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Speaker 1: Okay, welcome to the crime page, but botany doesn't podcast.

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Today on a podcast we have doctor Lynn Clark, who

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studies the neotropical bamboos, which I was absolutely blown away by.

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I mean I'm repeatedly blown away by whenever I encounter

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them in South America. They're major components. The genus Chiskeay

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is a major component of many of the habitats in

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southern Chile. I mean, I was in these ricaria forests

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where Chiscale was just forming, just forming, this almost monoculture

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mixed in with Alstromeria and the understory of these giant

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Ericarria trees colloquially known as monkey pozles, I can't stand

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a name, but anyway, And then I've seen them in

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Brazil as well in the Atlantic Forest and they're everywhere.

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And then more recently, I saw the genus Guadua, Guadua

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and Gustafoglia in the upper Amazon of Ecuador at about

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four thousand foot elevation and they were like ninety feet tall.

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So these are really impressive plants. This is a really

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impressive clade evolutionary group of plants. So doctor Lynn Clark,

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thank you for making time today.

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Speaker 2: You're very welcome.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So let's I don't know where to start. I mean,

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let's talk about I guess just for anybody listening, what

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is a bamboo, their grass is. But it's a specific

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subfamily of the grass family.

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Speaker 2: Right, that is correct. They are one of the largest

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actually about the third largest subfamily, so they were a

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pretty major lineage. And they are the only group of

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like major group of grasses to really evolve in association

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with forest habitats. And so that's one thing that makes

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them very different. So they many of them actually are

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competing with trees, and some of them, like the herbaceous bamboos,

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have adapted to that understory kind of habitat. And what

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the most unique character besides the molecular data that we

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have that shows that they are a claye, they have

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this very unusual cell type in their leads. It's you know,

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the cells in the middle of the leafs that do

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the photosynthesis. They have something that we call arm cells,

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and they're kind of like it's almost like a big tooth,

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you know, because there's lobes on these on these cells.

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Very very specific pattern. So that's another clue that yeah,

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they all they all had a common ancestor and they're

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all related to each other.

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Speaker 1: So these arm cells, what are they? Is there like

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an adaptive benefit? What does it do? As like a

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lay person might say, what is what's their the why

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they evolve?

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Speaker 2: Very good question. That's another project I'm doing is we're

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looking at these cells across the whole grass family, and

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it turns out these are not the only kind that

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are lobed. We think it's the way to increase surface

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area and so that would maybe make make it more

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efficient or more you know, enable photosynthesis to be to

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make more stuff and so you know maybe in the

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in a forest habitat where a lot of the time

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they're shaded, maybe that you know, extra surface area really

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helps them do that competition with trees that we were

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talking about.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, So

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so arm cells, these are specialized cells in the in

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the leaf mesaville, which is the tissue between the upper

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and lower epidermis, and they've got these you said, lobe

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like it looks like a tooth or what.

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Speaker 2: Is it the Yeah, it's like mostly so they can

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be lobed from the lower surface towards the top, or

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from the upper surface towards the bottom or both. And

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when you if you take a razor blade and you

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were to cut one of these leaves in cross section,

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they show up. You can see those lobes and it's like,

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that's it. That's a bamboo.

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Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I'm seeing it. The cross section almost looks

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like a four leaf clover or something.

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Speaker 2: It can yeah, yeah, okay, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, but either way, these are these are probably one

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of the theories is they're potentially helping the plant cook

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up more sugars from photosynthesis, making them more photosynthetically.

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Speaker 3: What's the efficient efficient?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, anyway, okay, So so that's

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the bamboos, And what's the they or the subfamily originated

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in where Southeast Asia?

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Speaker 3: It's thought that's what we.

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Speaker 2: Think right now. That seems to be the most likely

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based on all the evidence that we have.

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Speaker 1: All right, and so what's the what is molecular clock?

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What do we got like an estimation of origin time

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here or.

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Speaker 2: Yes, mostly like thirty five ish to forty million years

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ago something in that ballpark?

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Speaker 1: So like what is that like lady has seen Alega

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seine or something.

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Speaker 2: Hmmm, that's the least scene I'm remember incorrectly or late,

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no early.

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Speaker 1: To double check it was a long time ago, it was.

