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Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Crime Pace of BONDI doesn't.

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Today I'm here with doctor Andrew Hip, director of the Herbarium,

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and senior scientists and researcher in plant systematics at Morton

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Arboretum just outside Chicago, and we're going to talk about oaks.

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Andrew you there, I'm here. Okay, great, So let's just

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get right into it, man. I mean, this is a

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huge subject. This is one of the most ecologically successful

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plant plant genera in I mean, it's huge all over

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the world, especially in Mexico, temporate latitudes in North America.

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Europe's got quite a few. How many does Europe have

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compared to North America? Are there more in Europe than

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North America? Sam amount or what? No?

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Speaker 2: In North America? North America in the US is like

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ninety species, Mexico Central America like maybe one sixty, and

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Europe has got what's the number, Europe may be on

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the order of twenty five for thirty or so.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, so not as much, yeah, not as

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much of us?

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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then East Asia's East Asia's up near maybe one ten,

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one twenty. I actually haven't I've counted up by lineage,

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but I don't think I've counted up by region in Asia.

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Maybe so because I think that Cyclobalinopsis, the ring cupped oaks,

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which are endemic to East Asia. I think those number

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ninety species.

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Speaker 1: Is that a genus Cyclobalinopsis, No section, it's one of

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the lineages, Yeah, that arose from the oaks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's part of the oaks.

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Speaker 1: So we're still just talking the genus quirkers, because I

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know there's some other weird genera in Asia too, just

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like there's not the Letocarpus in California, the tan bark oaks.

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Speaker 2: You get, well, what exactly so you got you have them.

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So if you go back, like the oaks originate like

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fifty six million years ago, and here I'm talking about

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the oak genus up in the northern temperate zone like

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a you know, maybe straddling North America what is now Greenland, Europe,

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somewhere up in that area. The oaks probably arose around

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fifty six million years.

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Speaker 1: This is really warm back then. I mean, this is

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we're talking Eocene, Paleocene, Eocene. This is like.

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Speaker 2: Totally this is right before the hottest time that we've

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seen in sixty million years, you know, So it was

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like ten degrees centigrade warmer than it is now worldwide.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so yeah, so this is a this is so

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that you could see how this would be a ripe

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environment and climate for for plants. So it's if people

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hear that and think, oh, Greenland, they're not thinking about

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it wasn't covered in fucking ice and et cetera yet.

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Speaker 2: So no, at that point, it was like this is

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the like where we're standing right now, where where you

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are in Texas, where I am, and well for sure

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where I am in Chicago. This was broad leaved evergreen

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forest down here at this point, and the only temperate

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forests were little outposts up in the Arctic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so Chicago back then was like the climate of

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southern Louisiana probably probably, so yeah, okay, okay, cool, all right,

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So moving to move around. So they they originate there,

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and they're they're in uh the family PAGECI in the

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order of for gaillies. They're not. There's no oaks. There's

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no native oaks in the southern hemisphere.

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Speaker 2: Right, boy, there's a couple squeak just gets out of

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the equator and you know in Southeast Asia.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean just barely just like pines. Like there's

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no there's only like one Pinus species in the Southern hemisphere.

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I think it's in like highland Indonesia. But generally it's

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like a this is a Northern Hemisphere genius. The Southern

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hemisphere has the n though vegas and the quote she oaks,

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the castine a c which looked like pine trees. But

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we're just talking qurcas. There's there's no carcas really in

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the Southern hemisphere.

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Speaker 2: That's right. So when you're looking at the when you

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look at the oak family, the oak family dates back

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probably closer to eighty five million years ago, maybe it's

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that probably a little bit younger than that still, maybe

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maybe more like sixty five million years anyway, I have

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to look up the dates on that. But those genera

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have spread more widely. So you have Lithocarpus, which is

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an East Asian endemic genus. Now you've got right, So

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you've got motho h You've got oho vegas in the

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Southern hemisphere. Yeah, but these these things all are related

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to oaks, but none of them are are the true oaks.

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Speaker 1: Okay, really quick, what I'm getting too distracted, which I'm

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well known for is the lithocarpus. Are those insect pollinated?

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Are they win pollinated? Like like the true oaks?

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Speaker 2: They are insect pollinated?

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Speaker 1: Wow, just like the tan bark oak. Just like not

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the litho Calcornia.

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Speaker 2: Yep, yep, wow.

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Speaker 1: That's cool. Okay anyway, sorry.

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Speaker 2: Okay, as you were saying that that, well we can

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get Yeah, that one is sister to all the rest

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of the oak which is kind of cool. You've got

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this one insect pollinated species in California, right, that is

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sister to like the four hundred and twenty five true oaks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It's such a great species, man, there's so and

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they grow so fast and they're just fucking beautiful trees.

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I miss them. They're anyway. Yeah, we're gonna be all

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over the place in this podcast. That's fine, but uh so, okay, well,

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going back to going back to the uh the genus

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corcuso it originates probably in where like like Western Hemisphere,

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Eastern hemisphere, northern latitudes where where.

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Speaker 2: It's northern latitudes, and it's really unclear. We don't have

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a clear I mean, the many of the many of

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the relatives of the oaks are East Asian Butthocarpus is

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limited to us in North America. There's a chance that

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knows Althocarpus, that one species may have been you know,

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in East Asia as well, because there were good connections

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between western North America and East Asia at that time.

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But it's unclear. So we suspect that the that the

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ancestor of the entire oak genus was widespread. And to me,

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what makes most sense is that this is a widespread

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population that was kind of straddling the continents. Europe, Greenland,

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North America are all squeezed pretty close together at fifty

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six million years ago, and they're spreading apart. So you

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can imagine a situation where you've got this widespread population

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moving between the continents. Maybe it's even a few species

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that are interbreeding, right, so, but it's a it's an

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interbreeding population and as the continent spread, the first speciation

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ancient deep split that we see in the oaks is

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between Eurasia and North America. That is the first deepest

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split in it. So that's where you when you look

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at the genomes, you can see this deep, deep division

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between those two that dates back to somewhere between fifty

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and fifty five many years ago or.

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Speaker 1: So in what are those clams, I mean we talk

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a subgenera or sections or.

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Speaker 2: What what we call them now yet so then as

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of twenty seven, so the classification that I'll talk about

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all goes back to twenty seventeen. It was written by

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Thomas Dank who's a really great palaeobotanist and taxonomist, and

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he got a group of people together to write a

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book chapter sort of translating what we know about evolutionary

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history into a taxonomy. So as of that publication, those

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are two different subgenera. So the Eurasian subgenus is subgenus Sarus,

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so we're talking about Quercus is the genus. Subgenus Sarus

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is today limited to Eurasia. And then the North American subgene,

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the American subgenus is subgenus Quercus. Look, it's a little confusing.

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You've got Quercus is the genus, the subgenus is Quercus,

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and that is limited mostly in North America, but there

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have been a couple of migrations back to the Old World.

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Speaker 1: So subgenus is it series and then subgenus Quircus.

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Speaker 2: Or what yep, Cerrus is ce r R S Eurasian.

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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, cool, But that's that's the evolutionary fork in

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the road. And bio geographically speaking, that makes sense too,

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because you know, the way I I guess the way

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I look at it too, is you know, the circumference

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of the Earth obviously is a lot smaller at higher latitude,

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so it's not such a big deal for things to

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go back and forth between continents, especially if they're not

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that far apart tectonically. Back then fifty fifty six million

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years ago, and and.

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Speaker 2: Then is it right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then as the climate starts to cool and

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things change and they can move down and lower latitudes

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because they're adapted to cooler temperatures. Generally speaking, they kind

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that's like the fork in the road. I mean they basically, yeah,

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one goes towards North America and one goes towards Eurasia.

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So that's right. Sense.

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Speaker 2: It's worth remembering that even at forty until mammals are

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even moving between the continents a far north until about

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forty nine million years ago. Now, plants are still able

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to move between them, but as the temperature is cool,

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they get shoved southward right right, and so you've got

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the continent spreading and those plants all moving away from

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each other where the temperate you know, these little outposts

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of temperate forest that we got in the far North

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when the globe is largely tropical. And here we're talking

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again still between fifty five, fifty six and fifty million

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years ago, but you've got these areas in the far

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North where it's dark for a lot of the year, right,

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and it's light for the rest of the year. That

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favors the evolution of deciduous plants. Ah, very good chance

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that decidiony originates in parts due to that seasonality. Seasonality

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will generally tend to favor deciduous species. It's one way

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of avoiding difficult times.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can avoid just going just getting ready late, right,

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exactly right, right. Dormancy evolves, you know, seasonal dormancy evolves

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in trees in the tropics where they have a pronounced

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dry season. And also most people think that it just

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evolves in response to cold temperatures the winter, but not so.

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It can evolve in response to not having light for

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half the year either. Because you're so high, high up,

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so high latitude. So this is okay, So this is

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fascinating stuff. So, but there are oaks have always been

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wind pollinated? Are there's no insect pollinated members of the

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genus Quircus, correct.

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Speaker 2: No, and it's one. So when you define oaks, like

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what makes an oak and oak? Because you got this

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this whole family. You have a cluster of species, a

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cluster of or together that some of several of which

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produce acorn like fruits. You talked about, Note the Lithocarpus

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endemic to California, it's got an acorn litho Carpus, which

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is again this other genus that's widespread in East Asia.

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Some of its species produce fruits that look like acorns.

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Cast Anopsis, which is another East Asian oak family for

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Gaycee genus, produces some acorn species that have acorn like fruits.

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So when you get into oaks, though, what shifts between

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all these The shift to wind pollination is a big

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deal in the genus Quercus. If you look out in spring,

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you go walking around in the spring and you look

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at the look at the trees. You see in the oaks,

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these dangling you know, strings of male inflorescences. These are

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called the catkins. They almost look like tinsel hanging off

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the tips of the branches. Those are the inflorescences, the

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male inflorescences. Each one of those catkins has clusters of

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little male flowers on them, and all they are is,

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if you've looked closely, you'll see the petals are gone,

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the sequels are gone. All you see is basically there

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are petals.

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Speaker 3: You know, there are floral parts there.

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Speaker 2: But basically what you see is the dangling stamens. All

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those things are there for is to get that pollen

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right out on the wind.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. You can look at a wind pollinated flower. Yeah,

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you can look at a wind pollinated flower on any

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wind pollinated plant, and if you know what to look for,

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you can tell this is probably wind pollinated. I mean,

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the floral parts are reduced, they don't need to attract pollinators.

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The petals and sepals are reduced, right, The anthers are

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just out there. You look like ambrosia. You look like

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ambrosia flower heads up close, the same thing. Yeah, they're

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just getting it out there. And then of course when

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you tap it, when it's actually you know, producing pollen,

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it you get huge clouds of yell polant coming off.

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So but this is so let's talk about floral biology.

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The oaks too, because they're they're unisexual flowers. They produce

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unisexual flowers. But a plant, an oak tree, will have

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both sexes on the same plant. That's known as being

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monecious as opposed to dioecious, which not many plants are,

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you know, like silk tassels, cannabis, et cetera. They've only

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got unisexual flowers, but one plant only has one sex

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of flower on it, So the plant is functionally functionally unisexual,

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you know, male or female. But oaks are oaks are monycius.

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They've got both sexes, but they they're unisexual flowers. So

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this this evolved. And then that they've got the catkins

236
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like we talked about, but then they've got these the

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female flowers. The piste late flowers are tiny. They're really

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hard to find in some cases unless you know what

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to look for.

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Speaker 2: Right, that's right if you look along the branch, so

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about the time that the catkins are coming out, so

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in our area, look around in like afl or even

243
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late March, depend on the year. Look on the branch

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and you'll see what looks like little buds, and some

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of them will start to put out the stigmas, and

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it's going to look like three little curved lobes that

247
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come out of the tip of each pistol of flower.

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This is the female flower. Those are there. They're going

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to be reddish yellowish oranges. They're going to be look

250
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bright and healthy and ready to grab pollen. And about

251
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the time that pollen is flying, the pollen will the

252
00:14:31,679 --> 00:14:35,320
anthers from the stamens will crack open and each one

253
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will release a thousand or more pollen grains, so billions

254
00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:42,039
of pollen grain, tens of billions of pollen grains off

255
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of every tree. And they fly in these clouds and

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they may go one hundred meters, they may go five

257
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hundred meters in some cases that we know of pollen

258
00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:57,639
effectively pollinating oak trees thirty kilometers away, so they can

259
00:14:57,679 --> 00:15:00,360
fly quite a little distance. Yeah, and then they and

260
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then these pollen grains hit. Most of them are going

261
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to fly them against the side of a car. They're

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going to hit a leaf and just do nothing. They're

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going to land on a big blue stem and do

264
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have you know? All that work for nothing? But a small, small, small, small,

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small percentage of them will land on a stigma of

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the same species or a close relative, and you may

267
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get ten, fifteen, twenty pollen grains all landing on this stigma.

268
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And what the stigma does is it stimulates them to grow.

269
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So each pollen grain man grows a little pollen tube.

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That pollen tube pierces the surface of the stigma and

271
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it starts to grow down the style, which is the

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neck that connects those stigmas down to the ovaries, right,

273
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and it grows down and down, And these pollen grains

274
00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,159
are racing, right, and so if the if one is faster,

275
00:15:56,399 --> 00:16:00,240
is more fit, it's going to reach earlier. If one

276
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:03,200
is from the wrong species, there's a very good chance,

277
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:05,879
not always, but there's a very good chance that that

278
00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:08,799
the that the female flower, that is the flower is

279
00:16:08,840 --> 00:16:11,480
gonna block it, is gonna stop it. If one is

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from the same tree, the female flower will often block it.

281
00:16:16,399 --> 00:16:21,399
I was just about right, And they're trying to get

282
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down there, and then they all get down to the

283
00:16:23,399 --> 00:16:27,559
point where then like the bass of the style, and

284
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then they stop and they and they may stop for

285
00:16:32,639 --> 00:16:37,120
weeks or months like in the white oaks, or they

286
00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:41,399
may stop for a year like in many of the

287
00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:43,799
red oaks. Not all of them, but many of the

288
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red oaks. And then after that they start up again

289
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:51,039
and they try and get down to an ovule, and

290
00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:54,080
these pollen tubes are raising each other. They try and

291
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:55,519
get down to the ovule, and some of them never

292
00:16:55,519 --> 00:16:58,000
wake up after that delay. This is called delayed fertilization.

293
00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:00,519
So some of them never wake up. But it's usual.

294
00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:03,159
Speaker 1: The way hold on is this delayed fertilization is this?

295
00:17:03,159 --> 00:17:05,640
This is a thing that doesn't happen in a lot

296
00:17:05,680 --> 00:17:07,200
of angiosperms, right.

297
00:17:07,519 --> 00:17:09,680
Speaker 2: This happens in I have to look up the number

298
00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:12,680
of families. There might be like twenty five plant families

299
00:17:12,759 --> 00:17:13,079
or so.

