Conservation Magazine is a snazzy publication from the Society of Conservation Biology that sports some great writers and great graphics. I was pleased to be asked to contribute a piece about some of my favorite living things–parasites. In particular, I look at new research that shows just how integral parasites are to the well-being of ecosystems. It’s just come out in the latest issue. Check it out. 

Originally published October 4, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.

I just got back from a pretty remarkable lecture by the husband-and-wife team of Peter and Rosemary Grant. The Grants started studying Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands in 1973, and they made some of the most detailed studies of evolution in the wild ever carried out. Their adventures were chronicled 14 years ago by Jonathan Weiner in the Beak of the Finch, which won the Pulitzer Prize. But the Grants did not stop. They continued to observe the birds evolve, and make fascinating new discoveries. In 2002, I wrote an article on what they’d learned after some three decades of research. 

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