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It was after the comet. Yeah, it was after the

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comet took out the dinosaurs, but it was still pretty

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far back. So yeah, okay, so in these so because

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I mean, most people think of bamboo, they think of Asia,

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they think of Panda's what I'm talking about, like non bodanists,

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you know, it's just like normal labor. But I mean,

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I was surprised to find them. I remember where I

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was too. I was on a on a nero granitic

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knob near one of those. I God, the name escapes me.

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It's like a Dutch word for uh, those giant granite

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knobs in Brazil. I don't know. Anyway, it's.

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Speaker 2: Like a sugarloaf mountain things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, God, it's such a granite. I can't remember

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the name. Anyway. The point, I was on one of

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these and I saw there there's a bunch of really

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cool plants there, lithophytic orchids, bromeliads, and this this what

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I could tell, was obviously a bamboo, but it had

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a much different flavor to it, a much different gestalt

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than you know, the invasive Asian ones that get planted

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in North American gardens, and I thought, this is really unique.

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This is obviously a native what is that? And that

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was my first experience with the genus Chiskea. And then

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I started seeing them a lot more and paying attention

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to them and read up on them and realized, Wow,

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this is a huge, a huge clade. When did so

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when did the when was there this diverse this dispersal

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from Asia where the where the subfamily originated to the

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New World.

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Speaker 2: That's a we would all love to know the answer

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to that. And right now, all everything is pointing to

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something around twenty twenty two million years ago somewhere, you know,

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it's a little bit after the bamboos of Ault in Asia,

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So we don't know for sure, and we don't know

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exactly how that would have happened because there was still,

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you know, significant separation among the continents that there would

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have been not exactly what we see today, but you know,

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still pretty pretty big distances. And somehow they got there

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and started diversifying. And there's actually probably were two introductions,

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because there's herbaceous bamboos in addition to the woody bamboos,

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and one of the earliest lineages of herbaceous bamboos is

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in New Guinea. There's one species in one genus there,

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and then all the rest of the diversity in that

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group is in the New World.

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Speaker 1: Jesus, And you know from looking at DNA that these

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are that's obviously part of this other clade. They're related

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to the neotropical ones. Yep. Absolutely, that's that's a huge disjunction.

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That's crazy.

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Speaker 3: That's like it is nuts.

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Speaker 2: That's yeah. The closest relative to the one in New

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Guinea is are these three endemic genera in Cuba. And yeah,

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that was just that blew us away when we first

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got that result. It was just a few years ago

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we were able to confirm that.

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Speaker 1: What's the name of the New Guinea species.

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Speaker 2: It's burgerzio kloa bambusois burgerzi.

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Speaker 1: How do you spell that? B e r Let.

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Speaker 2: Me think here, No, it's I have to write it out.

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I won't spell it correctly.

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Speaker 3: C U b u E R b U E r g.

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Speaker 2: E R s I O c h l o A.

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Speaker 1: Okay, is this a monotypic genus, yes, okay, so it

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should come up. Okay, let me get that just in

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case any one listening wants to look it up, which

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I recommend people do if they're Yeah, okay bergerzy aklo

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of bamboo. Soytis so many obscure plant names in my

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Google search history? Yeah wow? Okay, cool? All right, Yeah

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this is a And how tall does this thing get? Oh?

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Speaker 2: I think typically a meter maybe?

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, about three feet?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's like that's like a generally yeah, like

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three three feet or less, I think so. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean I've never seen it in the fields, much

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as I would like to. But the herbaceous bamboos are

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done generally speaking, much smaller, and they they look more

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like I mean they they have some fairly tough stems,

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but they're not very big. And most of them are yeah,

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no more than a meter two meters tall at the most.

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And there's actually the smallest bamboo is a herbaceous bamboo

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and it's only about two to three centimeters tall.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow? What is that?

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Speaker 2: It's called radi ella vanessi.

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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, spelling again, okay, yep.

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Speaker 2: R A D D D D E l e e

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l l A rady ella and vanessi uh is v

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a and like vanessa with an e on the end.

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Speaker 1: VANESSI, oh Vanesse, okay, And where's where's this native to?

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Speaker 2: This one is native to? I think, uh it's Brazil.

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Speaker 1: God man, I had no idea there was. Yeah. I

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looked up some of the bamboosdi like the native BAMBUSSORTI.