300
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:16,079
Speaker 1: There's been some, but it's not common.

301
00:17:16,279 --> 00:17:20,400
Speaker 2: No, it's a special thing, and it's it's throughout. You

302
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:23,839
mentioned the group of the gailies, this cluster of families

303
00:17:23,880 --> 00:17:28,119
that includes the Birch family. It includes then then Jugli

304
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:31,599
and Daisy, the Walnut family, includes the Oak family, Beach family.

305
00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:34,880
These all have delayed fertilization. So it's a cluster of

306
00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:36,640
closely related families that all do this.

307
00:17:37,119 --> 00:17:39,160
Speaker 1: And what what does go? Why? Why why do they

308
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:41,680
stop and take a break. They're just they're just pooped,

309
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,599
they're just wiped out. Or what I mean, what a

310
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:44,279
great question.

311
00:17:45,039 --> 00:17:48,599
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, it's like it's costly, right, it's

312
00:17:48,759 --> 00:17:51,160
risky in a way for the tree to do this.

313
00:17:51,319 --> 00:17:54,480
So that suggests that there's some advantage. So I've seen

314
00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:57,799
there's a there's a couple of interesting theories. One has

315
00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:02,880
been that if you delay fertilization, it gives the pistol

316
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:08,119
at flower more time to select among pollen grains. Okay,

317
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:11,799
so that's one possibility. Is that it that So that

318
00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:15,079
means that and that makes sense right, so the female

319
00:18:15,119 --> 00:18:19,759
flower does not want to waste her energy on suboptimal pollen,

320
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:25,640
gets the female opportunity to just select them.

321
00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:29,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is fucking blowing my mind. I'm

322
00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:32,440
so glad. I asked, you know, I wasn't expecting this

323
00:18:32,599 --> 00:18:35,640
in depth, but this is like, this is three hundred

324
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:37,880
percent better than what I was expecting. This is Oh,

325
00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:38,599
I'm so glad.

326
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:39,079
Speaker 3: I'm glad.

327
00:18:39,079 --> 00:18:42,640
Speaker 2: I said, you're the had Wilson principle, like the breath.

328
00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:44,920
Speaker 1: No, this is odd. This is like in depth because

329
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,079
I wonder about this ship. I'm like, you know, there's

330
00:18:47,079 --> 00:18:49,319
not just one Poulin grain landing on a stigma. There's

331
00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:51,759
got to be twenty thirty. Sometimes you know, how do

332
00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:53,680
how does what gets selected?

333
00:18:53,839 --> 00:18:56,119
Speaker 2: You know there are and they're duking it out. But

334
00:18:56,200 --> 00:18:59,960
here's another possibility. Also, go Joey is my colleague men,

335
00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:05,400
dang at you non university. She's amazingly does this amazingly

336
00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:12,400
detailed pollen work. She has studied delayed fertilization in I

337
00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:15,480
think it was queer to zacutissima. It's one of these

338
00:19:15,559 --> 00:19:19,279
Asian species. And what she found is, she said, Okay,

339
00:19:19,319 --> 00:19:23,880
we knew already that the pollen tubes get delayed down

340
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,839
at the base of the style. But what she suggested

341
00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:31,119
is that in fact this may play almost like the

342
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:33,920
opposite role of what I was just saying, is, instead

343
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:37,680
of like winnowing out things, it actually gives everyone a

344
00:19:37,799 --> 00:19:41,319
chance to start over again French, right. So if you

345
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:44,799
land on the pollen on the on the on the

346
00:19:45,559 --> 00:19:48,319
on the stigma and your pollen tube grows slowly, this

347
00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:51,000
gives you one more chance because everyone gets stuck at

348
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:51,480
a second.

349
00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,359
Speaker 1: This is Andrew. This is there's a turn into like

350
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:58,799
a very holistic approach to fertilization and angiosperms. This is

351
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:01,759
very I feel already you know in this fuck that

352
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:05,000
day and age we live in. Everyone's fighting over stupid bullshit.

353
00:20:05,279 --> 00:20:08,640
Everyone's turned up. The left is constantly attacking itself. That

354
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:11,279
kind of yeah, this is like, this is good. This,

355
00:20:11,400 --> 00:20:14,359
I feel cleansed. This is like psychologic therapy. Does I

356
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:17,319
got a question? Does another really cool plant? I don't

357
00:20:17,319 --> 00:20:19,559
want to go too far off here, but another really

358
00:20:19,559 --> 00:20:23,640
cool plant in the order for gaillies is Comptonia peregrina.

359
00:20:24,279 --> 00:20:26,720
Uh I forget this's what do they call it? Sweet fern?

360
00:20:26,759 --> 00:20:30,400
It's a shrub, It's a woody shrub. It is fucking gorgeous.

361
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,240
It's one of the coolest native plants. If you live

362
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:35,400
in the upper latitudes and you don't have that, you're

363
00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:37,119
not trying to get this in new yard, You're an asshole.

364
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:40,279
This is I'm just kidding. Of course, to anyone listening,

365
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:41,720
I said, you just don't know about it, But now

366
00:20:41,759 --> 00:20:43,359
you know about it, you gotta look it up. Does

367
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:45,319
this do delayed fertilization too or what?

368
00:20:46,559 --> 00:20:48,960
Speaker 2: So far as I know, as far as I know,

369
00:20:49,359 --> 00:20:53,519
everything in the Fagales and I Joey, I can't remember

370
00:20:53,519 --> 00:20:56,200
which genera have and have not been studied, but I

371
00:20:56,279 --> 00:20:59,960
believe near a Casey which is the family that includes Comptonia.

372
00:21:00,079 --> 00:21:03,000
The amazing sweet furniture've gone Like if you've been in

373
00:21:03,319 --> 00:21:06,440
horse pastures of sandy Field in the north Woods. Yeah, man,

374
00:21:06,519 --> 00:21:11,880
and you've smelled this this sharly sweet smell. It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah,

375
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,359
it's great.

376
00:21:15,799 --> 00:21:18,400
Speaker 1: Yes, and it just looks cool. It's just a beautiful plant, man,

377
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:20,279
And it's and the seeds can live in the seed

378
00:21:20,319 --> 00:21:23,440
bank for like a century or two. I mean it's yeah.

379
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:25,160
There was a paper that came out where it was

380
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:29,640
those the seeds were just they were I forget what

381
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:32,359
the methodology was that they figured out, but but the

382
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:36,519
seeds had been laying dormant, uh in this forest because

383
00:21:36,559 --> 00:21:38,119
this is not a this is not a shade town

384
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:40,359
or plant. They've been laying dormant in this forest. The

385
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,000
forest got cleared and they popped up like in numerous

386
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:46,319
places and there wasn't any nearby and it was anyway, Yeah,

387
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,000
really cool plant. Can you put me in touch after

388
00:21:49,039 --> 00:21:52,480
the podcast with someone who studies castinacy in the Southern Hampshire,

389
00:21:52,519 --> 00:21:55,279
like a southern hemisphere equivalent that you do you know what?

390
00:21:56,119 --> 00:21:58,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, cool, Okay, I'll look I'll look around and see,

391
00:21:58,359 --> 00:21:59,880
I know somebody can put you in touch with who

392
00:22:00,079 --> 00:22:02,119
I don't know, someone immediately she will.

393
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, right anyway, Okay, so I'm moving along. So

394
00:22:04,039 --> 00:22:07,359
we got delaid fertilization because this with another thing about

395
00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:10,400
oaks is it takes a while for those acorns to mature.

396
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:13,160
A lot of angiosterms, a lot of flowering plants, they

397
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:18,640
flower and they're producing fruit within you know, six months tops.

398
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:21,440
Speaker 2: You know, right, So okay, so you've got this delayed fertilization.

399
00:22:21,559 --> 00:22:26,480
And again, so around here in most of North America,

400
00:22:26,799 --> 00:22:29,720
I think most of your listeners probably are. Is there

401
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:34,680
that the white oaks are all producing annual acorns. This

402
00:22:34,759 --> 00:22:38,000
means that the delayed fertilization is only a few weeks.

403
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,759
The red oaks are almost all, but not all, almost

404
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:47,680
all have biennial accorns, so it takes them two years.

405
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,680
So in a red oak in the in the upper

406
00:22:50,759 --> 00:22:56,920
Midwest here you get you get pollination in the spring.

407
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,519
Let's say, let's think about the acorns that are fall off.

408
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:01,279
Speaker 1: Which actually the red oaks.

409
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:05,599
Speaker 2: This is sarahs Okay. So now this is subgenus Quercus,

410
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,759
but it's section lobati.

411
00:23:09,519 --> 00:23:13,039
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, subgenus. So we're we're this is all in

412
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:15,200
subgenus quirkus already, it's.

413
00:23:15,039 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 2: All SubGenius quirkers I'm talking about right now. But we

414
00:23:17,839 --> 00:23:20,799
also get two year acorns and cycle of alnopsis. We

415
00:23:20,839 --> 00:23:24,920
also get to your acorns in some of islects, I think,

416
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,680
which is the these are East Asian anyways, so you

417
00:23:27,759 --> 00:23:31,279
get so you in. But let's imagine the red oaks

418
00:23:31,319 --> 00:23:34,319
that are falling in our area right now. Those were

419
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:38,119
pollinated in twenty twenty three in the spring. The pollen

420
00:23:38,559 --> 00:23:40,680
raced down to the base of the style and sat

421
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,759
there through the summer of twenty twenty three through the

422
00:23:44,799 --> 00:23:47,559
fall of twenty twenty three, through the winter of twenty

423
00:23:47,599 --> 00:23:52,000
twenty three and twenty twenty four, and in spring of

424
00:23:52,599 --> 00:23:56,599
twenty twenty four, those pollen grains started moving, those pollen

425
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:02,119
tubes started moving again, and they only successfully fertilized the ovules.

426
00:24:02,599 --> 00:24:04,559
And I say ovules because a couple or two or

427
00:24:04,559 --> 00:24:09,880
three mile agap fertilized initially in spring of twenty twenty four.

428
00:24:10,519 --> 00:24:15,559
Then in an oak typically and I'm gonna say maybe

429
00:24:15,599 --> 00:24:18,839
it's ninety nine times out of one hundred. Typically, once

430
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:24,480
one ovule is successfully fertilized and begins growing, it will

431
00:24:24,559 --> 00:24:28,599
suppress the others. So here's one more opportunity for competition.

432
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,799
Joey is like, all these all these congrains are racing

433
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:35,920
to fertilize an ovule. Suppose three ovules get fertilized out

434
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,960
of the six that are in there, the best one,

435
00:24:39,039 --> 00:24:41,880
the one that's doing best at suppressing the others, will win.

436
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:44,759
So one more chance to compete. Right, So you're trying

437
00:24:44,759 --> 00:24:48,359
to get the fittest, the fittest acorn every time. That's

438
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,599
why when you open up an acorn, you usually find

439
00:24:52,599 --> 00:24:55,279
only one big seed in there.

440
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: Okay, this is okay. So you have six ovules in

441
00:24:58,559 --> 00:25:03,680
a single female oak flour, that's but only one turns

442
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:05,440
into it and you only get one acorn out of it.

443
00:25:05,519 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 2: So usually, but that's not always the case. I was

444
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,680
out in Maple Grove forest preserved this. This was it

445
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:13,960
this year last year, I can't remember, it was this

446
00:25:14,039 --> 00:25:16,799
year last year, and I looked at a seedling that

447
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,319
was growing in the woods, and I looked at it

448
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:20,839
and I'll send you a photo of this.

449
00:25:21,839 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 1: You'll love this.

450
00:25:23,079 --> 00:25:26,880
Speaker 2: And what you could see is that it was actually

451
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:31,000
two seedlings that had been smashed together into one acorn

452
00:25:31,519 --> 00:25:34,119
and about one out of a hundred trees. And here

453
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:35,720
I'm totally making it up because we don't have a

454
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:39,599
lot of data on this. There was a study in

455
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:42,079
burrows where they found one population where it was like

456
00:25:42,079 --> 00:25:46,160
one out of fifty we'll produce a two seeded acorn. Now,

457
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,119
when you get a two seeded acorn, these are rare,

458
00:25:48,519 --> 00:25:52,480
and they are rare for a reason. They're selected against

459
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,240
because they grow more slowly, So we have good reasonably

460
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,400
they' selected against because the fighting couldn't stand nutrients.

461
00:25:58,519 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 1: Right, they grow more slowly, but there's not really a benefit.

462
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:02,839
Speaker 2: So there's that's what I think.

463
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:04,319
Speaker 1: That's what I think.

464
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,400
Speaker 2: They tend to get windowed out.

465
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: This is blowing my mind. So do all oaks? Do

466
00:26:08,759 --> 00:26:13,039
all Corcus female oak flowers that regardless of section or

467
00:26:13,039 --> 00:26:15,720
subgenus have six ovules?

468
00:26:16,039 --> 00:26:16,599
Speaker 3: Yeah?

469
00:26:16,759 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: Okay, so and to clear out up for anybody. An

470
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:23,039
ovule is an unfertilized uh seed and then once it

471
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,160
becomes fertilized, then it's the seed what's the what's the

472
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:26,720
technical name for that, just embryo or what?

473
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, it becomes it, it becomes an embryo exactly.

474
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, so ovule versus embryo. Okay, So okay, so this

475
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,960
is not so so when all is said and done,

476
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:42,319
from pollination to actually one the acorns drop is about

477
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:44,319
eighteen months. It's about a year and a half.

478
00:26:45,319 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 2: In the red oak grewp in the red over the

479
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,279
white oak crew. In the white oak group it's closer.

480
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:51,799
And there's most of the red group because like, if

481
00:26:51,799 --> 00:26:53,880
you get down to Mexico, you've got annual red oaks.

482
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,920
If you get into California, there's some annual red oaks. Yeah,

483
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,000
but then in the in the white oaks, and in

484
00:26:59,039 --> 00:27:02,599
the annual any annual in any of the species that

485
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:08,480
produced annual acorns. It's like, let me think, maybe like

486
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:14,319
March to the end of August, or I could do

487
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:15,039
the math.

488
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: Here, let me let me use this as an opportunity,

489
00:27:17,599 --> 00:27:19,880
let me I'm gonna pause this really quick and save

490
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:25,400
it one second. Okay, we're back, hopefully, hopefully the auto

491
00:27:25,519 --> 00:27:29,079
ad input puts some of those terrible and obnoxious ads,

492
00:27:29,519 --> 00:27:32,160
which I'm completely against except for the fact that they

493
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:34,519
pay me in and you were able to fest forward

494
00:27:34,519 --> 00:27:37,319
through it if you're listening. So anyway, Okay, So getting

495
00:27:37,319 --> 00:27:39,640
back to this, Andrew, let's talk about because we have

496
00:27:39,759 --> 00:27:44,880
sub genera which are for the most part restricted to continents,

497
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:48,759
like like one subgenus to Eurasia, one subgenus to North America.

