Back Garden Biology

The species with the biggest biomass in any garden is almost certainly the earthworm. These humble denizens of our soil provide essential services by turning over soil and promoting plant growth. Professor Peter Holland explains why Darwin found them so fascinating and Lindsay explains how their muscles work, allowing them to escape from birds, no matter how early they turn up.

We take a walk around a local park to admire more winter trees and see why conifers win over broadleaved trees as we move further North, but even they have to drop their needles during the winter in the farthest reaches of the Boreal forest.

In winter the bones of the trees are laid bare, giving us a chance to see their skeletons. Join Lindsay as she takes a tour round Wytham Woods in Oxford, showing you how to identify our common native trees from their bark and the shape of their branches.

Peering into a drop of pondwater allows you to look back in time and see key events in the history of life on Earth. In this episode we learn where plants obtained the machinery needed for photosynthesis and find out how hard it is for multicellular beings to form.

What do birds like eating and what decisions do they have to make when visiting a bird feeder? Not quite tuppence a bag - Brits spent around 200 million pounds a year on bird food. But what do birds like eating and what decisions do they have to make when visiting a feeder? Lindsay visits her mum's garden to get some close-up shots, Friederike Hillemann tells us about her research in Wytham Woods and Annette Fayet explains how puffins face similar problems.

Find out how plants like mistletoe and hayrattle extract resources from their hosts and how hayrattle engages in a game of rock, paper, scissors, that makes managing meadows a whole lot easier. Around half of the species on our planet are parasites. Plants can play this game, being either partially or fully parasitic on their hosts. Find out how plants like mistletoe and hayrattle extract resources from their hosts and how hayrattle engages in a game of rock, paper, scissors, that makes managing meadows a whole lot easier.

Dedicated to moths, this episode explores how and why these unsung heroes deserve more attention. Lindsay examines the horse chestnut leaf miner and hunts for spectacular hornet moths in her local park; Doug Boyes explains why he is a life-long fan; and Professor Ben Sheldon empties his moth-trap so we can all see who's hanging out in the garden at night.

Woodpigeons are common garden birds, whose familiar call has been likened to someone complaining about their feet. But woodpigeons make fantastic parents, and like all pigeons and doves produce a kind of 'milk' to feed their young. Find out more about them and discover how an Oxford PhD student is trying to uncover more about the feral pigeons in town centres and their wild relative, the rock dove.

Find out how birds, insects and plants exploit iridescence. The natural world is filled with colour, but colours can be produced in different ways. Solid colours are due to chemical pigments, but other colour phenomena, such as iridescence are due to physical structures. Find out how birds, insects and plants exploit iridescence to dazzle sexual partners and intimidate rivals, or even just to make the most of the left-over light that other plants can't use.

Find out how birds, insects and plants exploit iridescence. The natural world is filled with colour, but colours can be produced in different ways. Solid colours are due to chemical pigments, but other colour phenomena, such as iridescence are due to physical structures. Find out how birds, insects and plants exploit iridescence to dazzle sexual partners and intimidate rivals, or even just to make the most of the left-over light that other plants can't use.

Blue and great tits commonly use nest-boxes in gardens. In this episode we explore their nesting behaviour and get a priviledged view inside the nest-boxes at Wytham Woods. We explore what determines the number of eggs that they lay and ask whether could they lay more.

Lindsay searches for the truth about our verdant green world and tackles a mystery about her rose-bushes: who ate all the greenfly? We live on a green planet and it's hard to imagine it being any different. But the fact that most plants are covered in lush green leaves needs some explaining. Part of the explanation lies deep inside plant cells and part of it with the insects that feed on them. Join Lindsay as she searches for the truth about our verdant world and tackles a mystery that unfolds on her rose-bushes: who ate all the greenfly?