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Oh god, this thing's tiny. Jesus. Yeah, I looked up

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some of the native bambusori in South America and I

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was blown away at the diversity. There's quite a bit.

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I mean, I been there twenty million years at least,

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so it makes sense they would have diversified. But I

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didn't know there were so many different genera.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there is so use if I can give you

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some numbers. So for the alyri e, we're up to,

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oh is it twenty four genera total? And I think

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and Bergerzio kloa and so minus stats. So you got

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about twenty three genera and about one hundred and forty species.

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And then for the woody bamboos we are at six.

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We're in the twenties as well, twenty three or four

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and about four hundred and sixty species.

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Speaker 1: Jesus, so twenty four genera and four hundred and sixty species.

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Speaker 3: Yes, So these are.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are these are huge components of the

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ecosystems of South America. The I do want to bring

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up too, We've mentioned like the herbasi species and woody

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species monocots, since bamboos and monocot don't produce, don't produce

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you know, secondary marastimes. They don't have lateral marastimes, so

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they don't produce, they don't produce wood what, But they're

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they're obviously very structurally sturdy and tough. And you know

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what most people call bamboo wood? What what is that?

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Speaker 2: Technically, so it's it is all produced by the primary growth,

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so by the apelical mirros stem of any given shoot.

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But it is actually chemically as these plants start to grow,

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you know, the new shoot comes out of the ground,

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it's still very soft because it has to elongate obviously,

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and then they start pretty much from the base. Once

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they've started that growth and they're reaching their full height,

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they start lignifying. And so lignin is the chemical that

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makes wood wood. When we're talking about a tree, the

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cells that are in the middle of the stem become lignified,

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and so it's kind of the same with the bamboos,

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lignin is deposited in those cell walls, and so the chemically,

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you know, it has kind of the same origin as

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would it's just the way the marastims make the cells.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay different. So it's just it's it's the same compound.

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I mean, it's it's lignin, but it's not produced by

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it's not as produced by a secondary mariston, by a cambium.

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So because I mean, yeah, all monocots, except for what

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is dressina, and a handful of them just basically grow

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up and down. They don't grow out. That's why palm

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trees get so tall and skinny. For anybody listening, remember that.

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So I've said it like nine thousand times, but I'll

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keep saying it so anyway, But so, how many grass

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species do this? How many members of the family Poesi

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actually produce lignan besides the bamboos. Are they the only

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subfamily that you know of?

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Speaker 2: No, there's definitely some other members that make that have

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lignified stems. So think about the reeds, you know, that's

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the ones you know, like musical instrument reads actually come

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00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:20,960
They're not from bamboo. They come from members of the

235
00:14:21,039 --> 00:14:28,080
reed subfamily and there's a few other grasses scattered around,

236
00:14:28,279 --> 00:14:34,799
you know, especially some of the tropical ones, but they

237
00:14:34,799 --> 00:14:36,399
can make lignified stems.

238
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Speaker 3: What's the reed subfamily A run Denoi they.

239
00:14:41,960 --> 00:14:43,480
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, like a runding area.

240
00:14:43,519 --> 00:14:48,039
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, son Dons.

241
00:14:47,639 --> 00:14:53,080
Speaker 1: Is the oh yeah, yeah, bad invasive, especially down here

242
00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:54,200
on the Rio grand.

243
00:14:55,919 --> 00:15:00,440
Speaker 2: That's that's frag Mighty's. Frag Mighty's is the bad one.

244
00:15:01,559 --> 00:15:04,279
Speaker 1: A Rondo's pretty invasive though, too, right. That's not a

245
00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:06,519
North American native, No.

246
00:15:06,559 --> 00:15:10,399
Speaker 2: It's not, but it's really much more tropical. Frank nineties

247
00:15:10,519 --> 00:15:12,080
is the one that gets further north.

248
00:15:12,360 --> 00:15:14,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm well, we get a rundo

249
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:16,919
down here, but I mean I'm basically it was like

250
00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:21,200
one hundred and five the other day, so in mid March. Yeah,

251
00:15:21,679 --> 00:15:23,440
I mean I think that, you know, that's an anomaly.

