Human Side, the podcast where we delve into the fascinating intersection of science, nature, and humanity. Today, we are thrilled to have Dr. Leanda Mason, an accomplished ecologist and passionate advocate for conservation.

0:40Dr. Leanda Mason has built an impressive career focusing on conservation ecology, tertiary education, an equity diversity and inclusion framework they completed a phd on the urban ecology of trapdoor spiders and they’re keen aiming to understand and conserve this unique reader their research has highlighted the challenges faced by trapdoor spiders in urban environments particularly due to their short -range endemic traits species that are restricted to a very small geographic area and are often highly specialized to their local environment Currently, Leander serves as a Vice -Chancellor Research Fellow in the Century for People, Plays, and Planets at Edith Cowan University. In this role, Leander leads interdisciplinary projects exploring the intersections of queer ecology, non -human entities, and indigenous Australian concepts of country. Leander’s research integrates indigenous perspectives on their interconnectedness of life forms with temporary ecological studies, challenging dominant anthropocentric views, and informing environmental justice practices. Dr.

1:42Leanda is also an enthusiastic science communicator, frequently engaging in public talks, media interviews, and publications to advocate for the conservation of non -charismatic species. Leanda’s work has significantly contributed to our understanding of biodiversity and the importance of preserving lesser -known species like the trapdoor spiders. Leanda, thank you very much for accepting this invitation and for being here. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation. To start, what motivates you to specialise in the study of trapdoor spiders and what personal experiences have shaped your passion for their conservation?

2:20So I wasn’t aware that trapdoor spiders even existed until my second year at university, which is quite surprising considering I already had quite a strong interest in anything in the undergrowth. Like I was really interested in leaf litter and vertebrates in particular. And then when I was doing my zoology degree, I was a bit… I guess a bit of a petulant student. I spoke out to one of the professors there. He was specializing in parasites. So we did do like a zoology unit, an invertebrate zoology unit. And I was really excited to do that unit because invertebrates is like something I was really interested in.

2:53But we were focusing on parasite and cnidarians, which are like jellyfish. So I was a bit disappointed because it didn’t cover the things that I was really interested in. And then when I was talking to the professor about it, he’s like, oh, I’ll introduce you to this other professor. She’s just across the hallway, like, just meet me after class. And I was like, okay, cool. So I came and met, and he introduced me to Barbara York -Main, who I’d never heard of before. And she was this older, like, she was 79 when I met her.

3:20And I was 19. An older lady, like, she was really, she was dressed, like, very petite -ly, very, like, lovely. Like, she was, you know, she just dressed really well and, you know, kind of old -fashioned. Everything was matching. You know, I just had this impression of her being, like, kind of delicate and unassuming, I guess, in her presence. But then, like, when I got to know her, I realized that actually that was not like her at all. She’s a very strong woman. But when I first met her, she immediately showed it. She’s like, oh, this is good timing because I was just about to feed my trapdoor spider. She had this live trapdoor spider in, like, a little plantar plot. Like, it was full of dirt and that. And it said live spider on the top of it with a grade over the top. But I couldn’t see anything in there, right? And when she opened the lid, she put in this cockroach. quick as a flash this trapdoor spider jumped out and leaped and got the cockroach and I made this very feminine exclamation which I won’t repeat but it was like a gasp and I’d never seen anything so cool like in my life and then I would just pelted her with questions and she very generously like gave me her book to read and like some of her papers and she’s like just bring them back and then yeah so I kind of just hung off her for the next 10 years because I was just I was hooked from the beginning and she was She was very generous with her time and yeah, she took me out on country and like showed me where the trapnose spiders were and like out into the bush and that, and yeah, getting my eye in and teaching me all about them. And it was, it was just really, really lovely to be able to learn like that from her. That’s how I got into it. Yeah. It sounds like a really nice first experience with the species. Yeah.

4:53I feel so privileged and lucky that I got to, got to meet it and be introduced that way. And how do you change from studying the conservation of these type of spiders to working on EDG, Equity, Diversity, Justice and Inclusion -Based Ecology? And also explain us what EDG is. So EDG is a term I came up with to describe kind of the scope. So it’s an approach to ecological research that centers on equity, diversity, justice and inclusion, hence the acronym EDG. But it’s also just a cool acronym, like pushing out the boundaries of what we’re currently doing. It recognises the interconnectedness of social and environmental justice and integrating these principles into study and management of ecosystems. So it kind of just pushes against those more westernised, colonial, ecological paradigms. So yeah, just trying to bring in as many diverse perspectives and equitable practices in addressing environmental issues. So it’s not really a complete change. It’s like, because the conservation of tractable spiders really fits within that. It’s also looking at not just people doing ecology and the interactions with humans. presenting the more than human so it’s looking at what kind of if there’s like any taxonomic bias which there definitely is against spiders generally and you know invertebrates even though invertebrates constitute 95 % of invertebrate like of fauna of all animal species 95 % is represented by invertebrates and yet most of the funding goes towards vertebrate species for conservation and the research of that there. So I guess I

6:24didn’t get a lot of support in funding for trapdoor spiders and it’s kind of easier to pitch like a broader approach, I guess. And it already fit with my social justice, environmental justice mantra, like my own personal values. So it just fits within all of the things that I want to do. I kind of just put them together. You’re out of the curiosity, who? Who introduced this new concept of edgy? Or I guess that is not new, but we are not familiar with. It’s a term that I coined. So edgy is something that I’ve come up with as a term. But it’s really, it’s expanding on the queer ecology ideas anyway. So in terms of like, I guess, Western colonial approaches, it’s really, and queer ecology is coming still from. like the social sciences within that space, if that makes sense. So it’s changing the scope and the origin of where that’s coming from because I use a lot of Indigenous knowledges and approaches as well as like a species, like a more than human perspective as well. So it’s like I think it’s kind of just building on that there. It’s a new coined word, but it’s like coming from a different perspective, if that makes sense. Yes, yes. Yeah.

