Episode 66

The eighth of several episodes in which I'm talking about (among other things) symbiosis and mutualism in the natural world with Jim Penny of the Oxford Botanic Garden. We continue discussing a remarkably elaborate mutualistic relationship between brazil nut trees, euglossine bees, tropical orchids and a South American rodent before moving on to the wider philosophical questions surrounding what it even means for entities to be "separate".

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Some relevant links:

• mychorryhizal networks
• brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa)
• euglossine bee (Euglossini)
• orchids
• agouti (Dasyprocta)
• pollination of the brazil nut tree
• reductionism
• holism
• dependent origination (serious Buddhist version of "It's all one, man...")