252
00:15:23,480 --> 00:15:26,120
Normally it's in the nineties, but one oh five. Okay,

253
00:15:26,159 --> 00:15:30,840
so but this would nonetheless, like when someone's getting caned,

254
00:15:31,279 --> 00:15:35,679
that's it's probably with the bamboo species. Yeah, okay, like

255
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:38,799
when that kid got caught spray painting in Singapore twenty

256
00:15:38,840 --> 00:15:41,919
five years ago. I remember that because I was yeah, yeah,

257
00:15:41,919 --> 00:15:43,360
it was like a lesson is you know, I was

258
00:15:43,399 --> 00:15:45,480
still a juvenile then and that was like a lesson.

259
00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:47,960
I remember my mom being like, you know, so you

260
00:15:48,080 --> 00:15:50,799
go pull this shit over there in Singapore cane you

261
00:15:51,559 --> 00:15:55,840
but uh anyway, But but I mean these some of

262
00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:59,080
the like when I was looking at Guadua, and I mean,

263
00:15:59,639 --> 00:16:03,440
some of these things are like, god damn, they're huge. Man,

264
00:16:03,559 --> 00:16:08,080
Like the cane, what would be the cane is like,

265
00:16:08,399 --> 00:16:10,799
you know, some of them were like ten inches wide

266
00:16:10,879 --> 00:16:14,519
like these stems. It was insane. Yeah, massive, but.

267
00:16:16,279 --> 00:16:17,639
Speaker 2: Yeah over ninety feet tall.

268
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so crazy. What The thing that I'm curious about,

269
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:25,279
too is what I find odd about a lot of

270
00:16:25,279 --> 00:16:28,080
the bamboos and also really cool and unique for grasses,

271
00:16:28,159 --> 00:16:31,279
is that they've got these lateral buds that they can

272
00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:34,600
form these lateral shoots out of their main stems. How

273
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:38,600
do you explain that physiologically? Because you look at like

274
00:16:38,639 --> 00:16:40,840
big blue stem or some of our native peririe they

275
00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:44,240
don't do that obviously. What's going on there with the

276
00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:47,440
these like Guadua. You know, you'll get this ninety foot

277
00:16:47,480 --> 00:16:49,440
tall shoot and then at the nodes you'll get these

278
00:16:50,159 --> 00:16:53,600
secondary branches that come out that are covered in spines.

279
00:16:53,919 --> 00:16:56,639
What is that exactly, So.

280
00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:00,440
Speaker 2: When it goes back to thinking about how they're actually

281
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:03,399
growing and competing with trees, because that's what the woody

282
00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:06,480
bamboos are doing. And so you know that new shoot

283
00:17:06,559 --> 00:17:09,400
that comes out of the ground when it's ready to go,

284
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:14,119
it's you know, covered with those they are highly modified

285
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:17,839
leaves that sort of wrap around and help keep it

286
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:21,839
from falling over until it gets dignified. So they come

287
00:17:21,880 --> 00:17:24,599
out of the ground and they go they grow all

288
00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:27,720
the way up to their full height in a few months.

289
00:17:28,799 --> 00:17:31,400
The rate varies depending on where they are and how

290
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:35,599
much water there is, but some of them have been

291
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:40,599
measured at growing like over three feet a day elongating,

292
00:17:41,119 --> 00:17:45,519
so that's really the Chinese have a folk saying, don't

293
00:17:45,519 --> 00:17:49,359
hang your hat on a bamboo shoot, because you won't

294
00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:53,960
get it back. So they they will elongate all the

295
00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:56,599
way up, and of course the energy for that is

296
00:17:56,759 --> 00:18:00,400
mostly coming from the mother plant, you know, the stored

297
00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:04,319
all this up and getting that plant all the way up.

298
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,880
But then they have to make leaves, and so that's

299
00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:10,440
what those buds do. They make the branches that have

300
00:18:10,519 --> 00:18:14,519
the foliage leaves so they can do the photosynthesis, and

301
00:18:14,599 --> 00:18:18,839
once they start they can extend those out and then

302
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:23,079
they're on their own. Basically they can start photosynthesizing, and

303
00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:27,519
even if they're still connected to the mother plant, they're

304
00:18:27,519 --> 00:18:30,359
physiologically you know, supporting themselves.