7:36And how do you address your research in cultural or anthropological science to connect with ecology problematics? I address my research by recognizing the interconnectedness of human cultures and ecological systems. So I think we do need to be very careful in recognizing that a lot of our approaches are biased or there’s like a perspective lens over it. So it’s coming from our own and human perspectives. So it’s very, not always, but it’s a bit egocentric. how humans are perceiving ecological problems and trying to it’s really difficult to remove those biases without being aware that you are biased i think there’s been a long history at least in colonial western science that it’s science is objective and there’s facts and that kind of thing but it’s all generated by humans so it’s not able to be fully objective because of that because we all hold our personal biases and things like that it’s more about acknowledging the interconnectedness of cultures and ecological systems and how that plays out. You know, you can gain insights to sustainable practices and impacts on ecosystems. So, for example, looking at different cultural ways in Noongar cultures, I myself have got Manang Noongar heritage. And looking at old ways and how we used to manage and conserve biodiversity, so like totemic associations and things like that as well. That interdisciplinary, intercultural approach really allows connect to different dimensions and like leading to a more comprehensive. culturally sensitive, holistic way of approaching these kinds of ecology problems.

9:07And I think being a part of the Centre for People, Place and Planet really assists with that because the values that we hold is like anti -colonial, feminist, queer, which really goes against the dominant perspectives in a lot of ways, but especially in my research with ecological problems. Yeah, that is important because even in… traditional ecological approaches or ecological problematics, even humans are considered like aside from ecosystems and even more when we are talking about human diversity. I guess this kind of approach may help to improve the ecological science. Yeah, I think it’s just acknowledging that humans are a problem. I mean, I guess I’m coming from a very conservation perspective too. Like you cannot marry the two and yet that’s what’s been happening with, and when you say traditional ecology, I think Western colonial ecology, I don’t think, because traditional to me is also like old ways, like Noongar ways, Aboriginal ways, which are very sustainable and it’s very respectful with the environment, but that’s not what we’re seeing.

10:13I guess that is like one of the bigger… issues that we have as you mentioned for example the spiders that are like oh the missing ones the animals are thousands of them they’ll be fine they’ll be fine and then who cares if they’re not like that’s that’s what i get people are scared of or disgusted or like no no no and they’re scary and they’re venomous and then actually well nobody knows about them they’re like they’re ancient animals that have been here living for so is that fascinating Yes, and it’s a hierarchical problem. I would say that because we put in hierarchy different animals. We say in Spanish, hypothesis peruche, like a plush. toy hypothesis that we have this attachment with these beautiful animals and vertebrates and we really dismiss the rest of them that have a really important role in the ecosystems and the spiders starting from for example from arthropods or like spiders scorpions that we completely don’t know absolutely anything from them but we actually obtain a lot of from them for example from the venom and isolating compounds yeah and that’s When people don’t care about spiders intrinsically, which a lot of people don’t, or non -charismatic fauna, which I think is what you’re saying as well. And then I have to give an economic benefit or a way that humans will benefit from them in a way that people can understand, which is when I focus on the venom and things like that, because there are a lot

11:46of medical applications. The Sydney funnel web venom, for example, is being used to treat post -stroke symptoms. And because it’s like a neurological impact that the venom is having so that they found that that can be used to mitigate the impacts of a stroke. Like it stops the damage or something like, I’m not sure exactly how that works, but also things like non -addictive painkillers and tattooed insecticides and things like that. So like, and because the venoms are species specific, if we let spiders and scorpions and other venomous creatures, many of which who are invertebrates go extinct, then we are potentially losing a lot of. um by information a lot of things that could be used and i know that’s a very extractive list a very like taking from species mentality it’s not something that i personally subscribe to but that’s that’s the argument that i have to make for people to be like oh actually maybe we should conserve them because we might be able to use them later and i find it i find it hard to make those arguments even though i know that i have to to get people to start caring about like it’s really hard to get people to start caring. I have the perfect example there. We apply for ARC, that is like a big funding in Australia. And then we have to justify everything with human benefits. With Sydney foreign web spiders, there’s different species, like the venom profiles are different and that has an impact not only in the antivenom. We don’t know anything about the status of the ecology, how is the conservation, how is the population. There’s so much variation. Like all the variables or

13:16components that are affecting not only humans, then we are not going to end up doing anything. I know, it’s very frustrating. I find that I’m empathizing with you. And sometimes it’s just a matter of who’s applying too. And this is where, like, I think this is where edgy ecology also, it’s not just about the species, but it’s also about the human dynamics within that. Because I think it was 2019, I tried to get this ARC linkage off the ground when it was coming to conserving shieldback trapdoor spiders, which I’ve got a, like, I’ve got a tattoo of one on my arm. But, like, I have a very strong association with them. They’re also critically endangered from the way that I understand critical endangerment.

13:58Like, with my PhD, I found all of these threatening processes. And the surveys I conducted, like there’s only like one population at Kings Park that I think is actually sustainable. But even then there’s like arson attacks and things like that that happen in Kings Park. So having one population is not enough to preserve a species, as you would imagine. But when I put forward this project, there was very little interest.

14:23And I think I made like a very strong case to conserve these spiders. And then just recently, some men. I’m going to say like men with a lot of external privilege. I was very frustrated. That’s true. Yeah. So even though they have a lot of social authority is probably how I would describe that. They’re white men, straight, of a certain age. They’re both doctors. I won’t name who it is because I don’t want to name and shame. And it’s not their fault, obviously. It’s not their fault that they have that privilege.