498
00:27:48,799 --> 00:27:50,519
Is that correct today?

499
00:27:50,559 --> 00:27:51,640
Speaker 2: That is mostly true?

500
00:27:51,839 --> 00:27:56,039
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Yeah, biogeography in a lot of cases follows taxonomy,

501
00:27:56,079 --> 00:27:59,000
not always, but with most plants. That's why a lot

502
00:27:59,039 --> 00:28:01,359
of plants that were formerly in the same genus that

503
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,400
occurred in both you know, say, I don't know Europe

504
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:06,920
and North America. Not all of them, but a lot

505
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,480
of them have been you know, actually put in a

506
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,720
two separate generic because they turns out they were they

507
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,079
diverged quite long ago because of that Atlantic Ocean thing

508
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,880
or Pacific Ocean whatever. But but then we've got sections

509
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:24,920
in North America too, correct, What is it the white

510
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:27,079
and the red oaks? Now, what what are the sections

511
00:28:27,279 --> 00:28:28,440
and what are the differences case?

512
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, so well let's stick with Let's start with the

513
00:28:31,319 --> 00:28:39,200
Americas where there's five sections embedded in the subgenus square Kiss,

514
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,359
and here's what they are, and they sort of split

515
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,599
off in this order. So the one that is isolated

516
00:28:45,599 --> 00:28:47,440
from all the others that we say as sister to

517
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,720
all the others is the red oak section, that section

518
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,640
low body, and that includes I'm not going to run

519
00:28:54,759 --> 00:28:58,160
the number of species, maybe t one hundred and twenty.

520
00:28:58,359 --> 00:29:00,680
Don't quote me on that. Well, I guess it's okay.

521
00:29:00,799 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: You've done so spectacular on this podcast already. It's okay

522
00:29:04,559 --> 00:29:07,119
if you don't remember the exact number of species.

523
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,599
Speaker 2: Okay, we've got so we got we got a bunch

524
00:29:09,599 --> 00:29:12,720
of those. And these are mostly by any LaGG corns.

525
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,839
You recognize them in most of the flora by a

526
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:21,599
few features. One is they they tend they have leaves

527
00:29:21,599 --> 00:29:23,880
with bristle tips. Right, So if you look at the

528
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,240
tips of the lobes on the lobe species, or the

529
00:29:27,319 --> 00:29:31,720
tip of the leaf on the unloabed species, you generally

530
00:29:31,759 --> 00:29:35,960
see what looks like a little bristle. In the white oaks,

531
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:37,880
you may find a little tooth, but it's not going

532
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:39,720
to be like a little bristle. So think of like

533
00:29:39,759 --> 00:29:43,599
a if you look at a classic northern red oak,

534
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:45,799
if you look at a black oak, if you look

535
00:29:45,839 --> 00:29:49,920
at an if you look at a scarlet oak, you

536
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,759
see really distinctive bristles on the tips. So that's the

537
00:29:52,799 --> 00:29:56,359
red oak. Grow. The other things that distinguish that. If

538
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,559
you open up the acorn on a red oak and

539
00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:03,640
look the anything in that in that section, look at

540
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:07,799
the inside of the of the acorn wall, it's hairy.

541
00:30:08,799 --> 00:30:10,799
That's not true of the white oaks.

542
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: Okay, the way, way, hold on, What are those hairs doing?

543
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:15,079
What are they are they actually trying?

544
00:30:15,119 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 2: I don't know what they're doing there. It's just fuzzy

545
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:18,279
in there.

546
00:30:18,319 --> 00:30:18,599
Speaker 1: Okay.

547
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,799
Speaker 2: Has it got a feature except to be sweet and

548
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,119
nice and something we can identify? I don't know.

549
00:30:25,519 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, right, it's fuzzy.

550
00:30:29,359 --> 00:30:32,039
Speaker 2: The whole the whole group has that. All the red

551
00:30:32,039 --> 00:30:35,319
oaks do, and they cover all sorts of habitats, So

552
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,240
I doubt that it's this. You know that it's a

553
00:30:38,319 --> 00:30:41,000
special function. It's like unique to some habitat or something

554
00:30:41,039 --> 00:30:41,400
like that.

555
00:30:41,519 --> 00:30:43,279
Speaker 1: Right, And the hair is that they're not exposed to

556
00:30:43,319 --> 00:30:47,559
the atmosphere, so it's not like it's doing any reflecting flats.

557
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,319
Speaker 2: I have no idea. Maybe somebody someone on the podcast

558
00:30:51,359 --> 00:30:53,359
and I said, love, give me a holler. I'd love

559
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:53,599
to know.

560
00:30:53,799 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: Okay, anyway, Sorry, I'm sorry to distract you. I digress.

561
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:56,599
Here we go.

562
00:30:56,839 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 2: No, no, no, Then there's four other sections that are

563
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,400
all fall in a separate clade. Here, I'm going to

564
00:31:03,519 --> 00:31:07,240
use the term clade. All clade is is. It's a

565
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,920
name of a group of organisms that are all each

566
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,559
other's closest relatives, that all descend from a single ancestor.

567
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:20,400
So like when I say primates, primates are a clade.

568
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:25,119
When I talk about birds, birds are a clade. When

569
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:29,799
I talk about dinosaurs, dinosaurs are not a clade unless

570
00:31:29,799 --> 00:31:32,559
you include within the dinosaurs the bird birds.

571
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,039
Speaker 1: Right, You needn't to be monophyletic. Now, I've told these

572
00:31:35,079 --> 00:31:37,680
listeners they better know what a clade. If anybody out

573
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,720
there doesn't know what monophyletic means, you're we're gonna we're

574
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,039
gonna talk. Okay, we're gonna sit down the top. Okay,

575
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,160
you don't know what monophyletic is, email me. I'll send

576
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,039
you a little diagram. You need to know this because

577
00:31:48,039 --> 00:31:52,119
it's such a cool way to think about anything humans including.

578
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 2: And it's the whole the whole world is divided. That

579
00:31:56,039 --> 00:32:00,799
evolutionary history is this history is producing clay anyway, that's

580
00:32:00,799 --> 00:32:01,039
part of.

581
00:32:01,559 --> 00:32:03,599
Speaker 1: Oh god, no, we could go on a tangent about that,

582
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:06,400
because that's so cool. When I learned that, that changed

583
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,279
the way I thought of everything around me. I mean,

584
00:32:09,279 --> 00:32:13,079
that was a groundbreaking shift in my own perspective on

585
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,279
my own life and how I interpreted the world. It

586
00:32:15,319 --> 00:32:18,720
was like, whoa, everything is related, and it takes the

587
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,079
form of these little triangles that branch off from larger triangles,

588
00:32:22,119 --> 00:32:25,240
and it's I mean, it's so important. I mean learning

589
00:32:25,279 --> 00:32:28,200
that about plants, and that's why I always push systematics

590
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,640
and taxonomy so hard. It's like, you know, because taxonomy

591
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,039
wasn't always about systematics. Now it is for the most part,

592
00:32:34,079 --> 00:32:37,880
but there's still constraints to it because you know, at

593
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,079
the end of the day, we're a bipedal primate trying

594
00:32:40,119 --> 00:32:42,119
to interpret how evolution works.

595
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,279
Speaker 2: So I feel the same way. And it's such a beautiful,

596
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,000
exciting vision and only part of the story, but it's

597
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,480
such an important part of the story understanding the Tree

598
00:32:51,519 --> 00:32:54,799
of life. M anyway, Okay, so you got the Red Oaks.

599
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,279
That section sectional body sister to all the rest of

600
00:32:58,359 --> 00:33:00,480
the American Oaks.

601
00:33:00,119 --> 00:33:02,599
Speaker 1: Which are four other sections.

602
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 2: Which are four others.

603
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,279
Speaker 1: Oh Christ, this is I thought this this, I thought

604
00:33:06,279 --> 00:33:07,279
this was going to be easier.

605
00:33:07,759 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 2: Joey, Joey we're gonna make any peeling off. Next comes

606
00:33:11,519 --> 00:33:17,039
the come the intermediate or golden cup to oaks. This

607
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:23,440
is section proto Balonis. It's limited to California and some

608
00:33:23,559 --> 00:33:28,519
squeak into Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. This is things

609
00:33:28,559 --> 00:33:33,799
like the Quirkus chrysolitis Curecus palmer. In fact, the oldest

610
00:33:33,839 --> 00:33:36,000
oak we know of in the world is in this section.

611
00:33:36,079 --> 00:33:39,759
It's quirk As Palmuri. It's in southern California. It's a

612
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:44,079
thirteen thousand year old estimated to be thirteen thousand year

613
00:33:44,079 --> 00:33:46,559
old clone in the hills around Yeah.

614
00:33:46,559 --> 00:33:49,119
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, hold on, because someone's going to ask how

615
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,359
do they know that? How do we know that? I

616
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,079
mean radiocarbon dating on some sort of root tissue or something.

617
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:56,319
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, this is a this is a bit

618
00:33:56,359 --> 00:34:00,279
of a digression. But the Quirkus Palmuri story is in

619
00:34:00,319 --> 00:34:03,279
a two thousand and nine article published at plus one,

620
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,039
so you can so it's open access publication. Anyone who

621
00:34:06,119 --> 00:34:11,559
googles like thirteen thousand year old Quercus palmer i plus one,

622
00:34:11,599 --> 00:34:14,960
you'll find this article. And as I recall, it's been

623
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:17,119
a while since there The article as I recalled. They

624
00:34:17,119 --> 00:34:21,360
did it by actually estimating the growth rate and the.

625
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 3: Size of the clone.

626
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,760
Speaker 2: So I don't know if there was radio dating in

627
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:26,800
this article or not.

628
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,519
Speaker 1: But this thing's fucking old, though, I mean, it's really old.

629
00:34:30,639 --> 00:34:34,039
Speaker 2: It's it's old, and it's out of place. That's the

630
00:34:34,119 --> 00:34:37,440
thing that's crazy about it. It's been orphaned as been

631
00:34:37,679 --> 00:34:41,920
as the glaciers receded northward, right, it got sort of

632
00:34:42,039 --> 00:34:46,199
orphaned down here where it's it's down at lower elevations

633
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,840
than the rest of its colleagues, who's sort of you know,

634
00:34:50,119 --> 00:34:53,440
trammeled the hills and gone up up slope following the

635
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:54,599
following climate change.

636
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: Right, So this is a this is a shrub oak

637
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,639
that produces multiple stems, and the stems, none of the

638
00:35:00,679 --> 00:35:04,719
stems are thirteen thousand years old. But the rude itself,

639
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:09,440
the individual, that individual specific genome, is thirteen thousand years ago.

640
00:35:09,559 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 2: That's right. The claim we're making, the claim the authors

641
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:16,440
are making, is that an acorn germinated somewhere around thirteen

642
00:35:16,519 --> 00:35:19,079
thousand years ago, give or take a few thousand years,

643
00:35:19,519 --> 00:35:23,960
and it grew to produce this twenty five meter wide

644
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,440
clone that we observe today.

645
00:35:26,519 --> 00:35:29,679
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Where exactly in California is it?

646
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 2: You know, I'll have to look it up and send

647
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:33,719
you I can send you a bunch of links after

648
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:34,039
we're done.

649
00:35:34,159 --> 00:35:36,039
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've been hearing about this thing for years, but

650
00:35:36,119 --> 00:35:38,480
I've never actually gone and seen it. But I mean,

651
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:43,119
California is full of instances like that where you know,

652
00:35:43,159 --> 00:35:47,760
they'll find pack rat midtens with you know, tree species

653
00:35:48,079 --> 00:35:51,039
in it encrusted in piss like pack rats do. Thank god,

654
00:35:51,199 --> 00:35:55,320
you know, kudos to them. You know where the tree

655
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,239
now grows like two thousand feet higher in elevation that

656
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,599
species does. That's been a big clue to you know,

657
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:05,360
climatic change from the Pleistocene. So it's yeah, that's a

658
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:05,960
really cool.

659
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:06,760
Speaker 2: Uh.

660
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:09,280
Speaker 1: You know, that's a really cool thing to think about.

661
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,079
Is that I wonder if it's producing seedlings. Still, probably not,

662
00:36:13,119 --> 00:36:14,880
because it's like in the I don't.

663
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,920
Speaker 2: Know, I don't I don't know. Yeah, No, I do

664
00:36:18,079 --> 00:36:21,519
know that that particular individual is at risk from developments

665
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,760
would not a sperm maybe not such a surprise, but

666
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:29,960
but upsetting.

667
00:36:29,679 --> 00:36:32,320
Speaker 1: A bunch of apes who lost their way. That's that's

668
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,280
that's what what we tend to be sometimes, Okay, anyway,

669
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:35,679
keep going.

670
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 2: Sorry, Okay, so that's the intermedia. Then the next clade

671
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:41,480
that peels off that sister to all the rest of

672
00:36:41,519 --> 00:36:43,679
the white oaks. The next one to peel off is

673
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:50,800
goofy clade of two species only the pontas. Okay, one

674
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,880
of them quickest, sad Lariyena is endemic to northern Cola.

675
00:36:56,199 --> 00:36:57,639
Speaker 1: Is such a cool one.

676
00:36:58,159 --> 00:37:01,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and southern organ and the Siski Mountains. And

677
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,400
this thing is sister to a species quirk As pontica

678
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,039
that is limited to the Caucuses.

679
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 1: It right, So this is old. This is an old clade.

680
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,519
I mean, if that's this whole thing, I mean, that's wild.

681
00:37:19,599 --> 00:37:21,639
There's so many that's another thing. There's so many plants

682
00:37:21,639 --> 00:37:24,719
in northern California, and the Siski use like brewer spruce

683
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,280
Picea Breweriana, Like what's the closest relative is in like

684
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,199
Russia or something. Such an incredible species, by the way,

685
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,960
just fucking weird. You can tell this thing is old.

686
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,159
It just got landlocked here. It's just the time capsule,

687
00:37:37,599 --> 00:37:40,559
you know, that's it's Yeah. Anyway, so keep going. So quirkusidariana,

688
00:37:40,639 --> 00:37:44,559
that's like another small shrub maybe three feet four feet high.

689
00:37:45,159 --> 00:37:48,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it will it will hybridize with with a

690
00:37:48,519 --> 00:37:51,239
wide oak with I think it hybridizes with with our

691
00:37:51,639 --> 00:37:56,840
quirkus Garyana. But it's but yeah, it's it's like it's

692
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:02,199
sort of a phile. It genetically evolutionary isolated species because

693
00:38:02,199 --> 00:38:04,440
it's sister's way over in the caucases and its sister

694
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,119
species has gone in for a whole nother thing we

695
00:38:06,119 --> 00:38:07,880
could talk about when we get to the Eurasian clay.

