Joe Medeiros, an awesome speaker

I think it was during Mr. Medeiros' first few sentences that I realized I was really going to enjoy his lecture. I've been fascinated with the biodiversity of this planet for years, indeed most of my life, and few people I come across are as passionate about it as I am.

The lecture started off with a brief on taxonomy, again something I take great interest in. I practice taxonomy every day in organizing my computer files, class notes, closet space, you name it. Yes, I'm a geek. It fascinates me every time some well-known species is further divided into new sub-species, or broken apart in different ways. Recently learning that skunks aren't as closely related to weasels as previously thought actually excited me, but I haven't found anyone else that shared those feelings. The species that make our planet home will likely never be completely classified.

When La Selva research station was mentioned during the short film I practically drooled. I went to Costa Rica when I was a teenager, and spent a little over a week traveling the rainforests and cloudforests there. It would be a dream of mine to work for the OTS, and I wouldn't mind living in Costa Rica, either. Gorgeous country. I grew up as a kid raising jumping spiders and praying mantises as pets, and am still mindful of them today. Being an entomologist held some appeal as a kid, but I think evolutionary biology would be a little more expansive.

This lecture was an eye-opener, too. I know the natural world is going to hell in a handbasket so to speak, but he laid out the details well. "Today we are looking at the collapse of entire ecosystems whereas before we were just witnessing the collapse of species." It all goes back to the idea of ecosystem conservation. No one species is the end-all, but the disappearance of several species will ultimately make the entire pyramid come down.

He did such a wonderful job highlighting the importance of biodiversity from several angles, I hope he got through to some of the less caring individuals I've run across in class. Conservation is SO important in today's world, but some people still propose we just "save the species that we eat."

Thank you, Mr. Medeiros.