14:52But they also have very little knowledge on trapdoor spiders. And yet when they were asking the same questions of partners. to collaborate with they were getting lots of like they just they just ask and that’s a yes as opposed to me who have to like I have to make a case and then eventually it’s a no or it’s just a straight up no and I’m just like what is the difference between me asking and them asking do you know what I mean it’s the same question is it the timing because 2019 as opposed to now but that’s only five years and I asked again recently like the end of last year the same question can we do a breeding program at the zoo and there was a no it’s like we don’t have the space and I’m like well short -range endemic so they don’t need a lot of space generally speaking and it’s a big zoo you’ve got like massive animals anyway i won’t get into it but i was very frustrated with the no like it was an unequivocal no and then they asked more recently and they’re like oh yeah we will we can do that really frustrated me that that was and they’re not experts in tropical spiders so they’re actually going to come to me for the the information on how to do that yeah i know i i get it because when we apply twice and then my both my supervisors started like a leading First was my co -advisor and then afterwards was my female advisor. And then one of the answers is like, oh, but you don’t have like a higher rank. You’re not a professor. And she was so angry because it was like, so do I need to have associate professor and a title to just get more appealing or like I’m getting more chances to get the funding? And then that’s

16:22the reality. It is. It is. It’s frustrating because it’s like, it doesn’t really matter how. Good your idea is who’s saying it sometimes. And I think that’s one of the things in edgy ecology that I’m also going to investigate because it’s just so frustrating that that hierarchy, even within humans that you were talking about before, that exists not just in humans, it exists in species and it exists generally. But how do we make everything a little bit more fair and equitable?

16:47Yeah. And continuing exactly with this line of thought. how does fg approach in ecology improve the old or classic ecological research approaches how are they different but traditionally understanding that traditional is not like the the indigenous or the communities but the older classic ecological research yeah yeah like colonial eco -centric yeah yeah extractivist yeah i think they were i think that kind of approach was really focusing on the biological physical aspects which is kind of what you were saying before it was very like humans weren’t a part of that equation um or considering those social dimensions at all so i think those kinds of approaches can definitely marginalize uh like further marginalize people who are not in the dominant let’s say culture so like we’re just saying yeah it’s if you’re not part of the the colonial or you’re you’re existing within that hierarchy then you’re less likely to have an impact in that space Because there’s barriers that exist to stop you from practicing ecology. And I think we know that that’s going to be problematic because, and there is a lot of research that actually, you know, supports this. I know that, I think it was the CIA in America realized that they had to diversify their workforce because they had all of these white men. And then they were missing things because they only had one perspective. So it was too narrow a perspective to actually be useful for the greater population. So I think that there

18:18is research that builds on the social dimensions and how important that is in different spaces. But when we’re talking about ecology, it’s kind of like we know that it’s not sustainable. We know that what we’re doing right now is really irreversibly damaging our environment. And yet there has been a lot of resistance to change our ways, like in the colonial way. And I think it’s getting better in Australia in terms of like including Indigenous knowledges. Because it’s kind of like, well, that’s being trialed and trusted for like, you know, 65,000 years and demonstrated that that’s actually a very sustainable approach. But yeah, bringing in lots of diverse perspectives, I think. And the more than human as well, like the taxonomic bias, which we’re discussing with spiders, like that is something that I find so problematic. The non -charismatic species not getting any funding or just being like, oh, yeah, they’ll be captured within the funding that’s being given to. the more charismatic species because if we’re conserving the charismatic species environment that means that there’ll be an indirect benefit for the invertebrate species or like the species that are existing to support that one charismatic species but it doesn’t happen fake news i guess the misinformation you know if you give money here and it’ll trickle down into communities like that’s not what happens though like it’s just a lie that we keep getting fed and it’s like it’s really detrimental in so many ways so i think they are inextricably linked as well And with what you say, I think we already have like several decades of ecological research using more or less the same approach. And we still have this crisis. We have this global ecological

19:50crisis that we couldn’t handle. It hasn’t been proven to be working. So it has to be something in the basis of that. We have to do something about that there. I think it’s in like a lot of conservation ecology approaches, objectives, like issues that we know that need to be fixed. Then like problem problems that need solutions, but they’re in direct conflict with economic or like other social human endeavors. So I think that’s where there’s a big conflict between what we can achieve. And we essentially have to like restructure the, the entire human like dominant culture in terms of like how the globe is running because. extractivist production capitalist like i could go on but it’s it is it’s not sustainable um and so it’s a bigger bigger issue than ecological practice and it’s but it’s sitting within that so it’s like how do you address environmental justice without also combating social justice at the same time like the two are inextricably linked so i think even though it’s like a really broad and edgy ecology is a very broad scope in that i think it is it needs to be acknowledged it has to be a holistic approach I completely agree. I think that if we see as a whole ecosystem how it actually works and the inclusion of communities or traditional communities and their knowledge, we are not going to really understand how everything works properly. What factors are affecting them and how all the species are changing in a way.

21:23And we have a guess that when we figure out… that at the end of the tunnel, like, oh, there’s an endangered species. Like, well, actually, it’s late because the whole ecosystem has been just wiped out. The forest is just, it’s late. They are, like, at the end of the… They’re just holding on, barely. So we need to focus on, like, prevention rather than, you know, getting to that point where they’re nearly extinct and then being like, oh, they’re nearly extinct, we need to do something. Like, well, yeah, can you think about… Before they get to that point, I think is what you’re saying. So, yeah, I totally agree with that too. That’s very frustrating.

