{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Rangers of the Lost Park","title":"60: A Love for Pikas, Harrowing Mountain Journeys & Women in STEM with Dr. Johanna \"Pika Jo\" Varner & Karli Weatherill","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":5161,"description":"You NEED To know about the most adorable little \"mountain potatoes\": the American pika (Ochotona princeps)! Not only is the logo for this here podcast a pika, but the American pika (Ochotona princeps) is a small, herbivorous mammal of the family Ochotonidae, closely related to rabbits and hares. They live in alpine rockslides and talus slopes; and they have the cutest \"MEEP!\" you'll ever hear. Pikas are widely considered a mammalian indicator of environmental change in alpine ecosystems because they have experienced climate-mediated declines in parts of their range.\nMy two guests for this episode are an incredible scientifically-savvy duo: Dr. Johanna \"Pika Jo\" Varner and Karli Weatherill - who study pikas for a living!\nJohanna “Pika Jo” Varner is a pika biologist who lives in Colorado. During the academic year, she teaches biology at Colorado Mesa University, but during the summer, she spends a lot of time in the mountains looking for pikas, placing temperature sensors, and collecting scat samples to analyze for stress. Before she was a pika biologist, Dr. Varner was a biomedical engineer, a baker, and a blueberry farmer. But she likes studying pikas best because they are adorable and they live in beautiful places.\nKarli Weatherill is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma and a graduate of Colorado Mesa University, where she first met Pika Jo and earned her bachelor's degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology. Her research has focused on the stress physiology of American pikas. Karli is an avid outdoor enthusiast and loves that she gets to study pikas while spending time in the mountains. She is also passionate about science communication and youth science education, striving to make science accessible and inspiring to diverse audiences.\n\nRead about the pika study implemented by Karli and Jo: Climatic stressors and habitat quality explain individual stress metrics in an isolated population of small mammals.\nDownload the Pika Patrol app!\nCheck...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/olOREAMq-GAZXD4inCauidlkrzpJetUwvQSiJqXIwlU/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8xNDM2/ZmZiODYxOTZiODdm/MGQ2ZmEwMjg4OTI4/MTBiNi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}