696
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,440
So then the next group to peel off is all

697
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:13,039
the rest of the white oaks, and it's only two

698
00:38:13,079 --> 00:38:18,440
sections left. One is Section Yrnees. Now, this is a

699
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,320
group that includes the fantastic like if you've seen the

700
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:26,400
angel oak, this magnificent southern live oak. That's the section

701
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:30,239
that that's included that uh Vranes includes that space.

702
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:32,679
Speaker 1: Oh, Virginiana, Yeah, there you go.

703
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 2: Crecus Virginia is one of the one of the live oaks.

704
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,519
These are the southern live oaks. The again only like

705
00:38:40,639 --> 00:38:46,000
six species that range from the southeastern US down to

706
00:38:46,159 --> 00:38:50,079
Central America. There's one species, Quircus olioides, which is one

707
00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:55,079
of the few truly tropical oaks, Greeks olioides goes all

708
00:38:55,119 --> 00:38:56,440
the way down to Central America.

709
00:38:56,519 --> 00:38:58,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh god, I want to try to go that

710
00:38:58,360 --> 00:38:59,960
where I live, because it's hot as balls where I

711
00:39:00,119 --> 00:39:02,039
live at all times of the year. And that's that

712
00:39:03,119 --> 00:39:05,159
it grows just south of me in tom Alipis we

713
00:39:05,199 --> 00:39:08,800
get few siformists Quirkus fusiformists up there on the sandsheet

714
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:13,920
and in the Edwards plateau that's also in Varentees, right. Yeah.

715
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:15,800
You know what blew up my mind about this section

716
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:20,639
is that I always assumed that uh Corcus fu siformists

717
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:25,280
was just like a more drought adapted version of Virginiana.

718
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:28,400
It was just Virginiana that got an ecotype of Virginiana

719
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:31,039
that got selected for for you know, as the continent

720
00:39:31,079 --> 00:39:33,119
dries out as you move west. But then I read

721
00:39:33,119 --> 00:39:37,039
that paper about this whole section and that's not what happened.

722
00:39:37,079 --> 00:39:41,039
It's its closest living relative is Quirkus brandigii down in

723
00:39:41,559 --> 00:39:45,599
southern Baja, which really blew my mind. I mean that's correct, right.

724
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:50,199
Speaker 2: It's absolutely well that you're talking about Chanin's paper, right, yeah, yeah,

725
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:52,719
this is yeah, for anyone who's interested in this group.

726
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,000
Janine Cavender Barras, formerly of University of Minnesota. Just I'm

727
00:39:57,039 --> 00:40:02,360
moving over to Harvard University. H Now, she's done all

728
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:09,840
this amazing ecophysiological, evolutionary phylogenetic work on this section, an

729
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:11,639
amazing body of work at Byrantis.

730
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: That's that's crazy, but so so Yeah, I don't know.

731
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:19,320
I guess I just didn't expect that because Quirkus fusiformists

732
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,280
looks so much like Virginiana could be so hard to distinguish.

733
00:40:23,679 --> 00:40:25,239
You know, you just kind of go by the the

734
00:40:27,159 --> 00:40:29,519
gist of it, you know, like what what sum it up?

735
00:40:29,559 --> 00:40:31,679
You know, like what it looks like. You just kind

736
00:40:31,679 --> 00:40:34,599
of have that feeling. But there's no like hard characters

737
00:40:34,639 --> 00:40:38,239
as far as I know, between few siformists in Virginiana

738
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:38,800
are there.

739
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:42,199
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know the byrantzis.

740
00:40:41,679 --> 00:40:45,519
Speaker 1: Okay, Sorry, sorry this strikes, but keep going about okay.

741
00:40:45,519 --> 00:40:49,000
But and also Quirkus Virginiana is not it's in a

742
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:53,480
different section than Agrifolia, which is the California livok bingo.

743
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when we use the term live you know,

744
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,679
common names, as your listeners will probably all know, common

745
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:05,000
names can be super deceptive live oak. That term is

746
00:41:05,079 --> 00:41:09,920
often used generally for just evergreen oaks. But when I'm

747
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,639
talking about the southern live oaks, then I'm talking about

748
00:41:12,639 --> 00:41:18,119
this clade that includes Virginiana pusiformis, brent dgi Olioides, and.

749
00:41:18,199 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 1: Am Okay, okay, so okay, so in yeah olioid man,

750
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:25,400
I gotta see that. That's only in Mexico, right.

751
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the only place. Yeah, I've not and I've

752
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:31,000
not been to Central America. I've seen it in I

753
00:41:31,039 --> 00:41:33,239
think in Tamilpas. Yeah, because I've.

754
00:41:33,159 --> 00:41:34,599
Speaker 1: Seen it, Okay, okay.

755
00:41:34,639 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 2: And then then the very last group is the white oaks.

756
00:41:38,079 --> 00:41:41,599
So this is sister two by Ronzies, and it's a

757
00:41:41,679 --> 00:41:47,280
lot of species. This has been the most successful clade

758
00:41:47,599 --> 00:41:50,239
of oaks in a way because so.

759
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: What what section is is what's the name of it?

760
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:59,559
Speaker 4: Oh okay, sorry, this is Quercus subgenus quercus section quercus.

761
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,639
Oh christ right, So this is a yeah, so this

762
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:05,639
is the one that like when you say this, this one,

763
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:06,679
you've got four.

764
00:42:06,519 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 2: Lines of quirk because you've got four quackuses lined up,

765
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:11,239
because you got the the oh maybe three, You've got

766
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,280
the genus, you've got the sub genus, and then you've

767
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,719
got the section. You're right, but you got to do it.

768
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 1: That's the way we're specific matter, man, It's how this

769
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:22,400
stuff evolves erectly.

770
00:42:23,039 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 2: And so the white oaks are are fantastic. I mean

771
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,199
the white oaks have so when you compare and again,

772
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:33,480
because in the America's ours, our two biggest sections of

773
00:42:33,559 --> 00:42:36,320
the white oaks white oaks section section quercus and the

774
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:39,280
red oaks section section lobati, it's worth knowing how to

775
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:43,880
distinguish these. The white oaks all have annual acorns, whereas

776
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:47,239
in the north most of the probably throughout its range,

777
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:51,719
most of the red oaks have biannual acorns, and the

778
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:59,039
white oaks have I have rounded lobes or just a

779
00:42:59,039 --> 00:43:01,920
little tooth at the tip of the lobe on the

780
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:05,360
lobes on the leaves on the trees, load leaves on

781
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,559
the trees with out loabed leaves. Again, you can have

782
00:43:07,599 --> 00:43:09,760
a little teeth at the tip, but you're not going

783
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:13,559
to typically get on bristles, and there are some exceptions.

784
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,039
The other thing that distinguishes these things, if you just

785
00:43:16,119 --> 00:43:20,719
identifying them, pick up an acorn, and the acorns of

786
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,599
the white oaks, their scales tend to sort of be

787
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,280
bumpy on the back you'll we call them to ber

788
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:31,280
kill it sometimes where's the red oaks tend to have

789
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:38,400
smoother acorn caps scales not not fully reliable, but you

790
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:40,599
can learn to identic you can learn to recognize it.

791
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,000
The other thing is the bark. The bark on the

792
00:43:43,039 --> 00:43:48,840
white oaks tends to be flatter plate here, whereas the

793
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:53,320
red oaks tend to have blockier bark. Again, that that

794
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,599
can be a little bit difficult to see.

795
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:57,639
Speaker 1: Is corcus and sickness in this section?

796
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gregson signas? Is it true? White oak? God? That

797
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:04,880
thing is amazing, you know, magnificent?

798
00:44:05,079 --> 00:44:07,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh my god? Who I think it was?

799
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 2: Coon?

800
00:44:07,559 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: SOI Kim who used to work at Morton. Yes, he

801
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,000
gave me years a decade ago. He had some extras

802
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,440
of corcus and signas and he gave me one and

803
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:20,320
I planted it in Oakland, California. And the thing it

804
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,679
struggled for a while because it's not the temperate or

805
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:26,159
it's not the rainforests of Vera Cruz, so it wasn't

806
00:44:26,159 --> 00:44:28,760
getting enough moisture. We had those dry summers. But it

807
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,280
finally it got established and did well. But I never

808
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:33,400
got acorns out of it. But I you know, God,

809
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,880
what an amazing tree. Those giant baseball sized acorns. I mean,

810
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:38,960
that's the largest acorn of any oak right.

811
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,199
Speaker 2: Well, And I love it, Yes, I believe so. And

812
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,480
I love it because that one grows right with Gecas

813
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,880
skinner eye, which is a red oak up in the

814
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:53,400
same cloud forests, and also with great, big, honking acorns,

815
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:55,679
and those are two of the biggest acorns that I've

816
00:44:55,719 --> 00:44:56,599
ever seen in my life.

817
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: Was something selecting for big ic acorns? And that, I mean,

818
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,000
do you think there's like some extinct megafauna or something

819
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:04,360
that was dispersing those.

820
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:10,559
Speaker 2: I don't know about that. That's a really good question. Yeah,

821
00:45:10,599 --> 00:45:11,280
I don't know.

822
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:13,639
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just because they can because it's so

823
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,320
warm and it's so warm and wet.

824
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 2: I don't so maybe so. I mean, one thing we

825
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,480
do know is that acorns, you know, these these great

826
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:25,039
big acorns have huge cottle eatens inside. The cottle eathens

827
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:27,360
is just the name for the seed leaves. Like when

828
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,119
you break open a cut open an acorn, and you're

829
00:45:30,159 --> 00:45:32,719
going to see a massive tissue in there. The lion's

830
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,400
share of the tissue is these acorns. And some of

831
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:38,119
them they fit together like two halves of a Hamburger

832
00:45:38,159 --> 00:45:42,280
bund and others they're fused, but those are the seedling leaves.

833
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:46,559
They're holding all the food that the female plant, female

834
00:45:46,559 --> 00:45:50,960
flower has provisioned this seed with, and those that food

835
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,280
plays two rolls, two really important roles. One is to

836
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,119
feed the young plants. So when the plant germinates, the

837
00:45:58,159 --> 00:46:01,000
food from these cottle leads just pour into the roots

838
00:46:01,239 --> 00:46:03,679
and get sequestered in there so that the plant can

839
00:46:03,679 --> 00:46:05,960
get a head start, even in a low light environment

840
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:09,559
before it can start photosynthesizing. But the food in those

841
00:46:09,599 --> 00:46:12,719
cattle leads has a second, equally important role. It's to

842
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:17,880
lure in disperses because it's feet and so with a

843
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:21,079
big plant like intact circus and signus has been studied,

844
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:25,519
they looked at removing cuda eats. So I suppose a

845
00:46:25,599 --> 00:46:29,239
predator comes along, you know, a squirrel or whatever, and

846
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:34,360
buries this acorn. Okay, great, Then that acorn is probably

847
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,440
gonna germinate pretty nicely if it doesn't get dug up.

848
00:46:36,679 --> 00:46:41,559
But suppose that squirrel eats like a third of the

849
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:45,960
cotta eat, which is the really tasty part. It will

850
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,840
tend to eat from the portion it's underneath the cap,

851
00:46:50,159 --> 00:46:54,039
which is less defended, has less tannic acid in it

852
00:46:54,119 --> 00:46:57,119
to defend it against the against the predator. You eat

853
00:46:57,199 --> 00:46:59,400
up like half of that cattle. Eating a third of

854
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,320
that kind of eat the plant is still going to germinate.

855
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:02,840
Just fine.

856
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: Oh shit, really, so that's so wow, because I was

857
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,840
just gonna say, if it's eating it, it's killing the embryo.

858
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:10,000
But no, it's not.

859
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cattle. And so when you look at the like,

860
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,360
pop open an acorn, and this is a great time

861
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:16,840
to do it if you're not in North America, is

862
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,880
because they're dropping right now. Pop open the cap. Get

863
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,199
yourself a pair of burning shears if you've got some,

864
00:47:23,639 --> 00:47:25,880
or a good butcher knife, just use it, and use

865
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,400
a cutting board because you don't want to cut your

866
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,639
finger off. Cut that thing open and look at the

867
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:33,880
look at the cattle leens. What you'll see is that

868
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,679
the portion right underneath the cap, thick you know, meaty,

869
00:47:38,079 --> 00:47:42,559
the babe, the young tree. The growing tips then sort

870
00:47:42,599 --> 00:47:44,519
of shoot tip and the root tip are all the

871
00:47:44,519 --> 00:47:47,760
way down at the opposite end of the acorn. And

872
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,400
so when the female plant is producing this acorn, it's

873
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:55,480
becoming suffused with tannic acids. Tannic acid is the same

874
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:57,920
stuff that we use to tan leather, the same stuff

875
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,719
that turns like the Black River in central was in black.

876
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 1: This is uh.

877
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:07,679
Speaker 2: It binds protein. It makes your mouth pucker up if

878
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:10,079
you try and eat it. If you feed a squirrel

879
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:13,320
only acorns, that squirrel is going to lose weight because

880
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:17,079
that acorn doesn't provide enough nutrients and the tannic acid

881
00:48:17,159 --> 00:48:19,199
is sucking up some of some of the proteins that

882
00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:23,360
it needs to live. Uh. But there's less tannic acid

883
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,199
at the sort of north end of the acorn, right

884
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,840
underneath the cap, which is where the growing tips are. Not.

885
00:48:30,199 --> 00:48:32,679
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, that makes sense because you look at when

886
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,840
acorns germinate, the root comes out, that pointed tip at

887
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:37,719
the radical comes out that point the tip at the

888
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:41,159
other end. So that is wow. So the tannic acid

889
00:48:41,199 --> 00:48:43,880
is not evenly distributed throughout the whole acorn. It's it's

890
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:46,400
only where the important stuff is.

891
00:48:46,639 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 2: Well, it's throughout the acorn, but there's a gradient the concentration.

892
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,559
Speaker 1: Yeah. So and then the benefit is, of course a

893
00:48:53,599 --> 00:48:56,480
squirrel takes this thing, runs off with it, thinks he

894
00:48:56,599 --> 00:48:59,800
just scored a good meal. And he did, but only

895
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:01,519
the top and then he just when he's done with it,

896
00:49:01,599 --> 00:49:04,960
throws it throws it the into the duff and that

897
00:49:05,159 --> 00:49:07,920
now that thing germinates. So that's he's disperson.

898
00:49:08,039 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 2: A lot of the time. Yes, And you can see,

899
00:49:10,039 --> 00:49:12,360
like last year we had a great mass year for

900
00:49:13,639 --> 00:49:17,400
wherecas for the eastern white oak, and a mass here

901
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,559
is a year when the trees produce fruits in abundance,

902
00:49:20,679 --> 00:49:25,079
and oaks are super famous for massing. In that year,

903
00:49:25,119 --> 00:49:27,320
I walk around the woods and I saw all these

904
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:32,519
quarter third devoured acorns where the squirrels had just like

905
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,000
and they were just like, oh they were they were desulatory.