22:02But there’s still like we have unprecedented amounts of clearing in Australia. Like it’s one of the highest native habitat clearing in the world. And yet I don’t know why we have this perception that that’s not what’s happening. Like I see Perth expanding very rapidly. Like I remember for my PhD I was mapping the urban sprawl. So there was aerial photographs taken in the 1950s and it was like you could see where. the native bush, like the line was before it had been cleared. And it was, I don’t know, for those of you who like know Perth, there’s a very expanded, like maybe three times the size in 50 years. Like in terms of population density, there’s a very low population density in the outer suburbs as well, which causes all kinds of economic problems in terms of access to transport, public health and things, you know, getting to hospital. And schooling, like it’s not good for anyone to have urban sprawl. I understand with, you know, the pandemic that people are like, oh, it’s good to be isolated. Earth was not bad, but it’s bad for the environment and it’s bad for a lot of other reasons, like social reasons as well, social determinants of health in particular.

23:10So, yeah, let’s just not keep clearing. I think that’s true. And farmland as well, you know. I agree, but like you’re coming out with this idea that actually we need. sooner or later to be more inclusive like a looking from other perspective because it hasn’t been working for many decades so we have to come up with different perspective and looking in a different way yeah i’d say centuries to be honest like it to me it kind of started with the industrial revolution or like even farming practices like when humans started changing from like that initial change like staying in the one place and raising crops that I think, started it all. And that really extractivist mentality from the environment, not that synergy. And I think a lot of First Nations peoples around the world, they have very strong connections to country and they want to look after it. But with all this movement and globalization, we’ve lost connection with place and belonging and feeling like we care for the place that we’re in because we can just move. And I think that underlying mentality is not great. So I think there’s a lot of, again, it gets quite complicated, but I think it did start before the Western side, like before Darwin and all that kind of stuff. You know, I think it started way before that and it just kept building like incrementally. So it’s not an overnight thing. It’s a, yeah, but we do definitely need to change the ways now. And I think, especially with the huge population that the planet’s trying to support, like the human species, it’s just.

24:42And in what ways research studies overlook or marginalize the roles of sex and gender diversity in ecosystem? How does queer ecology address these gaps? Like I was saying before, queer ecology is still within the colonial construct because it’s still within an academic sense is kind of where I’m coming from with that. The queer ecologies come across from social sciences. So it’s almost like within that hierarchical structure, it’s come across, like it’s good in terms of deconstructing the patriarchy and deconstructing, you know, the gender norms within that and acknowledging that there’s diverse sexuality in ecosystems.

25:25Like humans, I think are probably, there’s a very small percentage of species that are monogamous or like, that are like heterosexual, I guess, like purely heterosexual. So, and humans aren’t obviously, but like to acknowledge that that’s. a very natural thing I think is coming across from that perspective. I mean, I remember talking to someone recently about bonobos and they were like, what, what are bonobos for one? One of our closest relatives in terms of like the great apes, like chimpanzees and bonobos are probably our closest cousins. And yet they have very different approaches to sex. And it’s very interesting.

26:01It’s like bonobos essentially make love, not war. Whereas chimpanzees are very like conflict, you know, they have a long conflict. an aggression that isn’t resolved. But bonobos do resolve a lot of that through sex. So I think it’s really challenging those normative assumptions or like what’s considered the dominant ideals culturally. But again, it’s coming from a human perspective. So I think with queer ecology, that’s what they’re kind of looking at. It’s undermining the dominant norm that is perpetuated within human cultures because it’s not a norm, generally speaking.

26:32And it’s pretty much been imposed. It’s like undermining those dualisms, you know, the… the binary thinking but it’s very cartesian and i think the cartesian theories did arise from all of the the social theories in which is why i think it’s come across from the social sciences to undermine that and it’s then been applied to ecological interactions at a species level in particular yeah that is very interesting because we are like interpolating these concepts from from human communities that are very complex and we kind of understand in some aspects and we interpolate them to nature That is very interesting.

27:08It’s almost like a projection. Yeah, exactly. So how queer ecology integrates social justice into this equation, into ecological research and practice, and what implication might this have for future research and policy? I’ll answer the first part of the question. So part of my research will be exploring the differences between those two things. I think from what I’m understanding at the moment, edgy in the way that I coined that term is like a broader scope. um they’re both you know loaded terms obviously and they both are looking at incorporating social justice principles into ecological studies but they’re focusing on different aspects and just different issues so like the approach and the objectives are a bit they’re going to be a bit different anyways um so edgy edgy ecology is kind of more of a broader inclusion like it’s looking at more than species approaches and other things like um you know indigenous i think indigenous knowledge is what wasn’t and hasn’t been highlighted much in queer ecology. Like, I can only think of one example that I’ve read, and that’s from Kim Torbear, who connects queer ecology with Indigenous perspectives and kinship models. But there’s definitely, in terms of, like, moving forward in a sustainable way in ecological approaches, Indigenous knowledge systems are so, especially for, I’ll say with Noongar, I’ll talk about my own culture, you know, we are the land, the land is us. Like, we’re not. separated from that and i think that’s a really important way of looking at ecology moving forward is like because i think colonial western approaches what you’re saying is traditional