305
00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:34,039
Speaker 1: And when you say mother when you say mother plant,

306
00:18:34,079 --> 00:18:36,279
I mean this is we should mention. These things form

307
00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:40,720
massive colonies. I mean, how big can so they're spreading,

308
00:18:41,039 --> 00:18:45,359
They've got rhizomes spreading underground, and then those rhizomes essentially

309
00:18:45,400 --> 00:18:49,079
send up new massive shoots. I mean, these things. I

310
00:18:49,440 --> 00:18:51,279
stood next to one. It was tall on me, it

311
00:18:51,319 --> 00:18:53,839
was like six and a half feet tall. Looked like

312
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:56,920
a giant asparagus just shooting out of the ground that,

313
00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:58,200
you know, And this is like a month ago. That

314
00:18:58,240 --> 00:18:59,880
thing is probably thirty feet tall.

315
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:05,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. That's what they do. And yeah,

316
00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:10,279
they they have these, you know, I mean it imagine

317
00:19:10,519 --> 00:19:12,920
the life cycle of a bamboo. At some point it

318
00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:18,680
starts with a seed and grows and that shoot is

319
00:19:18,799 --> 00:19:22,759
very tiny, but each successive shoot that comes off of

320
00:19:22,799 --> 00:19:25,839
that is a little bit larger. And they keep doing

321
00:19:25,920 --> 00:19:30,400
that until they get to whatever their mature diameters is

322
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:35,640
supposed to be for that species. And then and it

323
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:40,200
can take like five years from the growth is you know,

324
00:19:40,279 --> 00:19:43,599
the germination of that seed for the plant to get

325
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,599
to that point, okay, and then it'll you know, and

326
00:19:46,599 --> 00:19:49,920
then it keeps the Each rhizome can throw off usually

327
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:54,640
two or three new shoots per season, and then yeah,

328
00:19:54,680 --> 00:19:59,240
they just keep growing and doing that year after year

329
00:19:59,279 --> 00:20:05,319
after year without flowering. And then this is this is

330
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:09,640
another one of these mysteries. They count, they somehow count,

331
00:20:10,519 --> 00:20:16,319
and so when that cycle is reached for that species,

332
00:20:16,359 --> 00:20:23,319
each species can have its own flowering cycle. They basically

333
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:29,319
all no, it's time and they convert to a reproductive

334
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:34,240
merrist them and they start making the flowers and they

335
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:42,960
basically have sex once and they die. That's what monocarpy means.

336
00:20:43,039 --> 00:20:45,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, so their monocarpic like a go, I want to

337
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:49,680
get to the flowering. The flowering uh part of this

338
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,319
whole conversation, which I mean that alone is weird as hell.

339
00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:54,720
But these so I was I was going to say,

340
00:20:54,960 --> 00:21:00,599
because obviously, you know, monocts don't produce uh, secondary growth,

341
00:21:00,599 --> 00:21:02,680
They just grow up and down, not out. But these

342
00:21:02,799 --> 00:21:07,319
these bamboos, in the case of Guadua this you know,

343
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:11,000
Amazonia one can get fucking ten inches. Yeah, I mean

344
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:14,359
ten inch a ten inch wide shoot ninety feet tall.

345
00:21:15,279 --> 00:21:17,039
But I was gonna, I was gonna wonder, like when

346
00:21:17,039 --> 00:21:19,680
the seed germinates, how does it get that big? So

347
00:21:19,799 --> 00:21:23,720
basically it's the first you know, individual that comes up,

348
00:21:23,759 --> 00:21:25,839
the first stem that comes up is just what you

349
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,000
would expect to get from a relatively small seed compared

350
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,440
to the mother plant. And then it just keeps sending

351
00:21:31,519 --> 00:21:35,480
out rhizominously new shoots that subsequently get bigger, until you've

352
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,799
got this massive you know, what's the diameter of a

353
00:21:38,839 --> 00:21:43,279
sewer pipe almost shoot? And so how big can these

354
00:21:43,319 --> 00:21:45,599
colonies get? Like, what's the biggest one you've seen?

355
00:21:47,519 --> 00:21:52,960
Speaker 2: Oh boy, there's sometimes it's hard to know, you know,

356
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,960
what a plant is inside of a colony because they

357
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:03,240
can be so intermixed. Guattawa, there's a couple of different

358
00:22:03,279 --> 00:22:06,160
species involved. But the ones in the Amazon, you know,

359
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:09,640
they've done some studies where there's you know, I think

360
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:14,680
it's one hundred and sixty thousand square kilometers or something

361
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:21,039
that's covered by these groves of these huge bamboos, and

362
00:22:22,039 --> 00:22:25,680
you know, they've done lands at images to kind of

363
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:30,200
calculate how much there is, and it's just insane how

364
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,039
much territory they cover.