906
00:49:36,039 --> 00:49:37,840
They would eat just what they wanted and then just

907
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,559
toss the rest away. They didn't care. It is like

908
00:49:40,559 --> 00:49:43,199
like they were just ravaging a candy store. And those

909
00:49:43,519 --> 00:49:48,079
those many of those acorns will subsequently did subsequently germinate.

910
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: God, that's that's fascinating. You're blowing my mind, man, So okay,

911
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,400
well think yeah, the thing I want to talk about

912
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:56,960
now too, because you'll there's a lot of shade tolerance

913
00:49:57,480 --> 00:49:59,679
for oaks. I mean, they can they love full sun

914
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:02,800
when they are large, when they're adults, but they can

915
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:05,239
also tolerate shade for years, right, because you'll go into

916
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:09,519
an understory sometimes and you'll see hundreds, if not thousands

917
00:50:09,519 --> 00:50:12,119
of little oak seedlings only six seven inches tall. It's

918
00:50:12,119 --> 00:50:14,039
too shady for them to really do anything. They can

919
00:50:14,119 --> 00:50:16,039
just are they like redwoods, they can just hang out

920
00:50:16,039 --> 00:50:18,599
and lurk for a while until a tree falls down

921
00:50:18,679 --> 00:50:20,239
you get some sunlight in there or what.

922
00:50:20,559 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 2: I think it's real context specific because like in our

923
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,000
woods and in sort of in the rich soils around

924
00:50:27,679 --> 00:50:31,000
southern Wisconsin northern Illinois where I've spent most of my

925
00:50:31,079 --> 00:50:34,840
time botanizing, you tend to see if you get a flush,

926
00:50:35,039 --> 00:50:37,159
like we've got a ton of seedlings right now from

927
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,119
last year's mast of Quercus alba, which is the eastern

928
00:50:40,159 --> 00:50:42,159
wide oak is the king of the forest. If you've

929
00:50:42,199 --> 00:50:47,880
read PD's wonderful Natural History of Trees, that's those ceilings

930
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,760
are not going to last forever. They'll stay suppressed for

931
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,280
a little while. But when I get up to northern Wisconsin,

932
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:57,480
I do see more of this stratification where you get

933
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,559
where you get trees lurking in the understory. Now, I'm

934
00:51:00,599 --> 00:51:02,559
not a community collegist, so I haven't studied this in

935
00:51:02,599 --> 00:51:05,639
any detail. But my sense is that this is very

936
00:51:05,679 --> 00:51:10,719
context specific, and as a consequence, we're not seeing oaks

937
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:14,239
replacing themselves in most of our woods. Around here. There

938
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:20,800
is kind of a reproduction crisis really. Yeah. Now, and

939
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:23,400
I've said about all that I know about that. I mean,

940
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:27,880
what's influencing it probably fire. I mean around here we're

941
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:29,920
at the edge of the Prairie province, and around here

942
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:34,360
the forests are adapted to the savannahs. Forests and prairies

943
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:37,480
are adapted to fire. But that whole fire regime shifted

944
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,800
in the early nineteen hundreds as we started suppressing fires.

945
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:44,679
So as a consequence are not seeing kind of ocreute production.

946
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:48,000
Speaker 1: We used to do. Yeah, fire suppression really spilled. I mean,

947
00:51:48,039 --> 00:51:51,400
it's crazy how many people don't, even in the eastern US,

948
00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:55,079
don't realize how important fire was. I mean, and it's

949
00:51:55,119 --> 00:51:58,119
not just because invasive species, though that the invasive species

950
00:51:58,119 --> 00:52:00,239
problem is made it worse because that really small there's

951
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:02,760
a lot of the understory. But I mean, even without

952
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:04,960
invasive species, you've got to burn that stuff off of

953
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:07,760
for a few years. It's it's healthier for the forest.

954
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:10,320
I mean, it's healthier, not only for getting rid of

955
00:52:10,559 --> 00:52:14,400
ticks and siggers and insects, et cetera. But also for

956
00:52:14,559 --> 00:52:18,480
you know, just creating an open, healthier forest. So you know,

957
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:21,320
it's with lower density, right, I mean, because you've got

958
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:25,920
too much stuff growing in there. Not everything can thrive totally.

959
00:52:26,119 --> 00:52:30,760
And so even in like oaks savannahs in the Chicago area,

960
00:52:31,639 --> 00:52:33,840
fire was still pretty common. I assume like a lot

961
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,079
of those oaks are fire resistant once they get to

962
00:52:36,159 --> 00:52:36,880
a certain size.

963
00:52:37,559 --> 00:52:41,679
Speaker 2: That's right there. Fire some are like it's a really

964
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:46,000
neat experiment that was done at the UW. Madison Arboretum

965
00:52:46,039 --> 00:52:50,039
in the eighties where they had a savannah that had

966
00:52:50,079 --> 00:52:54,239
gotten clogged with black oak grubs. These little ones, because

967
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:56,639
they hadn't been burning for a long time, they literally

968
00:52:56,639 --> 00:53:00,559
couldn't get a fire through. So so what they found

969
00:53:00,639 --> 00:53:02,800
is one once they could, they did a really cool

970
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:07,280
experiment where they like killed off thousands of little baby

971
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,320
black oaks with black oak wilts with a strain that

972
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:13,559
was already present on the hillside. They trenched around the

973
00:53:13,599 --> 00:53:17,440
whole savannah they were restoring to make sure that the

974
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:22,559
black oak wilt wouldn't travel through the root grafts, right, yeah,

975
00:53:22,559 --> 00:53:25,440
exact well, it's a It was certainly a strain that

976
00:53:25,519 --> 00:53:28,719
was present on that hillside already. You know what the

977
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,039
genesis of it is, I don't know.

978
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:31,159
Speaker 1: Yeah.

979
00:53:31,199 --> 00:53:33,159
Speaker 2: And then but then once they could get fired through,

980
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,239
what they found is that many of the younger black

981
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:38,159
olks would repeatedly get burned down to the ground, burn

982
00:53:38,199 --> 00:53:40,280
down on the ground, so they just keep growing over

983
00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:43,119
and over and over again. You find this with burrokes too,

984
00:53:43,519 --> 00:53:46,320
and so you get the little shoot being burned down

985
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:48,559
and all that energy that would have gone into that

986
00:53:48,599 --> 00:53:51,280
shot being stored in the roots. So you can get

987
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:55,119
a root that is, you know, eighty years old, and

988
00:53:55,199 --> 00:53:57,760
a shoot that's just up from that one ear But

989
00:53:57,920 --> 00:54:01,599
give that shoot then six seven, twelve years to get

990
00:54:01,599 --> 00:54:03,920
a foothold, then it can resist the fire.

991
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: But if you've got an eighty year old root, I mean,

992
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:08,599
that's gonna have a lot of juice stored open it.

993
00:54:08,639 --> 00:54:10,519
I mean that thing is like a battery. That is

994
00:54:10,639 --> 00:54:11,880
good that that's exactly right.

995
00:54:12,039 --> 00:54:14,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, And I think I feel like there's a

996
00:54:14,679 --> 00:54:16,519
passage I read and it may have been in John

997
00:54:16,599 --> 00:54:19,480
Muir in sort of My Boyhood and Youth where he

998
00:54:19,559 --> 00:54:22,840
talks about the someone again, if someone remembers that this

999
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,599
was somebody else who said this, but around the Madison Capital.

1000
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:29,760
I think he talks about all these oaks shooting up

1001
00:54:30,159 --> 00:54:34,039
in the wake of fire suppression. Yeah, and it was

1002
00:54:34,079 --> 00:54:37,239
exactly that, Joey Wray. You had all these root systems

1003
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:39,960
were growing, growing, growing, and they were stepped to jump

1004
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:43,360
once the fires was they released from fire.

1005
00:54:43,679 --> 00:54:46,199
Speaker 1: I think that this is a good talking about these

1006
00:54:46,199 --> 00:54:50,280
massive root systems, is a good segue into another topic

1007
00:54:50,320 --> 00:54:51,960
I want to talk about, which a lot of people,

1008
00:54:52,039 --> 00:54:54,159
especially if they're in the Midwest or Northeast, will not

1009
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:58,639
be familiar with. But the habit the phenomenon of scrub oaks,

1010
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:02,519
which are huge colonies of oaks, like you know, Sayqurkus

1011
00:55:02,519 --> 00:55:06,440
PALMERI like we just talked about, or Corcus. I've seen

1012
00:55:06,519 --> 00:55:09,320
some really cool ones on sand dunes in West Texas,

1013
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:15,000
but you essentially get oaks. Corcus Vexxinifolia is another great one.

1014
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:18,400
I believe that produces actually just straight edible acorns you

1015
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,079
can eat. There's another northern California mountain one. But oaks

1016
00:55:21,079 --> 00:55:23,840
that don't they're not trees. They don't turn into trees.

1017
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:27,199
Maybe they can, but in habitat they never get taller

1018
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:30,880
than four feet max. Some stay two or three feet.

1019
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:34,360
I mean, this is a pretty widespread phenomenon, especially in

1020
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:35,039
North America.

1021
00:55:35,119 --> 00:55:38,760
Speaker 2: Right, that's right. So you got an well and if

1022
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:42,360
you can done in Mexico, you see these beautiful shrubby

1023
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:46,440
little oaks are quite prevalent. So, yeah, we often think

1024
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:49,679
of oaks as being trees. But I don't know what

1025
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:53,519
percentage of them are shrubs, but it is many. I mean,

1026
00:55:53,920 --> 00:56:00,960
you probably know Quercus minima or I'm trying to think

1027
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:04,159
what these other little guys are, quirks cordifolia. These can

1028
00:56:04,199 --> 00:56:10,639
be shrubs like like ankle high or cap high. And

1029
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:15,320
some of these species are chrisominous, right, some will really

1030
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:21,239
spread clonally. There's a great article by Cornelius Muller nineteen

1031
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:24,639
fifty one called the Significance of Vegetative Reproduction in Quircus.

1032
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:28,880
He just goes through the natural history of a handful

1033
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:33,719
of these things, Minima of Virginiana, Pyreneica, and Ilex in

1034
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:35,039
the Old World.

1035
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:38,880
Speaker 1: Quircus Havardia is another cool one. Another another cool scrub

1036
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:41,599
oak from Yeah, this's from Monahans, Texas. Those cool sand

1037
00:56:41,639 --> 00:56:42,239
dunes out.

1038
00:56:42,119 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 2: There, absolutely and Hinkley.

1039
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:48,159
Speaker 1: I yeah, yeah, yeah, HINKLEYI Jesus Christ, I've seen that

1040
00:56:48,199 --> 00:56:51,400
in habitat. That's unreal talk about a place to scene relict.

1041
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:53,880
But I guess it can get upwards at like ten

1042
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:56,599
or twelve feet tall in cultivation, you know, like Mike

1043
00:56:56,639 --> 00:56:59,599
Eason is doing it San Antonio Botanic Garden. But yeah,

1044
00:56:59,599 --> 00:57:02,440
when you see and set, they're two or three feet tall.

1045
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:06,239
Speaker 2: One of the species I think is really interesting is

1046
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,599
Quirkus prioides. So one of the most widespread eastern North

1047
00:57:10,639 --> 00:57:14,800
American species, Quircus neil and burget. It's called chinkapinoak, right,

1048
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:17,119
and you find this thing. I don't know what exactly

1049
00:57:17,119 --> 00:57:19,679
its range is, but it's like, you know, we find

1050
00:57:19,679 --> 00:57:23,119
it in northern Illinois, maybe it's even in southern Wisconsin

1051
00:57:23,559 --> 00:57:26,679
down throughout almost all of eastern North America as a

1052
00:57:26,719 --> 00:57:31,840
tree growing on limestone or and calcarious soils. But then

1053
00:57:32,079 --> 00:57:37,519
its close relative is Quirkus prides, which is a shrub oak,

1054
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:42,480
and is it grows as a shrub. Typically it grows

1055
00:57:42,519 --> 00:57:49,559
in sand soils, so not on limestone. It's distinguishable when

1056
00:57:49,599 --> 00:57:53,639
it's when it's sort of ideal, but there's like intermediates,

1057
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:57,400
And it's unclear to me whether these things are you know,

1058
00:57:57,519 --> 00:58:00,800
two separate species, whether or not Prides actually something that

1059
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:05,639
has arisen from ULMBERGII multiple times. The genomic data are

1060
00:58:05,719 --> 00:58:07,719
a little ambiguous, but we don't have a lot of

1061
00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:11,480
sampling on it. But yeah, I mean Priorities is the

1062
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:15,000
one that is definitely like it's definitely a shrub. LAMBERGIAI

1063
00:58:15,119 --> 00:58:16,239
is definitely a tree.

1064
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:18,559
Speaker 1: So why do these Why does some turn into trees

1065
00:58:18,599 --> 00:58:20,599
and some I mean not with just with this, but

1066
00:58:20,639 --> 00:58:24,079
with like a lot of especially in the West, a

1067
00:58:24,119 --> 00:58:26,480
lot of Quarkers species just stay low. I mean, I

1068
00:58:26,519 --> 00:58:30,199
guess there's is there something I mean for most of them,

1069
00:58:30,239 --> 00:58:33,159
they will stay low in cultivation too, right, Like that's

1070
00:58:33,159 --> 00:58:35,639
not like Kinkley where they'll get get turned into trees.

1071
00:58:35,679 --> 00:58:39,519
Like Quirkas Veccinifolia is always whether it's growing in a

1072
00:58:39,519 --> 00:58:42,119
garden setting or in the Klamath Mountains, is always going

1073
00:58:42,199 --> 00:58:45,840
to be a small three four foot tall shrug.

1074
00:58:46,320 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, well, I guess it's an. I guess it's an.

1075
00:58:50,719 --> 00:58:53,039
There's a certain like you find this too with quirks

1076
00:58:53,039 --> 00:58:58,119
a Lisipolia bear oak growing underneath like Quirkers Maryland because

1077
00:58:58,119 --> 00:59:00,159
of black jack oak, the black jack oak being the

1078
00:59:00,199 --> 00:59:04,599
tree solisifolia, the barre oak being the shrub and they've

1079
00:59:04,679 --> 00:59:08,559
each found a place in their habitat where they can

1080
00:59:08,679 --> 00:59:11,480
where they can survive. So I guess some of it

1081
00:59:11,519 --> 00:59:14,440
is niche differentiation. But then some of it too, is

1082
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,239
that there's going to be selection in open environments for

1083
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:20,440
a shrubby or habitat, I would think, but again I

1084
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:22,760
don't know, I've never really Yeah, I.