28:40is kind of like the very separate observant like perspective so it’s like this is what’s happening and it doesn’t we’re removed from that i think queer ecology is kind of based in that just because of where it’s come from but i think it’s important moving forward that we build on that like it’s i’m not saying queer ecology is bad obviously it’s great that it was undermining all of that there, but I think it needs to be a little bit more inclusive in the perspectives that it’s taking as well. Personally, obviously, I’m still exploring the space. So it’s probably that was the direction that queer ecology was going in anyway, because it’s the next logical step. But how do we integrate those kinds of, you know, justice and social inclusion perspectives that will inform policy? Because policy, I think, is about justice. That, well, that’s how I understand it anyway. It’s like, it’s trying to not legalized but like put in place some structure that allows for people to be protected when they’re doing this kind of stuff so policy is kind of for like putting policy in place to protect animals for example like you know putting in protections for invertebrate species when from i found out recently that invertebrate fauna don’t have any protections whatsoever and they’re not even really considered fauna according to this biodiversity thing that i was reading okay so there’s like zero protection essentially unless they’ve got a like a priority status which trapdoor spiders don’t at the moment so uh policies to protect trapdoor spiders but for whatever reason that’s been taken back so um i think it’s important

30:10to to recognize that even though it’s in the future it might be less progressive in some places if we’re not fighting for it so it’s important to try to push for these things in a in a really like in an edgy way i guess um to try and push the boundaries, but there’s always that chance that it’ll go backwards. Yeah, there is a security. I have a good example when I was learning recently about doing a review for the dugong in Pacific Islands. Well, I learned so much about this animal, but then in the New Caledonia, they noticed that all the marine parks and all the policies around the marine parks weren’t matching with the distribution of the yugong and the seagrass that they rely on. So this research is like, this is ridiculous.

31:06You are just putting in a space where there’s absolutely anything there. And then the actual animal where it’s living, where it’s breathing, where it’s eating this, it’s not protected. So it’s just like a randomly, oh yeah, we have 80 % of the marine parks around. And there’s probably other reasons they thought that that was a good place to protect. And that’s the thing. It’s like, if you focus, like I love dugongs, don’t get me wrong, but yeah, if you’re focusing on other aspects, it might’ve been like fishing reasons and all that kind of stuff. Like it wasn’t that they were protecting areas that weren’t used for fishing or like, like there’s a lot of cultural aspects. So it’s like, it’s like, well, why are you doing it? It doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense in the bigger context of like human developments and economic incentives.

31:50all of that there. So it’s very frustrating for people that genuinely care about the environment because it’s in direct conflict with things that other people care about. But I think, I think that’s where it’s the social equity and the environmental justice. I wonder why people don’t care so much about environment when we’re so heavily reliant on it. You know what I mean? Like it’s like cutting out our lungs. Yeah. Yeah. It is an unbelievable one. Yeah. I just. So I think it is heavily cultural though. Cause like. Aboriginal cultures around the world, First Nations peoples around the world, understand how intrinsically linked we are. So I think we just need a big cultural shift in a lot of ways to be a little bit more respectful of the place that we’re in. How does incorporating equality, diversity, justice and inclusion into ecological research enhance our understanding and management of populations and ecosystems?

32:49Can you provide insights on your own research? I know that you give some examples already, but maybe you can expand a little bit more. Yeah, I think the difference between equality and equity, and it’s something that I teach in university, so that’s why I’m kind of picking up on it. Equality is where you treat everyone the same. Equity is kind of like acknowledging that there is difference and accommodating for that difference. So it definitely is equity that I’m focusing on because a lot of… like we know that species operate differently within ecosystems and therefore we need to have an understanding of that in order to conserve um appropriately uh but yeah i guess in my own research it really i’ve noticed more like i i started from a very western point with my phd like i was trained in a university and it’s like this is the things that you must do and it is i didn’t even question it sometimes like taking specimens from the environment and not even thinking and like having them That’s just what you do. You just take trapdoor spiders.

33:50And then as I learned more about them, I found it really problematic and really hard. A lot of these trapdoor spiders that we’re taking out as the environment might be older than I am. It was difficult, and yet there didn’t seem to be, because they’re invertebrates, nobody seemed to care. But they have similar lifespans, and they’re just a lot of vertebrate species that have similar rights. Anyway, so I guess I started questioning it more and more as I got older.

34:20And when I started using, I realized that nobody gave a crap. Nobody really cared about invertebrates generally. And that was something I had to reconcile because I was like, I didn’t mean to assume that other people would just care. But because I care so much, it was something that I guess I found it really hard to understand why. But yeah, so that was the basis of my PhD, was looking at trapdoor spiders as… surrogates for all of these other invertebrate species that weren’t able to be researched because they’re rare or hard to capture data for. So a lot of the invertebrate species, it’s not just that people don’t want to study them, but they are just hard to study as well because of the data deficiency. We’re starting from baseline studies a lot of the time.

35:08There’s just nothing on them. So people don’t want to invest their time and effort into doing that because it’s like, especially with PhDs and things. it’s you want to build on the existing literature and you want to get your phd and it’s like it’s really hard to break new ground but i think it’s something that we we need to be um applauding people for actually even trying and recognizing that there are barriers to doing these kinds of things rather than like when you’re doing publishing and they say like oh what were the limitations of your your research and it’s like you’re listing all of these things and then they’re like well what are you finding and it’s like well i found this this and this but they’re like oh but there’s all these conflicting things and it’s like yeah but that’s just the nature of what we’re studying and it’s like baseline and we don’t know these things so it’s it’s really hard to to build an argument in under the scientific regime that’s been put in place by these traditional methods like this hierarchy of academia or like you know the structures that are put in place in government and policy and that kind of thing to like justify why you’re doing it you always have to justify but it’s like there’s nothing to build on so you’re just starting from scratch all the time which is exhausting sorry that was a bit of a slight tangent but In terms of specific examples, like the short -range endemism, there’s not enough investment in the conservation of invertebrates and other non -charismatic species.