365
00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:35,680
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's not one individual plant, is that?

366
00:22:35,839 --> 00:22:39,799
Speaker 2: No, No it's not. And that's but how many plants? Yeah,

367
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:45,640
that's really hard. Sometimes if it's a strict clumper, you

368
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:48,759
can go in a particular place and you can kind

369
00:22:48,759 --> 00:22:50,519
of get an idea. You know, you can assume that

370
00:22:50,559 --> 00:22:55,200
each clump is one individual. And even that may not

371
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,000
be absolutely true. If you had two seedlings germinate close

372
00:22:58,039 --> 00:23:01,839
to each other, you know, maybe they're intermixed in a

373
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:05,079
single clump. Yeah, but the most part that's you know,

374
00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:06,039
you got to start somewhere.

375
00:23:06,079 --> 00:23:07,759
Speaker 1: But these get fucking big. I mean, this is this

376
00:23:07,839 --> 00:23:11,279
is like rivaling a quaking aspen grove. I mean this

377
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:14,480
is like yeah, this I tell you man, this when

378
00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:19,200
I saw this species, the Guadua and Gusta Folia, that

379
00:23:19,279 --> 00:23:22,559
really I was like, Okay, this is pretty this is insane.

380
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,960
This is wild. I mean, And can you imagine what

381
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:28,480
those root systems look like underground? Like if you had

382
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:30,559
like X ray vision and you could just look underground

383
00:23:30,559 --> 00:23:34,599
at the massive fibrous roots of like a like one

384
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:39,799
hundred and sixty thousand square kilometer, Yeah, it's it's nuts.

385
00:23:40,079 --> 00:23:43,240
They The thing that's I noticed too, like these they've

386
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,599
got these hairs on them when they're when they're popping it.

387
00:23:45,599 --> 00:23:47,079
Like that's like that six and a half foot tall

388
00:23:47,079 --> 00:23:49,960
shoot that I saw. You top, you touch that sheath

389
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:54,200
because they've got these you know, leaflike or these sheath

390
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,880
like leaves that come up from the nodes and can

391
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:00,200
be like eighteen inches toll in some cases in prot

392
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,799
the new shoot, and they've got these like rusty hairs

393
00:24:03,799 --> 00:24:05,680
on them and almost feel like a cat tongue or

394
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:07,960
like shark skin or something. What are what are those?

395
00:24:08,039 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 2: And they stick in your skin? Some of those are

396
00:24:12,079 --> 00:24:17,920
they're they're sharp, they're nasty, they're irritating, and so we

397
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,839
you know, if you're if you're actually collecting one of these,

398
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:24,680
are studying it, you've got to wear ways were long

399
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:29,440
sleeves and you know those the long gloves, gauntlet gloves,

400
00:24:30,559 --> 00:24:33,119
and I've gotten them, you know I've had after collecting

401
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:35,839
his guadala, I usually have to take a my Swiss

402
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,079
army knife and just kind of gently scrape along my

403
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,920
arms because as many of those hairs out as possible.

404
00:24:42,079 --> 00:24:45,400
Speaker 1: So these there's other like rivaling, like like Opunthius, like

405
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:49,720
they're rivaling prickly pairs like in there glockets the what

406
00:24:49,799 --> 00:24:51,920
do you think was eating these things? Because those those

407
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,319
lateral branches they get have those mean ass spines. And

408
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,279
I remember I was asking my friend Alex, who's a herpetologist,

409
00:24:58,279 --> 00:24:59,799
when I was done and one I was like, you guys,

410
00:24:59,799 --> 00:25:02,680
get any bamboos is before I saw Guadua, and he's like,

411
00:25:02,799 --> 00:25:05,599
just those huge ones with the spines. And I was like, chisca.