Did you know that just five groups of insects dominate your garden? And can you tell the difference between bugs and beetles? In this week's episode, meet the Bug Five and learn how to tell them apart, with beautiful drawings by Lindsay's former student, Pandora Dewan, and lots of new video clips. You are encouraged to select your own Bug Five, by choosing your favourite representative of each of the five groups and you can decide whether Linday's Bug Five are better or worse than those selected by entomologist Liam Crowley.

In this episode we take a look at the strange life-cycle of ferns and find out why they are so dependent on water. Nearly all familiar plants produce seeds, but the first plants to colonise the land did not. Ferns belong to an ancient group and continue to be successful, but they don't produce seeds and tend to be restricted to damp, shady places. We take a look at the strange life-cycle of ferns and find out why they are so dependent on water. We also take a look at germinating seeds and discover why it's so hard to tell young seedlings apart.

In this episode we look closely at Garlic mustard or Jack-by-the-hedge, a very common plant throughout the UK. Garlic mustard or Jack-by-the-hedge is a very common plant throughout the UK. Confined to hedgerows, it's a familiar sight in April and May with its tiny white flowers and most of us probably pay it rather little attention. But in America, where it was brought by settlers, it is regarded as a serious pest. We examine the insects that are found on garlic mustard and find out why plants sometimes 'go bad'.

Back Garden Biology takes a closer look at the insects in the garden including the solitary bee. Solitary bees don't live in colonies and don't have a worker caste. Instead, the females must do the hard work themselves and rear their own offspring. Mining bees often dig holes in lawns and excavate burrows in which to deposit balls of pollen on which their larvae will feed. Mason bees and leaf-cutter bees do much the same, but use holes in walls, or bee hotels, provided by friendly gardeners. But, there are plenty of other insects happy to take advantage of their activities - many of them carefully disguised.

In this episode we look at the cuckoo pint, which has an unusual flower with the central part, called a spadix, releasing a stench that to our nostrils is quite revolting. Many flowers produce scents to attract pollinators, but few go to quite the same lengths as the cuckoo pint (Arum maculatum). The plant produces a highly unusual flower and the central part, called a spadix, then heats up, releasing a stench that to our nostrils is quite revolting. But of course, the plant isn't trying to attract humans. Instead, it has evolved to attract a single species of moth midge which it traps for the night to make sure that it is covered in pollen, before releasing it the following morning.

Learn how to identify common garden bees and find out why they never seem to stay still. In March and April queen bumblebees shake off their winter sleep and emerge to found new colonies. In this episode, we learn how to identify the commonest garden species and find out why they never seem to stay still. Bees, like all species of ants, bees and wasps, have a highly unusual system to determine whether new bees will be male or female. But although all worker bees are female, the queen tries to prevent her daughters from having offspring of their own.

The beautiful snake's-head fritillary is the flower of Oxfordshire. In this episode we look closely at the flowers it produces. The snake's-head fritillary is the county flower of Oxfordshire. Some consider it mournful, because of its drooping flower heads and dark purple colour. But some individuals produce white flowers instead. In this episode we learn how two different colours might remain in a population and one possible explanation involves reliance on herd immunity - a key concept in the current coronavirus crisis

Plants attract pollinators through their colourful flowers but some plants aren't quite what they seem. Plants need to attract pollinators and a mass of flowers is a good way to convince bees to visit. But some plants aren't quite what they seem. The lungwort tries to look as impressive as possible by holding onto old flowers that are long past their best, but surely bees aren't so easily deceived? Find out how the hairy-footed flower bee has forced the plant to reveal its true colours, and meet the incredible bee-fly that's also pretending to be something it's not.

In early spring, primroses and cowslips can be found in many gardens and parks. Their yellow flowers are certainly beautiful, but they also hold a secret: they come in two different types that can only mate with each other. In this episode we take a close look at several flowers – including a daffodil and a tulip – to remind ourselves what's inside, before considering why plants bother to have sex at all. Why not look around your own garden to see if you have similar flowers and note down what you find, perhaps through a pencil drawing or by taking photos. Filmed in March 2020.