36:21So I really was focusing on how to build an argument that you can do this research and there is like broad implications. So short -range, like I was focusing on the traits because it’s kind of like, well, this will then broadly apply hopefully to some of the other invertebrates that we know, like snails. And, you know, there’s a lot of little schizomates. There’s a lot of little invertebrates that do. have short -range endemic traits and then we can kind of extrapolate but then scientists don’t like the word extrapolate because it’s all speculative you know like but we can hopefully have at least a little bit more information about how they might respond to certain threatening processes ecologically so i found that invasive species um like invasive grass in particular was really one of the biggest threats in perth because it was completely there was called veltgrass it’s like it was completely taking out the understory of so it was like replacing the the shrubs and things which was there’s many different species and it was just a monoculture of this grass that was looking more like an african savannah than it was you know the banksia woodland that i grew up with yeah because it’s changed like the habitats changed so dramatically all the invertebrate species like it went from places where the veldt grass wasn’t invading and the it wasn’t just the species diversity but the that was huge and species abundance that was huge um and it was like dropping so rapidly by comparison to where the veldt grass is that it was probably why the trapdoor spiders was like there’s no prey species

37:52for them so it was like a small ecosystem collapse starting from the bottom up but then people were like oh why are the vertebrates not yeah it’s like well they don’t have anything to eat like if my trapdoor spiders don’t have anything to eat the the vertebrates won’t have any like it’s just it’s starting from the bottom up the collapse and then but people aren’t looking at invertebrates. So it’ll be, again, too late. They’re like, oh, all these vertebrates are being affected like 10 years later because nothing’s there for them.

38:21So yeah, that ecosystem approach, it’s like you can’t just focus on one top animal like species and think that everything else is going to be fine because it’s not. You actually have to look at the whole thing. That is right. And you said something very important that most… people don’t care even people who are supposedly trying to research and understand these topics probably they don’t care because for understanding and management properly something you must care about it so that might be there the key to to these kind of processes yeah but how do you get people to care like i was saying that’s why i have to make those arguments about the economics and things like that um it’s almost from from birth Like it’s a cultural shift that we’re talking about. You know, people care about what they’re almost like, not indoctrinated, but taught to care about. They embody the values of people around them as well. The societal values, like in terms of nature versus nurture. And that’s what I was kind of saying with the, I wasn’t even really questioning that extractivist nature of what I was doing at the time. Like I know better now and I’m trying to actively work against it, but if I hadn’t had that. I guess I’m lucky in that my mum’s quite the feminist as well.

39:39She teaches, she taught me very young to question everything, which was a double -edged sword anyway. It’s frustrating to question everything and then have very frustrating answers or no answers. But yes, I guess it depends on how you’ve grown up as well as your interests and intrinsic nature and nurture type. But how do we culturally shift that so that people do start caring? Or at least recognizing that it’s going to be fundamental to our ongoing existence as a species. So we need to do something even if you don’t care.

40:14Do you know what I mean? But that comes as part of the interconnectedness with all the nature and with all the aspects of our ecosystem, not only a tiny little bit, and how we see. us as humans a part of these ecosystems and not like a third one just looking at what the ecosystem develops or evolves so yeah it’s sad that we have to follow the same practices like trying to justify for example I use the short endemics to just point out like we need to know what’s happening with these populations not just getting all the animals they didn’t even know In a little bit of context, like when they were catching the males on a web of spiders, you know, that is really tricky when they are juveniles to know if it’s a female or a male. But then people were catching everything and they took them there into the reptile park. And then we were wondering, like, but why do you have females here? Are we trying to breed them? But you don’t know anything about the breeding process. I said like, well, yeah, cool that you try, but you need to understand the ecological part of these animals because they are super sensitive to any vibration. It was just a completely failure in the breeding process. And when they bring the tiny little ones, it’s like we were trying to teach them

41:45like, hey, there’s a way to identify males. And then, well, their sex ratio is quite different because apparently it’s like a… It’s not proportional, one male, one female. Oh, that didn’t work. Yeah, well, we’re collecting, at least when we collect, then like a number of males were lower. But this is what they… But that’s to do with their life history. No, exactly. And their lifespan is shorter.

42:12Yeah, so you’re going to get that disproportion because of their life history. Yeah, so when I studied the spiders, I was including juveniles, but I was including mostly females because this was the most common. And the males, when I have males, by chance, they just survive in laboratory conditions three months. They stop eating. They eat. Some of them eat. But then the lifespan was shorter. I was just looking after them. They were the prince. I tried to keep a male alive that I found. And, yeah, he just refused to eat.

42:53So I wonder if, again, it could be a species thing as well. Yeah. So it’s like we can’t even just say trapdoor spiders. We have to be like, well, these ones do this and these ones do that. And that’s something that it’s very frustrating, though. Yeah, I think because you can’t. Again, like we were going to try and do some captive breeding. And this is something that I was talking about before. Like I was very frustrated that that’s something that I wanted to, but I do know a lot about the ecology because I’ve been out in the field. I’ve seen them where they are, what their preferences are, documented them.

43:24Like I know what they need. And yet there’s people coming in that are trying to help, but they’re just so uninformed. And I think that’s where the frustration lies. It’s just like, yeah, you need to get all of this information before you do this other thing, which I think people recognize with vertebrates, but I don’t understand why they don’t. see that for other species like oh yeah they’ll be fine because they’re invertebrates like no they’re in and themselves like just because they have just because something has a backbone doesn’t mean that it’s like in like different in that like such a substantial way like they’re different species but the way that we’ve categorized them is just like better than and less than essentially and i think that’s what you’re really up against and the complexity of this animal is so amazing complex and And they’ve been around for so much longer. So it actually makes sense that they’re so much more in tune with their environment.