412
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:07,319
I thought it was just SKay. I didn't know there

413
00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:09,920
was this much diversity in BAMBOOSORTI and I was like,

414
00:25:10,279 --> 00:25:11,920
just SKay, it doesn't have spines. But then when I

415
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:13,920
saw and he was complaining about it, was like, yeah,

416
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:15,640
we get stuck by him all the time. And then

417
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:17,720
when I saw him, I realized, God, these are like

418
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,839
really mean spines. This is this implies something in this

419
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,880
thing's evolutionary past was chewing on it. I mean, probably

420
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,880
a multitude of things, but I mean I imagine, you know,

421
00:25:28,039 --> 00:25:31,400
giant sloths too, were at some point a big pain

422
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,880
in the ass for this lineage for this genus.

423
00:25:34,799 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that could have been part of what

424
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:40,640
was going on, because yeah, and you know whether that

425
00:25:40,839 --> 00:25:45,200
actually how much that deters you know, that kind of herbivy.

426
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,440
But yeah, if you have a fairly big animal like that,

427
00:25:47,519 --> 00:25:53,079
maybe that's you know, but we also there's some ideas

428
00:25:53,079 --> 00:25:56,960
that you know, some of these guadawa's especially there's some

429
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:01,480
in the in the Amazon, for so we kind of

430
00:26:01,519 --> 00:26:05,920
divide them into some different groups. There's sort of the

431
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,759
big tall erect ones and then Gustafolio is definitely in

432
00:26:09,799 --> 00:26:13,680
that group. There's some smaller, kind of more arched ones

433
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,839
that actually grow out in the savannahs that are not

434
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:23,119
you know, they've adapted to a more highlight environment and

435
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:26,799
low tree you know, they're they're out there. And then

436
00:26:26,799 --> 00:26:30,160
there's some that we call tree killers because they actually

437
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:33,440
grow up and lean on the trees and they'll shade

438
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:38,359
them and essentially kill them. And the thorns could actually

439
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:45,039
help them, you know, in that sense hooking their clingers,

440
00:26:45,079 --> 00:26:51,640
they're hooks. So that's another possible advantage than having thorns

441
00:26:51,799 --> 00:26:52,680
could give a plant.

442
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so there might have been too, you know,

443
00:26:56,039 --> 00:26:59,680
adaptive benefits selecting for thorns, you know, in the environment.

444
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 2: So also one of the things think of the way

445
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:09,359
those branches. You probably saw this for the branches, especially

446
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:11,960
on the lower notes, they're kind of sticking out kind

447
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:15,319
of straight, and they end up kind of entwining with

448
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:19,039
each other, and so there's there may be kind of

449
00:27:19,039 --> 00:27:24,680
a support function that helps somehow, you know, if there's wind,

450
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,079
you know, we've speculated that that could also be another

451
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:30,799
advantage to.

452
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: Having supporting the main plant, or just holding the branches

453
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:36,640
up so they can collect more light or.

454
00:27:36,559 --> 00:27:39,799
Speaker 2: What sort of like each other. You know, they're they're

455
00:27:39,839 --> 00:27:42,359
sort of intertwined with each other, and so it kind

456
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,640
of keeps the whole colony from just getting blown over.

457
00:27:47,279 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, that makes sense. God, there's Yeah, they're sore.

458
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:52,799
But either way, there's a lot going on here. It

459
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,920
sounds like and it's not just as simple as you

460
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,279
know what. That makes me wonder too, what what have

461
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:04,359
you seen or you know, encountered feeding on these things?

462
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,759
I mean not just I mean both like macro erbivores

463
00:28:07,799 --> 00:28:11,279
and micro orbivores, insects, etc. We're just talking about guadaway here.

464
00:28:11,279 --> 00:28:13,240
I'm not even getting into chiscaia yet, but I mean,

465
00:28:13,279 --> 00:28:17,880
are there like wooly monkeys hitting these things slows insects?

466
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,480
Are there specifist insects that use them as host plants or.

467
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:27,880
Speaker 2: What absolutely especially Guado is like an amazing example of this.

468
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:36,839
So there are associated vertebrates, invertebrates, there are some that

469
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,200
are thought to have actually evolved to be associated with

470
00:28:41,319 --> 00:28:46,079
the bamboos, and so you get there's a number of

471
00:28:47,519 --> 00:28:49,200
I think where to start because there is so much

472
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,680
going on here, so sort of think about how these

473
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,720
develop when a new shoot comes up. It's not uncommon

474
00:28:57,759 --> 00:29:02,799
for if numoned wasps to overposit. You know, they'll punch

475
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,160
on through because Guadawa is hollow. Almost all the species

476
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:14,160
are hollow, and they'll overposit. And in these Amazonian ones,

477
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,920
they also generally have water, a little bit of water.

