The Truth About Why Ecosystems Are Collapsing

Ecology, ecosystems, extinction, invasive species, ocean acidification, biodiversity, climate change, and natural history all come together in this conversation with Dr. Tim Wootton.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Tim Wootton, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago and chair of the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, to talk about how ecosystems really work.

And the honest answer is: they are far more complicated than most of us realize.

We talk about predator-prey relationships, extinction events, invasive species, tropical streams, rocky shorelines, ocean acidification, dams, biodiversity, and why removing one species from an ecosystem can create completely unexpected results.

Tim also explains why long-term field research matters, why mathematical models alone are not enough, and why natural history — actually being outside, observing organisms, and understanding how life interacts in the real world — is still essential to good science.

This conversation is about ecology, but it is also about how everything is connected.

When you change one part of a system, the effects rarely stop there.

They ripple.

They compound.

And sometimes, they surprise everyone.

If you care about nature, climate change, conservation, biodiversity, science, or the future of the planet, this episode will give you a deeper way to see the living world around us.