44:14Do you know what I mean? If anything, vertebrates are probably way easier to look after than invertebrates because of what you’re saying with sensitivities and vibrations and all the kind of microhabitats. They’re microhabitat specialists. We know that. That’s part of their short -range endemic traits. So what challenges have you faced in advocating for equity, diversity, and inclusion in education particularly? And how do you stay motivated to push for change? Yeah, so this is a tricky question because as I was doing my PhD, I didn’t end up in the equity, diversity, inclusion space on purpose. Let’s put it that way. I encountered a lot of barriers, like cultural differences, things that I found that were unjust when I was going through my PhD. And I think people who don’t have a lot of privilege will probably resonate with that. They’re kind of like, yeah, there’s all of these barriers that people don’t seem to see if they don’t have the same kind of background um so i ended up going into diversity equity and inclusion because of like who i am as a person and i saw all these like injustices that were happening for myself but i didn’t want to happen to other people like me i guess um and when i was i ended up working for center for aboriginal studies which was great um like i learned a lot about my culture and that was an awesome experience but again like i then experienced another level of like systemic racism that occurs that i Because I present as very fair, I wasn’t privy to until I was like openly talking about Aboriginal ways of being and people like attacking my identity

45:45and things like that. So anyway, I’d already experienced that with my sexuality and my gender identity, but not so much with my Aboriginality. So I think that’s where I came into being very interested in the social equity side of things, the social justice space, because I could see how it was impacting not just like my opportunities in research. environment but how that might affect ecology more generally if you’re not getting diverse voices coming through and perspectives coming through then perhaps why that we still have that colonial approach and it’s really only just starting to come through as the social equity is like increasing so again it’s that holistic approach so there was personal challenges but in my role as a tertiary educator so i’ve been Teaching at university for like 15 years now and like I started too young, don’t get me started.

46:34I started teaching, I was unit coordinating this big, these first year students, the first year units that were looking at infusing Aboriginal perspectives into science and into health as well. And the resistance from some students was really surprising, I guess. There was a lot of people coming to the classroom that had these pre -existing. stereotypes and biases against Aboriginal peoples that they heard in like the media or like they had this kind of confirmation bias that they’ve heard these stereotypes and then they’ve seen it and experienced like a negative interaction and then they’re like bringing that into the classroom. So there was a lot of unlearning or like recognising those biases and prejudices that they held before they could learn about the content. And some students didn’t come in, like they were culturally harmful students and then they left because they continued to resist.

47:25And they were still culturally harmful. I mean, a lot of students are quite receptive, and I don’t mean to generalize, but that was one of the challenges that I found is that, and then because they’re often from a privileged background, they would push back and complain, and then they would be heard. But in the greater scope, it’s kind of like, well, this is the whole point of the unit, is that we’re trying to push for social equity and change. And it is going to be a very uncomfortable space for students to recognize their own prejudice and a lot of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, but that’s where growth happens. At least for me, it was really uncomfortable and it’s still uncomfortable to look back and all of the things that I was doing previously, like taking trapdoor spiders as specimens and not even thinking, just taking and things like that. I think it’s hard, but once you know to do better, you can do better. It’s a Maya Angelou quote. But yeah, some people just still resist and I think that’s the challenge is that they just don’t want to change. But I think in terms of staying motivated, surround myself with other people who recognize that, you know, other people that are really advocating for change and like -mindedness and share the similar frustrations of what’s happening in the world. And it’s nice to have that sense of solidarity. And it’s almost like a sense of belonging because it’s like our ideologies are matching. And I guess humans do tend to do that. They go with like -minded people or like people. And in my case, it’s like like -minded people, not people who look like me.

48:53which I think is, it’s a hard, I think, yeah, it’s almost going against our nature in a lot of ways. But I think moving forward, we will start to recognize humans as a species rather than like the cultural differences or like physical differences that we have that have accumulated over time, like separate, like being on separate continents and things like that. But now that we’re all together and we’re mixing and that’s a better thing in a lot of ways, I think. Like diversity, I highly value in all spaces. Like it’s just a more resilient. not just in ecosystems, like in terms of biodiversity, but in terms of cultures, like it’s a more resilient way of being because it’s more adaptive. If something comes up, a pandemic, for example, like some cultures are naturally going to know, like naturally know what to do. I mean, we talk about the differences between the approaches with, in Australia, for example, this is an example I gave in the health unit that I was teaching, that no one approach is going to be the best approach. Like Western science developed a vaccine. I took the vaccine, I’m not. saying that i didn’t because i live in a city it made sense but there’s other ways of approaching the same pandemic and in remote communities aboriginal communities everyone just isolated like they cut off community and you could do that because it was remote and there’s only certain roads that go in elders were protected that kind of thing i think there’s only like two aboriginal peoples in remote communities that ever got covered that’s how effective that methodology was and yet When we’re talking about Aboriginal communities, people focus on the deficit discourse where they’re like, yeah, but the uptake

50:23of the vaccine was so minimal and they focus on that. And it’s like, well, yeah, but in practicality, that doesn’t matter. Like there was still very low rates of COVID, like much lower rates of COVID, culturally speaking, because it was like people just stayed in community on country, didn’t move anywhere, which is like an old way of doing things anyway. So if we didn’t have cities, we probably wouldn’t have had the same impacts of the pandemic. Anyway, that’s a bit of a weird example, but let’s kind of, I think people are just so quick to jump to what they already believe sometimes without even questioning it. And when it comes to deficit discourse, that is something that happens with Aboriginal cultures, for sure.