1085
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:24,800
Speaker 1: Guess that makes sense. Yeah, there's going to be selection

1086
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:28,000
if it's really dry. Eventually, any individuals that get too

1087
00:59:28,039 --> 00:59:31,800
tall or will continue growing, I mean they just kind

1088
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:33,880
of fall out because you don't Yeah, it's not a

1089
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:37,559
beneficial Yeah. Yeah, it's costly and there's no benefit to

1090
00:59:37,599 --> 00:59:39,800
getting that big in a desert where the hot, dry

1091
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:43,360
winds will just you know, take you apart. I want

1092
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:48,599
to talk about plasticity and leaves because for identification purposes,

1093
00:59:49,079 --> 00:59:51,239
some of these are not easy, right, I mean, they

1094
00:59:51,239 --> 00:59:53,639
can be really tricky, and I'm sure for a lot

1095
00:59:53,639 --> 00:59:55,760
of people listening if they're out there trying to figure

1096
00:59:55,760 --> 00:59:57,960
out what the hell oak they're looking at, and they're

1097
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:01,280
just looking at leaves, and it's not the flowering timing

1098
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:03,440
or whatever. I mean, flowers aren't even really helpful in

1099
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:05,840
a lot of oaks, I assume because they're so reduced

1100
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:09,679
and simplified, like so many wind pollinated flowers. But leaf

1101
01:00:09,719 --> 01:00:11,760
plasticity is a real thing. I mean you can have

1102
01:00:12,199 --> 01:00:15,480
three different kinds of leaves on the same individual tree.

1103
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:20,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, plasticity is really tricky. So when you're

1104
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:23,480
it's it's like with aquatic plants, Like when you look

1105
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:27,280
at aquatic plants too, super highly plastic. So when you're

1106
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:31,559
studying a tree in the field, you really want to

1107
01:00:31,639 --> 01:00:34,239
study the leaves on all sides of the tree. You

1108
01:00:34,239 --> 01:00:36,280
go from the edge of the canopy to the inside

1109
01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:39,159
of the canopy, you will see the leaves change. If

1110
01:00:39,159 --> 01:00:42,199
that tree is cut down and sprouts from the stump,

1111
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:48,239
you can get large, sort of amorphous looking leaves. So

1112
01:00:48,519 --> 01:00:52,159
what's governing plasticity, what's governing those leaf shapes. A lot

1113
01:00:52,159 --> 01:00:54,320
of it has to do with light environments, a lot

1114
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:56,559
of it has to do with moisture, It has to

1115
01:00:56,559 --> 01:00:59,880
do with responses to insects. So all these things can

1116
01:01:00,199 --> 01:01:04,880
shaped and shape the leaf in ways that can be

1117
01:01:06,159 --> 01:01:11,480
that can make identification difficult. So it's really important if

1118
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:14,159
you're learning the trees and stutting a tree to really

1119
01:01:14,159 --> 01:01:16,480
collect from a number of leaves and then look at

1120
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,559
the whole population. Ask yourself, is this tree typical of

1121
01:01:19,599 --> 01:01:23,360
the population or is it just just an outlier because

1122
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:24,800
it's growing in an odd area.

1123
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 1: Well, I think knowing that too is really helpful. Knowing

1124
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:29,639
that with oaks, there's a lot of plasticity. You're gonna

1125
01:01:29,639 --> 01:01:32,199
have shade leaves, You're gonna have light you know, light

1126
01:01:33,159 --> 01:01:35,599
leaves that get more lights, you know, sun leaves. You're

1127
01:01:35,639 --> 01:01:39,599
gonna have juvenile leaves and adult leaves. There's a difference

1128
01:01:39,639 --> 01:01:44,079
in those, you know, I think it was a quirksagafolio

1129
01:01:44,159 --> 01:01:47,400
for instance. Well have really spiny young leaves which you

1130
01:01:47,519 --> 01:01:51,199
just wouldn't want to you know, they discourage your vivery obviously,

1131
01:01:51,199 --> 01:01:54,880
and then once they get more that, once they get

1132
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:57,000
higher and more in the sun, they kind of round

1133
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:01,079
out a little bit, or they can I think, I

1134
01:02:01,119 --> 01:02:04,519
guess looking at at the underside versus the top of

1135
01:02:04,559 --> 01:02:07,159
the leaf, to the texture, is it covered in indumentum,

1136
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:08,840
that kind of thing is probably important too.

1137
01:02:10,079 --> 01:02:12,480
Speaker 2: It is, and it can be very very helpful. That

1138
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:15,639
can be plastic as well, So some traits are less

1139
01:02:15,639 --> 01:02:18,599
plastic than others. But then but the outline is probably

1140
01:02:18,639 --> 01:02:23,639
the most plastic traits. So for instance, I when I'm

1141
01:02:23,679 --> 01:02:27,960
looking at queer because the lutina versus ellipsoidalys around here.

1142
01:02:28,199 --> 01:02:31,199
Usually you can tell from the leaves alone, and I'd

1143
01:02:31,199 --> 01:02:34,920
say like eighty ninety percent of the time, but there

1144
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:38,519
are cases where I really want the end buds and

1145
01:02:38,559 --> 01:02:41,400
the acorns to be confident or look at the whole tree,

1146
01:02:42,119 --> 01:02:44,360
because you get you get clues from the bark, you

1147
01:02:44,519 --> 01:02:49,199
clues from the habitat. But yeah, that that plasticity is

1148
01:02:49,199 --> 01:02:53,360
super important though, because plasticity is part of what allows

1149
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:57,880
trees to survive. They have to. Trees are stuck, they're

1150
01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:02,239
rooted in place. They like think of our quirkess PALMERI

1151
01:03:02,599 --> 01:03:06,679
like thirteen thousand years. It's been living there, as ice receded,

1152
01:03:06,719 --> 01:03:11,079
as the floor changed around it, as housing developed, developments

1153
01:03:11,239 --> 01:03:13,679
started to grow up in the hills around it. So

1154
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:15,960
this is a this is a plant that's had to

1155
01:03:15,960 --> 01:03:18,119
put up with a lot, and if it weren't plastic,

1156
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:23,199
it would have gone down. It can't go inside when

1157
01:03:23,519 --> 01:03:26,280
situations are nasty, it can't put on a rain coat.

1158
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:28,519
It can't grab a water bottle. It's got to deal

1159
01:03:28,599 --> 01:03:31,559
with everything. And roots deal with this as well. The

1160
01:03:31,639 --> 01:03:37,079
root in the below ground environment is really heterogeneous. So

1161
01:03:37,199 --> 01:03:42,519
roots modify their growing habits, modify their anatomy as they

1162
01:03:42,519 --> 01:03:45,960
get into different areas of soil. So, yeah, that plasticity

1163
01:03:46,000 --> 01:03:49,360
is one of the one of the tree superpowers, and

1164
01:03:49,519 --> 01:03:50,519
oaks are super good.

1165
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:54,559
Speaker 1: It's an adaptive trait, definitely. It's a beneficial trait in

1166
01:03:54,679 --> 01:03:58,320
terms of dealing with environmental stresses for sure. Yeah, that's right.

1167
01:03:58,440 --> 01:04:02,639
Do you're talking about roots, I mean all oaks are

1168
01:04:02,679 --> 01:04:06,639
Michael ryzel. I suppose there's none that associate with that

1169
01:04:07,519 --> 01:04:11,400
ectinomyce bacteria Frankia is there because I know other members

1170
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:12,239
of the gaies there.

1171
01:04:13,119 --> 01:04:17,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, No, I believe they're all all just modified microhyzel.

1172
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:20,239
Speaker 1: Ectomycro hyzol okay cool, And that of course is a

1173
01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:22,480
huge I mean being able to do that as a

1174
01:04:22,559 --> 01:04:25,840
huge benefit to none actually carry I mean the micro

1175
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:29,079
hysil is just already in the soil. None actually carry

1176
01:04:29,119 --> 01:04:31,119
it with them in their acorn in any form.

1177
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:34,119
Speaker 2: Huh No, not to my knowledge. I mean you do

1178
01:04:34,239 --> 01:04:40,400
find so when an acorn falls it falls with fungi

1179
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:45,159
and fungi within it. So like then an acorn that's

1180
01:04:45,199 --> 01:04:49,400
developing will will sort of collect fungi from the leads

1181
01:04:49,440 --> 01:04:53,480
around it. There may be some vertical transmission from the

1182
01:04:53,519 --> 01:04:56,079
mob this I don't know for sure. I feel like

1183
01:04:56,119 --> 01:05:00,639
I read something. Jenna Urin has done real really cool

1184
01:05:00,719 --> 01:05:07,119
work on the on the endophitic fungi, this fungi that

1185
01:05:07,159 --> 01:05:08,920
live inside plants, and she did.

1186
01:05:08,760 --> 01:05:10,559
Speaker 3: An article on this one time.

1187
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:13,199
Speaker 2: But anyway, so they pull, so they so they gathered

1188
01:05:13,320 --> 01:05:18,519
these fungi, and those fungi may help then may help

1189
01:05:18,559 --> 01:05:21,639
the acorn sort of fend off other fungi because then

1190
01:05:21,639 --> 01:05:23,880
when it drops to the ground, it's surrounded by a

1191
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:27,960
whole new colony, a whole new community of fungi that

1192
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:29,840
are living in the leaf litter, that are living in

1193
01:05:29,880 --> 01:05:31,760
the soil. And some of these are going to be

1194
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:35,679
path pathogenic, right, They're going to harm the harm the acorn.

1195
01:05:36,159 --> 01:05:40,119
And having a robust community of and the phittic fungi

1196
01:05:40,519 --> 01:05:43,440
might be one way of fending those off.

1197
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:47,039
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, just associating with micael rhizal fungi in

1198
01:05:47,079 --> 01:05:50,280
the soil especially, I mean, they're they have an interest too,

1199
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:54,360
like they have an interest in their own self interest

1200
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:59,719
in keeping the tree alive and preventing it from getting sick. Uh,

1201
01:06:00,119 --> 01:06:03,360
you know, protecting from other pathogenic fungi as well. I

1202
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:04,079
mean it's one.

1203
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:09,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really great work being done by Luke McCormick

1204
01:06:10,079 --> 01:06:14,599
and by Peter Kennedy looking at the microizal fungal associates

1205
01:06:15,039 --> 01:06:18,599
at looking at the phenology the timing of those of

1206
01:06:18,639 --> 01:06:23,519
those microies of fungi growing, looking at the community structure

1207
01:06:23,599 --> 01:06:26,960
sort of which fungi are associating with which trees. But

1208
01:06:27,079 --> 01:06:30,559
no matter how you slice it, those microyes of fungi

1209
01:06:30,639 --> 01:06:35,480
are astutely essential to the to the to the success

1210
01:06:35,519 --> 01:06:38,719
of the tree because they go foraging for nutrients and

1211
01:06:38,840 --> 01:06:41,599
gain from the tree carbon in response.

1212
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:45,960
Speaker 1: Is yeah, the swapping of ohk so really, I mean

1213
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:48,559
this is a keystone genus. I mean, this is a

1214
01:06:48,639 --> 01:06:52,559
keystone plant and basically every every plant community they grow on,

1215
01:06:52,639 --> 01:06:54,960
I mean, they they feed a number of things, they

1216
01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:59,960
hold soil together, they harbor very beneficial fungi that are

1217
01:07:00,079 --> 01:07:02,760
that probably benefit a number of other trees in the

1218
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:06,639
forest or scrubland that they're growing as well, especially if

1219
01:07:06,639 --> 01:07:09,960
you've got dwarf oaks growing on sand dunes like Corcasovardia.

1220
01:07:10,079 --> 01:07:14,719
You're holding, you're stabilizing dune communities for other plants. What

1221
01:07:14,880 --> 01:07:17,000
is do you know much about the There's a large

1222
01:07:17,079 --> 01:07:20,199
number of caterpillars, moth caterpillars that use oaks as a

1223
01:07:20,199 --> 01:07:24,320
host plant, and then of course those caterpillars later feedbirds,

1224
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:27,679
et cetera. I perform a number of multitude of other

1225
01:07:27,679 --> 01:07:31,280
ecological services. Is that there's a I mean, what's up

1226
01:07:31,280 --> 01:07:33,719
with that? There's a there's a huge that's a huge

1227
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,519
environmental niche for caterpillars that feed on oak leaves and

1228
01:07:36,559 --> 01:07:36,880
other things.

1229
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:40,079
Speaker 2: Did right, So there's a few things going on that

1230
01:07:40,519 --> 01:07:43,639
I'm aware of, and there's this literature is much larger

1231
01:07:43,639 --> 01:07:46,440
than I'm than I know of. But we do know

1232
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:53,320
that oaks harbor a disproportionate diversity of a number of caterpillars,

1233
01:07:53,840 --> 01:07:57,800
and that may have to do with sheer biomass. Might

1234
01:07:57,840 --> 01:08:01,239
be one reason when you look in North America and Mexico,

1235
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:06,360
oaks have the most biomass, the most stuff being produced

1236
01:08:06,480 --> 01:08:11,239
of any of any tree genus. It might be partly

1237
01:08:11,280 --> 01:08:16,159
because of diversity. They offer a lot of chemical diversity

1238
01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:21,640
to caterpillars. And so we know, for instance, work that

1239
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:25,960
Ian Pierce has been doing since two thousand and nine

1240
01:08:26,119 --> 01:08:33,000
and maybe even earlier has demonstrated that insects tend to

1241
01:08:33,119 --> 01:08:38,000
be the chewing insects tend to specialize on one clade

1242
01:08:38,239 --> 01:08:40,479
or another of oaks, so that tend to be red

1243
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:43,760
oak clade specialists, that tend to be white oakclade specialists,

1244
01:08:43,840 --> 01:08:48,680
so that diversity of tree species and lineages may make

1245
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:51,319
oaks disproportionately important to the insects.

1246
01:08:51,880 --> 01:08:55,399
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was a whole that I didn't

1247
01:08:55,399 --> 01:08:57,359
know there was a whole fido chemistry here that was

1248
01:08:57,359 --> 01:08:59,239
really important to some of these.

1249
01:08:59,319 --> 01:09:01,479
Speaker 2: There's a whole thing going on. And there's a great

1250
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:07,880
trio of articles that Ian Pierce did in two thousand

1251
01:09:07,880 --> 01:09:10,760
and nine preceded the National Academy of Sciences twenty twelve

1252
01:09:10,880 --> 01:09:16,279
Evolution on the twenty fourteen paper, and preceeds the royal

1253
01:09:16,279 --> 01:09:23,039
piano goal to a royal Oh my bloodherds didn't just

1254
01:09:23,159 --> 01:09:29,319
be too anyway. These demonstrate that they look at the

1255
01:09:29,399 --> 01:09:32,399
at the leaf chemistry, and they demonstrate that the leaf

1256
01:09:32,479 --> 01:09:36,920
chemistry matters to the insects. But the evolutionary history seems

1257
01:09:36,960 --> 01:09:41,039
to even predict more of the leaf or bivery than

1258
01:09:41,479 --> 01:09:44,720
than the leaf chemicals themselves. So then so the insects

1259
01:09:44,800 --> 01:09:48,439
seem to be queuing in on this diversity. Now it's

1260
01:09:48,479 --> 01:09:50,960
not like they're doing malecosystematics. It's not like they're reading

1261
01:09:51,000 --> 01:09:52,840
the tree of life directly. So they must be queuing

1262
01:09:52,880 --> 01:09:55,760
in on the traits of the trees. But they are

1263
01:09:55,840 --> 01:09:59,479
traits that are that probably we haven't measured it yet.