51:00Anne, would you describe a rewarding moment in your career when your work made tangible impact on the community or environment? Yeah, so me and a friend, her name’s Cassie Lynch. She has this connection with some… trapdoor spiders in the pronger up so we both have totemic associations with trapdoor spiders and she’d been watching this and she was asking me about them because that was my research and she was really interested in learning more about them and i was like oh yeah we can go have a look in there and then she found out like this is after that they were going like after we’d already i’d discussed them with her and she was like really excited to learn more about this population it was really nice that i could and we could share that um in cultural way too and Yeah, and then we found out that there’s going to be this pathway put in over the top of, like they’re already along the pathway periphery, these trapdoor spiders. And I think it’s probably because they like a little bit of bare ground as part of their micro habitat.

51:58And the human construction had actually allowed for, like for once, like a beneficial amount of micro habitat to be exposed because there was like a bit of a gradient between where the path was and where the leaf line was. And that’s where all the trapdoor spiders really liked that little, that patch. So they were all along the sides of this path, like a huge, huge amount of them. And then the local government was going to put in a paved path. So they decided to increase the width and make it concrete as opposed to just like a dirt path. And in terms of reasoning that they were doing that, it was to be more accessible for people with wheelchairs and things like that. So I can understand that’s like the cultural, social equity. almost versus the environmental justice and equity. So I was kind of like, yeah, that would be great if people with wheelchairs can access nature. Like it’s a nice thing, but also it was going to impact very heavily on these trapdoor spiders. Like hundreds of these individuals were going to get entombed in this concrete if they were going to do the thing they were doing.

53:01And so Cassie, my friend, approached the local government and was like, oh, what’s happening here? You’re going to impact on these trapdoor spiders? It’s not okay. a very very long lift and we don’t like all of these things and the local government were like uh they’re locally abundant so and this like they’re invertebrates so yeah no we weren’t going to do anything about them and not like they’re just going to pave over the top of them essentially so we kind of rallied and we’ll kind of well is it okay if we try to move them because i’ve done translocation experiments before and have been quite successful in that like maybe one or two spiders but i think it could be applied to a bigger amount And there were hundreds that were going to get impacted.

53:42So like, well, maybe we just start moving them. And we were going to move them when it was a bit more, like the soil was a bit more damp and easier to dig up, but they shifted it forward even. So it was like all very last minute. And so we tried to move them as quickly as possible. And our friend Loxley, who’s also really into… invertebrates and spiders and stuff she had all of these volunteers that she had connections with and she’s just like oh we’ll get the community involved and they’ll come up and they’ll help and they did and they dug all of these like just alongside the burrows and I because part of the method like the ways of getting the tropical spiders out is you dig a big trench next to the burrow and then go in from the side because if you dig over the top then you’re likely to damage they’ll like hurt and kill the spider and we organized some volunteers to like just dig these big trenches next to the the burrows and then I’d come in and some of the volunteers were actually willing to like help dig up the spiders as well because I was showing them how like to come in from the side and then like take them out and then then we put them in this patch that was far enough away um and then we could observe like you know whether or not they were successful in translocation and they were like pretty much all of the ones that we translocated survived but yeah it was just a really good like and some of the community members were scared of trapped or like they were scared of the spiders but they were more than willing to dig the trenches which I thought was like really lovely that even and this is what I was saying like even though they were scared like not even apathetic but scared of the spiders they still recognized them as

55:13like important parts of the ecosystem and they wanted to help so that was like to me that was even more meaningful because it wasn’t like they were doing it they were doing it in spite of any kind of fear that they had which I think was really a beautiful thing and they helped and it was we saved all these spiders and it was like it was a good community effort and everyone kind of felt good that they could do something and the path still went in so it was like this is like i mean in terms of um equity socially that was nice as well but um i thought it was just a really lovely collaboration and the spiders benefited it was a night it just felt nice because everyone got involved and it was a good outcome for once Okay, there is the light of in this interview. It was really nice. And I think a part of it was awareness. Like a lot of them didn’t know that the trapdoor spiders were there even because they are quite camouflaged. So unless you’re looking for them, you might not see them.

56:07Yeah, a lot of the times people are like, oh, I just never knew. They didn’t even know like a lot of some of the trapdoor spiders were in Western Australia because there is a lot of information on Sydney funnel webs and things. Even though I keep beating my drum and doing all these public talks, people still don’t really. And Barbara was around, you know, 60 years before me doing the same thing. And yet there doesn’t seem to be that same level of awareness here, which is interesting too. Thank you very much for your time and sharing all this knowledge and this perspective and teaching us and reminding us of this interconnectedness and things that we have to do to like a better world for a better change. And thank you for sharing your point of view. Yeah, I know that sometimes sounds like a disappointing and frustrating, but. But starting from the point that you’re starting and how do you see things and we sharing these stories, not only here with English speakers, but also with Spanish speakers. So that is cool because like I help people like, oh, I think you have an idea. It leads so long. Like you have your report one that was 43 years, 45 years? 43, yeah.

57:1643 and that because of the parasitic boy. Yeah, parasitic was. Got it. Could have been even longer. I know, it’s amazing. And longer. Thank you. No, thank you. I appreciate it. We hope that you have enjoyed this episode. This episode was inspired by curiosity. If you want to know more about our host, we will leave the references in the podcast description. Remember that this podcast is self -funded and self -edited by its presenters. You can support us by listening to this episode and sharing the episode with your friends. Also, remember that you find this episode on YouTube and Spotify. Follow us in our social media, Xbox, Instagram, and X. Original music by our colleague and friend Bernardo Aguilar.

58:05And the help and technical advice for our amazing friend Rafael Jordán.