1264
01:09:59,520 --> 01:10:02,239
Speaker 1: Or traits that are restricted to certain clades.

1265
01:10:03,359 --> 01:10:06,840
Speaker 2: Exactly, trades that are restricted to certain clades and that

1266
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:08,199
we may not have measured yet.

1267
01:10:08,279 --> 01:10:11,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, that's yeah, that's so cool. This is is

1268
01:10:11,239 --> 01:10:13,079
such wild stuff to think about. And then there's a

1269
01:10:13,079 --> 01:10:16,119
lot of galls too, because I could California and Mexico

1270
01:10:16,560 --> 01:10:19,199
even here because Corcus Virginiana gets planted a lot on

1271
01:10:19,279 --> 01:10:21,840
here in South Texas in front of all these suburban

1272
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:25,159
homes they build, which is crazy because Fuciformists is the

1273
01:10:25,239 --> 01:10:27,680
native one. It's more drought talent anyway. But but the

1274
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:30,159
we get all these leaf galls in them, these little beads,

1275
01:10:30,199 --> 01:10:32,720
they look like little hardened marbles. Some of these galls

1276
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:35,760
can be the size of baseballs in some species like

1277
01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:38,079
Carcus garyana out west in California.

1278
01:10:38,199 --> 01:10:42,680
Speaker 2: What's doing that super diversity? So the lions share these

1279
01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:47,800
galls and there's I want to say there's there's hundreds

1280
01:10:47,840 --> 01:10:50,199
of them. There's certainly over one hundred of them are

1281
01:10:50,239 --> 01:10:55,880
produced by a clade of wasps called the signipid wasps

1282
01:10:56,319 --> 01:11:01,119
and the snipid wasps I believe number about nine hundred

1283
01:11:01,159 --> 01:11:09,560
species worldwide. These are mostly oak specialists. And again great

1284
01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:12,760
work on this by a look at Graham Stones work,

1285
01:11:13,039 --> 01:11:16,960
really exciting work on the on the galls on Scott Egan.

1286
01:11:17,119 --> 01:11:20,399
Numerous people working on these gulls. But what they do

1287
01:11:20,520 --> 01:11:26,039
is the insects come along and they overposit into the tree.

1288
01:11:26,279 --> 01:11:28,960
So they've got an overpositors, that little stinger at the

1289
01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:31,760
back that is specially designed to get an egg into

1290
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:34,640
the into the plant tissue. So what they'll do is

1291
01:11:34,680 --> 01:11:38,159
they'll overposit into the tree. When the egg gets in there,

1292
01:11:38,199 --> 01:11:43,560
this little wasp bag, it stimulates the tree to express

1293
01:11:43,680 --> 01:11:47,800
a certain subset of the tree zone genes. And that

1294
01:11:48,079 --> 01:11:50,840
subset of the genes that are expressed by the tree

1295
01:11:51,000 --> 01:11:55,439
in response to the signipid wasp bag produces the gall

1296
01:11:55,840 --> 01:11:57,920
and like you're saying. The gall can look like a bullet,

1297
01:11:57,920 --> 01:11:59,920
It can look like a gum drop, It can like

1298
01:12:00,279 --> 01:12:03,199
a pom pod, it can look like a like a

1299
01:12:03,359 --> 01:12:05,880
rubber ball, it can look like any variety of things.

1300
01:12:06,279 --> 01:12:12,279
Really cool, uh, cool diversity of galls that then serves

1301
01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:17,319
as a nest, a home for the for the wasp inside.

1302
01:12:17,479 --> 01:12:22,119
The wasp grows inside. Some of these galls will produce

1303
01:12:22,840 --> 01:12:26,000
exodates that are attracted to insects, so they will get

1304
01:12:26,399 --> 01:12:30,079
pulled away by ants and taken away from the tree

1305
01:12:30,760 --> 01:12:33,720
again to disperse the bays, get them into a safe

1306
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:37,560
place to grow, and some of them will grow large,

1307
01:12:37,600 --> 01:12:38,840
like you were talking about, the ones that are the

1308
01:12:38,840 --> 01:12:41,680
size of a ping pong ball or so cut one

1309
01:12:41,680 --> 01:12:44,199
of these things open. What you'll find is that the

1310
01:12:44,239 --> 01:12:48,199
wasp is embedded way away in the middle, almost like

1311
01:12:48,239 --> 01:12:52,199
it's being protected, and it is being protected from parasites

1312
01:12:52,399 --> 01:12:56,359
from wasps that would like to parasitize. That's a niked wasp.

1313
01:12:56,520 --> 01:12:59,640
So there's a whole second set of wasps that parasitize

1314
01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:04,479
the sin wasps, which are themselves parasitizing the oak trees.

1315
01:13:06,119 --> 01:13:08,199
Speaker 1: So it's wild. This is so cool.

1316
01:13:08,239 --> 01:13:14,079
Speaker 2: It's a really cool sort of story that you ask

1317
01:13:14,159 --> 01:13:19,640
about like our oaks, keystone or foundational species. We think

1318
01:13:19,640 --> 01:13:23,079
of them often as more more foundational species. They totally are.

1319
01:13:23,399 --> 01:13:27,960
You get an ecosystem within an ecosystem, right within the acorn.

1320
01:13:28,119 --> 01:13:31,399
Within a single acorn, you get a fungal community, You

1321
01:13:31,479 --> 01:13:35,920
get weavils and moths that live on that that devour

1322
01:13:36,079 --> 01:13:38,760
the acorn. They will leave, and then sometimes there's a

1323
01:13:38,760 --> 01:13:42,159
group of ants that will move in after the weavels

1324
01:13:42,159 --> 01:13:44,359
have left it, or move in right alongside the weavels.

1325
01:13:44,840 --> 01:13:48,479
They'll they'll modify the acorn so that they have a

1326
01:13:48,520 --> 01:13:51,279
better place to live, the pack than pack the hole

1327
01:13:51,319 --> 01:13:55,239
that they entered in tighter so that only their their

1328
01:13:55,279 --> 01:13:57,560
own offspring can get in and out. Do you get

1329
01:13:57,560 --> 01:14:02,239
this ecosystem within ecosystems within ecosy They're so.

1330
01:14:02,279 --> 01:14:05,920
Speaker 1: Really, they're such important trees. It's I mean a lot

1331
01:14:05,960 --> 01:14:08,800
of people might assume, well, no one really, I say

1332
01:14:08,840 --> 01:14:10,880
a lot of people, I mean plant people. No one

1333
01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:13,800
really thinks about this stuff in general, are too obsessed

1334
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:16,640
with trying to impress each other with meaningful material or

1335
01:14:16,680 --> 01:14:20,119
meaningless material goods. Excuse me, but it's my cynical take.

1336
01:14:20,159 --> 01:14:23,079
But a lot of people would think, Okay, when pollinated plant,

1337
01:14:23,079 --> 01:14:25,760
it's not gonna there's not going to be much benefit

1338
01:14:25,800 --> 01:14:28,560
to pollinators. But it's okay. I mean, they make up

1339
01:14:28,560 --> 01:14:33,039
for that in the multitude of ecological services they provide,

1340
01:14:33,560 --> 01:14:38,359
I mean tenfold. They're so massively important.

1341
01:14:38,640 --> 01:14:40,920
Speaker 2: If you want to be inspired about this stuff. Actually,

1342
01:14:40,960 --> 01:14:45,119
Doug Tellamy's book The Nature of Oaks, he really documents

1343
01:14:45,239 --> 01:14:49,079
a lot of these fascinating natural history stories and they're

1344
01:14:49,439 --> 01:14:54,119
really they really they're exciting. It's exciting. The more you

1345
01:14:54,239 --> 01:14:57,159
drilled into anything in the world, right, you find that

1346
01:14:57,199 --> 01:14:59,479
it's more and more interesting. There's more to find. But

1347
01:14:59,520 --> 01:15:00,479
that's certainly the case with.

1348
01:15:00,720 --> 01:15:02,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a big booster for oaks. So is my

1349
01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:08,199
friend Andrew, Andrew the arborist. Yeah, big, big, Okay, they're

1350
01:15:08,239 --> 01:15:11,760
so cool. I mean, the thing that blows my mind

1351
01:15:11,920 --> 01:15:14,560
whenever I go to Mexico is the amount of diversity

1352
01:15:15,199 --> 01:15:19,079
in Mexico. It's insane. And you'll see oaks growing with

1353
01:15:19,239 --> 01:15:21,760
cacti like where you know, the kind of the lowlands

1354
01:15:22,319 --> 01:15:24,840
start to merge with the high you know, at the

1355
01:15:24,880 --> 01:15:30,720
right elevation and the right uh you know ecotone. But uh,

1356
01:15:30,760 --> 01:15:32,880
but why is there so much diversity in Mexico? Like,

1357
01:15:32,920 --> 01:15:35,520
why there's so many different oak species.

1358
01:15:35,600 --> 01:15:37,960
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you asked that i'd like to I

1359
01:15:38,000 --> 01:15:39,760
need to leave in about ten minutes if you don't mind,

1360
01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:42,039
Can we end with with Mexico oak diversity.

1361
01:15:42,159 --> 01:15:44,039
Speaker 1: That sounds good. I'm gonna get you again though here

1362
01:15:44,079 --> 01:15:44,640
just so you know.

1363
01:15:44,800 --> 01:15:47,800
Speaker 2: Okay, that I would love to. Okay, Okay, So the

1364
01:15:47,880 --> 01:15:51,840
Mexican So this is a really exciting story that came

1365
01:15:52,000 --> 01:15:55,880
out that I didn't understand when we started working on oaks.

1366
01:15:56,000 --> 01:15:58,399
I had no idea sort of what the order of

1367
01:15:58,439 --> 01:16:03,039
diversification was. It turns out that so oaks arise in

1368
01:16:03,119 --> 01:16:07,159
the Arctic, they move south ranchly over the course of

1369
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:11,439
tens of millions of years from the early Eascene climatic

1370
01:16:11,479 --> 01:16:16,760
optimum temperatures are cooling, cooling, cooling. They really spread out

1371
01:16:16,840 --> 01:16:20,439
in the Americas, in Europe and East Asia and India

1372
01:16:20,439 --> 01:16:23,640
Oligosine you find all these lobes leaves showing up as

1373
01:16:23,640 --> 01:16:27,479
the temperatures drop precipitously, maybe twenty three million years ago.

1374
01:16:28,239 --> 01:16:34,760
Oaks get into Mexico twice, once in the white oak

1375
01:16:35,439 --> 01:16:40,159
clade section Quercus, once in the red oak clade Quercus

1376
01:16:40,199 --> 01:16:43,399
lobody and they do it about the same time as

1377
01:16:43,439 --> 01:16:47,680
temperatures are really drying and warming in the Miocene, they

1378
01:16:48,560 --> 01:16:50,760
sorry drying and cooling in the Biocene. They move on

1379
01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:54,399
down into Mexico, and it appears that in both groups

1380
01:16:54,560 --> 01:16:58,239
they move into the eastern Mexican mountains by way of

1381
01:16:58,319 --> 01:17:01,359
Texas right, so they move into the Sierra Madre Oriental,

1382
01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:05,359
they go down, they diversify in the trans Mexican volcanic belt,

1383
01:17:06,279 --> 01:17:10,079
send a little shoot down into southern Mexico, Central America,

1384
01:17:10,720 --> 01:17:13,199
and then they both moved back up the Sierra Madre

1385
01:17:13,399 --> 01:17:17,319
occidenttel the mountains on the western side and send a

1386
01:17:17,319 --> 01:17:21,720
few species up into Arizona, New Mexico and one even

1387
01:17:21,760 --> 01:17:22,720
over into California.

1388
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:26,520
Speaker 1: This path, this is sorry, which is all.

1389
01:17:27,199 --> 01:17:30,479
Speaker 2: The way we're tracing. This is a wonderful, exciting integration

1390
01:17:31,039 --> 01:17:37,399
of field biology, natural history, and genomics. So we're able

1391
01:17:37,439 --> 01:17:40,880
to do this by going down working really working with

1392
01:17:41,039 --> 01:17:47,439
wonderful collaborators in Morelia, in Puebla, in Drongo in Tamilipis

1393
01:17:48,399 --> 01:17:53,159
to go do collections and then generate genome scale data.

1394
01:17:53,319 --> 01:17:58,880
So little slivers of DNA scattered across the twelve you know,

1395
01:17:59,000 --> 01:18:03,079
chromosomes of the oak genome, the roughly eighty million base

1396
01:18:03,199 --> 01:18:06,399
pairs of the oak genome, and getting little snippets of DNA,

1397
01:18:07,039 --> 01:18:10,279
and each one of those snippets tells us a little

1398
01:18:10,319 --> 01:18:14,800
story about the origin of a clade, about the differentiation

1399
01:18:14,920 --> 01:18:18,039
of a species, about the connection of that species to

1400
01:18:18,119 --> 01:18:21,920
its ecology. So by putting all these together, all these

1401
01:18:21,960 --> 01:18:23,880
data together, this is how we get this story.

1402
01:18:23,960 --> 01:18:27,000
Speaker 1: So just really good molecular work mixed with field biology.

1403
01:18:27,039 --> 01:18:29,039
Are you corroborating it with fossils at all? Are there

1404
01:18:29,079 --> 01:18:30,239
many fossils.

1405
01:18:29,760 --> 01:18:32,479
Speaker 2: Are now really bad? So I mentioned Thomas Dank near

1406
01:18:32,520 --> 01:18:35,920
the beginning of his talk. Thomas Dank and his colleague

1407
01:18:36,159 --> 01:18:40,560
Guido Grim and there are another colleague of theirs, Johannes Bouchal.

1408
01:18:40,880 --> 01:18:45,119
They've been wonderful collaborators, Marco Simoni as well from Italy.

1409
01:18:45,399 --> 01:18:49,399
They've been great and helping us connect the fossils to

1410
01:18:49,560 --> 01:18:53,840
the genomic data. And it's it's tricky because many of

1411
01:18:53,840 --> 01:18:58,880
these fossils. Thomas is brilliant at looking at fossil pollen,

1412
01:19:00,119 --> 01:19:04,319
extracting from its characters that help us say what clay

1413
01:19:04,399 --> 01:19:08,000
does issconnect to? And that's so important because a lot

1414
01:19:08,000 --> 01:19:11,680
of the fossils that we have are pollen. I almost

1415
01:19:11,760 --> 01:19:15,520
said merely pollen. They're pollen, And I hate to say

1416
01:19:15,520 --> 01:19:19,479
merely pollen because it's so so important. It is merely

1417
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:22,640
pollen in the sense that it's so hard to find characteristics.

1418
01:19:23,000 --> 01:19:25,560
You know, you think how difficult it is to identify

1419
01:19:25,319 --> 01:19:28,520
an oak from its leaves. Imagine how difficult it is

1420
01:19:28,560 --> 01:19:31,800
to identify the oak from its pollen. God, but I

1421
01:19:32,239 --> 01:19:34,039
tell you it's well beyond me.

1422
01:19:34,359 --> 01:19:36,399
Speaker 1: You think about it. For a wind pollinated plant, though,

1423
01:19:36,399 --> 01:19:40,760
that's going to be probably a very abundant fossil compared

1424
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:43,319
to say leaves or something, because they're just blowing it

1425
01:19:43,319 --> 01:19:44,079
out there bingo.

1426
01:19:44,479 --> 01:19:47,520
Speaker 2: Our oldest oak fossil is a is a set of

1427
01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:52,079
pollen grains known from Austria. It's along a little path

1428
01:19:52,199 --> 01:19:57,840
running past Saint Pancrat's Church that was deposited fortuitously fifty

1429
01:19:57,840 --> 01:20:01,640
six million years ago during this one hot hot period

1430
01:20:01,920 --> 01:20:04,520
at the boundary between the Paleocene and the u Scene

1431
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:06,520
where temperatures spiked.

1432
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:08,800
Speaker 1: I know about that.

1433
01:20:08,880 --> 01:20:11,840
Speaker 2: The PTM is do you know, it's like this one

1434
01:20:11,920 --> 01:20:14,760
hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand year period and

1435
01:20:15,039 --> 01:20:17,880
these pollen grains are found in that period, so we

1436
01:20:17,960 --> 01:20:20,399
know to like within two hundred thousand years when these

1437
01:20:20,439 --> 01:20:23,640
oaks grew. Now, those the first oaks in the world. No,

1438
01:20:23,960 --> 01:20:25,600
they can't be, because there must have they must have

1439
01:20:25,600 --> 01:20:28,960
had parents. But they're they're the oldest oaks we know.

1440
01:20:30,000 --> 01:20:32,720
And you know what's just to connect this back to

1441
01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:37,319
what's going on right now. The oaks are born during

1442
01:20:37,319 --> 01:20:42,039
the p ETM, when temperatures rose like as fast as

1443
01:20:42,039 --> 01:20:45,359
we've ever seen. If you look at the temperature as

1444
01:20:45,399 --> 01:20:48,000
I know you have the temperature curve for that period,

1445
01:20:48,239 --> 01:20:52,680
the PETM looks like a post driven into a hillside.

1446
01:20:52,960 --> 01:20:55,279
Temperatures are going up, and then in the PTM they.

1447
01:20:55,239 --> 01:21:01,319
Speaker 1: Soar and massive CO two, massive cor We're now plugging

1448
01:21:01,439 --> 01:21:02,920
CO two into.

1449
01:21:02,680 --> 01:21:07,880
Speaker 2: The atmosphere at a rate that absolutely dwarfs what was

1450
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:08,279
going on.

1451
01:21:08,359 --> 01:21:12,319
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, we're fucked, Okay, I wouldn't say that. Well,

1452
01:21:13,359 --> 01:21:16,600
it's it's gonna be an evolutionarily exciting time in the

1453
01:21:16,640 --> 01:21:19,600
next it's going to be a million years, in the

1454
01:21:19,640 --> 01:21:20,199
next million.

1455
01:21:20,319 --> 01:21:24,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are executing in experiments that has like it's

1456
01:21:24,680 --> 01:21:27,640
not like we have a natural analog. Our natural analog

1457
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:31,039
is so much less dramatic than what we're doing. So, yeah,

1458
01:21:31,079 --> 01:21:34,279
we're and it's not clear to me, like when you

1459
01:21:34,279 --> 01:21:37,399
think about, like what's how Oak's going to respond, I

1460
01:21:37,439 --> 01:21:41,000
would give oaks a better shot than humans. Oaks have

1461
01:21:41,039 --> 01:21:43,960
been around for fifty six million years. Modern humans we've

1462
01:21:43,960 --> 01:21:45,079
been around for about to urn.

1463
01:21:45,199 --> 01:21:47,720
Speaker 1: Oh there's such fucking beasts. Oaks are such beasts. If

1464
01:21:47,720 --> 01:21:51,840
there's anything I mean before, but this podcast especially, I mean,

1465
01:21:52,039 --> 01:21:54,920
they've got so many tools in their toolbag of survival.

1466
01:21:55,319 --> 01:21:58,560
They're just they're they'll be fucking fine. Some might go extinct,

1467
01:21:58,760 --> 01:21:59,680
but they'll also.

1468
01:21:59,680 --> 01:22:02,439
Speaker 2: That's that's right, And that's that's the punchline I was

1469
01:22:02,439 --> 01:22:05,760
going to give is that despite that fact, like so

1470
01:22:06,359 --> 01:22:09,199
the background rate of extinction, if you just look at

1471
01:22:09,199 --> 01:22:12,239
the background rate of extinction, we should not be seeing

1472
01:22:12,319 --> 01:22:17,319
oaks go extinct. Maybe maybe every ten thousand years or so,

1473
01:22:17,600 --> 01:22:21,399
but like thirty percent of oaks right now are at

1474
01:22:21,479 --> 01:22:23,319
risk of extinction according the IUCN.

1475
01:22:23,720 --> 01:22:25,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to sugget that we're doing that.

1476
01:22:26,239 --> 01:22:28,920
Speaker 2: No, it suggests we're doing something wrong. So I think

1477
01:22:28,920 --> 01:22:30,159
we need to get our act together.

1478
01:22:30,680 --> 01:22:33,720
Speaker 1: Yeah we can. Yeah, Well, we're Civilization is like a

1479
01:22:33,720 --> 01:22:36,159
bad alcoholic. It's not going to change its behavior till

1480
01:22:36,159 --> 01:22:38,319
it hits rock bottom, you know. And we're getting and.

1481
01:22:38,720 --> 01:22:40,800
Speaker 2: It's not too late to slow the train. But we've

1482
01:22:40,800 --> 01:22:43,880
got to really be thoughtful about, like what kind of

1483
01:22:43,880 --> 01:22:47,239
world do we want this to look like? And what

1484
01:22:47,279 --> 01:22:49,760
are we willing to give up to have the nice

1485
01:22:49,800 --> 01:22:52,960
things that we we appreciate. I like being able to

1486
01:22:53,000 --> 01:22:55,039
drive to work if I feel like it. I like

1487
01:22:55,119 --> 01:22:58,359
reading the newspaper, you know, all the things that I

1488
01:22:58,439 --> 01:23:00,640
like living in a home, you know, But.

1489
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:02,159
Speaker 1: What if you had a street car? What if you

1490
01:23:02,199 --> 01:23:04,119
could take a street car to work? Wouldn't that be nice?

1491
01:23:04,359 --> 01:23:06,239
Speaker 2: I'd be awfully I would be awfully happy.

1492
01:23:06,399 --> 01:23:06,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1493
01:23:07,000 --> 01:23:07,319
Speaker 2: Happy.

1494
01:23:07,600 --> 01:23:10,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're dealing with the crisis of a value system

1495
01:23:10,600 --> 01:23:15,039
that was doomed from its inception and it's finally what

1496
01:23:15,079 --> 01:23:15,600
it sowed.

1497
01:23:15,680 --> 01:23:18,760
Speaker 2: So we're going to have to for the sake of

1498
01:23:18,800 --> 01:23:21,800
all the things we're We're like, there's been a lot

1499
01:23:21,800 --> 01:23:26,439
of extinction that has allowed oaks to to take over

1500
01:23:26,479 --> 01:23:30,319
the continent, and thank heavens, but there's a difference this time,

1501
01:23:30,359 --> 01:23:33,239
which is like we're driving it, so so we have

1502
01:23:33,279 --> 01:23:35,760
a moral culpability that we need to get our hands

1503
01:23:35,760 --> 01:23:40,520
around and really make conscious, conscientious decisions about how we

1504
01:23:40,520 --> 01:23:45,600
live our lives societally and individually. And one of the

1505
01:23:45,600 --> 01:23:49,600
things that that we do know is that oak ecosystems

1506
01:23:50,000 --> 01:23:53,520
are highly diverse, and so we can do a lot

1507
01:23:54,079 --> 01:23:58,840
to restore and promote oak ecosystems and understand the oaks,

1508
01:23:58,840 --> 01:24:02,159
and it's one of the bajillion things we could do.

1509
01:24:02,319 --> 01:24:04,680
Speaker 1: So everybody should learn their local oaks and just grow

1510
01:24:04,680 --> 01:24:06,960
a shit ton of them and collect acorns. You start

1511
01:24:07,159 --> 01:24:14,840
start illegally planting acorns and public landscaping, vacant lots, railroad embankments, thoroughfares.

1512
01:24:14,239 --> 01:24:17,479
Speaker 2: Et cetera. I think getting involved in any kind of

1513
01:24:17,920 --> 01:24:21,479
any kind of ecosystem restoration, jump jump on it because

1514
01:24:21,520 --> 01:24:24,760
it's a great it's a great way to do something positive.

1515
01:24:24,920 --> 01:24:27,199
Speaker 1: That's what I would. Yeah, that's especially, but even just

1516
01:24:27,239 --> 01:24:29,319
collecting acorns in your pocket. Used to do that all

1517
01:24:29,359 --> 01:24:31,399
the time when I lived in California. We just collect

1518
01:24:31,399 --> 01:24:33,479
a shit ton and just sow, I'm here and there.

1519
01:24:33,840 --> 01:24:35,399
You know. I was like a little graffiti kid, just

1520
01:24:35,399 --> 01:24:38,439
planting acorns around wherever, just like the scrub jays do

1521
01:24:38,520 --> 01:24:41,199
out there. Because you get quirkisagrifol you're popping up all

1522
01:24:41,239 --> 01:24:43,560
over the train yard and you know, kind of run

1523
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:46,560
down areas along fence lines where the scrub jays will

1524
01:24:46,600 --> 01:24:48,760
plant them and then forget where they cash them, et cetera.

1525
01:24:48,840 --> 01:24:51,840
So anybody could do that. If you're listening, do that.

1526
01:24:51,880 --> 01:24:55,159
Collect acorns, stash them in your pocket, just disperse them

1527
01:24:55,199 --> 01:24:58,520
all around. But I'm gonna get you back. I'm gonna

1528
01:24:58,560 --> 01:25:01,000
let you go, but I'm gonna we're gonna do a two. Okay, buddy,

1529
01:25:01,039 --> 01:25:01,720
in the next life.

1530
01:25:01,880 --> 01:25:04,079
Speaker 2: Life Am I allowed to plug a book?

1531
01:25:04,119 --> 01:25:06,159
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I wanted to ask you about that too.

1532
01:25:06,319 --> 01:25:08,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just going to recommend that. A lot of

1533
01:25:08,680 --> 01:25:10,680
what I'm telling is covered in a new book that

1534
01:25:10,720 --> 01:25:13,680
I've got coming out through University of Chicago Press. It's

1535
01:25:13,720 --> 01:25:18,600
called Oak Origins From Acorns to Species in the Tree

1536
01:25:18,640 --> 01:25:21,560
of Life. You can pre order it right now. It's

1537
01:25:21,600 --> 01:25:24,439
going to be out in December, and it really goes

1538
01:25:24,560 --> 01:25:27,720
through the story of oaks, from the acorns, from that

1539
01:25:27,800 --> 01:25:30,920
whole life history thing, natural history stuff that I that's

1540
01:25:30,960 --> 01:25:34,239
so exciting, through the tree of life to the genome.

1541
01:25:34,399 --> 01:25:37,479
And it's written to be readable. It's written I got

1542
01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:41,640
my background in this stuff, not by way of science.

1543
01:25:41,720 --> 01:25:44,600
I came in by way of being a naturalist and

1544
01:25:44,640 --> 01:25:48,800
teacher and enjoying being outside, and so it's really written

1545
01:25:48,880 --> 01:25:51,800
for I think of myself when I was twenty five

1546
01:25:51,840 --> 01:25:54,680
and I didn't know anything about evolutionary biology. So I

1547
01:25:54,680 --> 01:25:56,800
think these stories that we talked about are all covered

1548
01:25:56,800 --> 01:25:57,319
in that book.

1549
01:25:57,359 --> 01:25:59,880
Speaker 1: You're man, h That's what I got from this podcast.

1550
01:26:00,000 --> 01:26:02,279
You're a man of the people. You're you're an educator.

1551
01:26:02,319 --> 01:26:05,800
You're not you know, you're not just some elitist academic.

1552
01:26:05,880 --> 01:26:08,800
You're I mean, you could fit in with those crowds,

1553
01:26:08,800 --> 01:26:13,760
but you're very good at communicating teaching. I learned so

1554
01:26:13,920 --> 01:26:16,399
much in this and I already knew a lot. I mean,

1555
01:26:16,439 --> 01:26:19,199
this is like I didn't you know, it's you're teaching

1556
01:26:19,239 --> 01:26:19,680
me a lot.

1557
01:26:19,840 --> 01:26:23,199
Speaker 2: So and Joey, it's a. It's it's super it's a

1558
01:26:23,279 --> 01:26:26,199
it's a great honor to be to be asked to

1559
01:26:26,239 --> 01:26:27,880
speak with you today and speak.

1560
01:26:27,640 --> 01:26:30,640
Speaker 3: With your your group. So this is thank you, thank you.

1561
01:26:30,760 --> 01:26:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm just some who wiggled my way into this little.

1562
01:26:36,439 --> 01:26:36,600
Speaker 2: Way.

1563
01:26:36,760 --> 01:26:38,720
Speaker 1: But all right, man, well I'm serious though. We're going

1564
01:26:38,800 --> 01:26:40,720
to do a part two. I'll email you about it later.

1565
01:26:41,039 --> 01:26:42,760
I'll get the link for your book. I'll put that

1566
01:26:42,800 --> 01:26:45,960
in the description and uh we'll talk about Mexico and

1567
01:26:46,000 --> 01:26:48,840
the future evokes next podcast. Thank you so much for

1568
01:26:48,920 --> 01:26:49,319
coming on.

1569
01:26:49,439 --> 01:26:50,600
Speaker 2: Thank you to all right.

1570
01:26:50,640 --> 01:26:52,560
Speaker 1: You have a good day, Andrew. Everybody, I take care

1571
01:26:52,560 --> 01:26:53,279
of go Buck. Somebody