478
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,279
They're in the internodes, and so you'll get things like

479
00:29:22,319 --> 00:29:26,799
these losts. You'll get various kinds of different dipternes, you know,

480
00:29:26,839 --> 00:29:32,480
like mosquito type. Yeah, you know, relatives and things. So

481
00:29:32,519 --> 00:29:37,799
what can happen is the ichnomnon can actually start the

482
00:29:37,839 --> 00:29:40,240
process of making this little opening.

483
00:29:40,559 --> 00:29:42,599
Speaker 1: Wait, wait really quick, I want to mention how you

484
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,000
spell this, because these fucking wasps look so cool.

485
00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 3: Ic h amazing and eu M O.

486
00:29:49,319 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: N I D they look insane. God, they're so cool.

487
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,119
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I mean that's why when you think about

488
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:58,799
what it's going to take to punch through even on

489
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,160
a new shoot of a guada, they can do it.

490
00:30:02,319 --> 00:30:05,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this as hard as how it literally

491
00:30:05,119 --> 00:30:06,519
feels like PVC pipe.

492
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:11,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they can do it. So they will overpose it.

493
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,279
The shoot grows, you know, and the plant starts to

494
00:30:15,359 --> 00:30:19,960
branch out and everything, and then woodpeckers will come along

495
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:24,200
and they can tell there's actually a specific pattern. I've

496
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:28,119
seen this numerous times now on these hollow bamboos. It's

497
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:32,200
like these little square or rectangular holes all in a row,

498
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:34,480
and what they're doing is they're pecking into that internode

499
00:30:35,319 --> 00:30:39,000
to get whatever is living inside. So they're going to

500
00:30:39,039 --> 00:30:43,319
eat those insects. But once the hole is there and

501
00:30:43,359 --> 00:30:47,400
there's water, then things like the dipterrins, the mosquitoes come in.

502
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:52,000
They can lay their eggs in there. You know, over time,

503
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:57,640
those holes can get enlarge. There's actually so you get

504
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,000
this whole little ecosystem inside each internode.

505
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a giant uh. It's like those bee

506
00:31:02,559 --> 00:31:05,200
houses people put in their gardens, but it's got a

507
00:31:05,279 --> 00:31:08,759
higher diversity of insects. And I can imagine I mean

508
00:31:09,119 --> 00:31:12,680
these especially when you've got thousands of these giant stems.

509
00:31:13,039 --> 00:31:16,279
This is kind of unrelated to bamboos, But have you

510
00:31:16,759 --> 00:31:19,160
noticed I was. I was kind of astounded when I

511
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:22,279
was in the Amazon how few mosquitoes there were. I

512
00:31:22,319 --> 00:31:24,880
thought it would be hell, but there weren't. I mean,

513
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:26,359
I got bit a couple of times, but there weren't

514
00:31:26,359 --> 00:31:28,480
that many. And then I realized that, you know, I

515
00:31:28,519 --> 00:31:31,440
listened at night to all the frogs and realized, oh,

516
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:35,640
there's probably a number of things frogs included eating these things,

517
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,359
and that's why there's not many mosquitoes. Has it been

518
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,599
your experience or have you been eaten alive up there?

519
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 2: So most of the time I'm not mostly working in

520
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:50,119
the Amazon because Ciskeia is actually up in the mountains, right,

521
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,279
So I tend to do most of my field's work

522
00:31:52,359 --> 00:31:56,279
up in the mountains. And I'm guessing that, you know,

523
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:58,440
if you're actually out in the Amazon, Yeah, I mean,

524
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,480
the times I've been to the Amazon on it hasn't

525
00:32:01,519 --> 00:32:06,640
been bad. But there's so much human influence too, because

526
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,480
and then humans get in there and start affecting the

527
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,279
quality of the ecosystem, then all those things that eat

528
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,160
the insects tend to start disappearing.

529
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Mosquitoes tend to be Mosquitoes tend to be

530
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,599
worse around developed areas, especially the invasive species of mosquitos.

531
00:32:25,119 --> 00:32:28,359
You know, they're like, they're like coyotes. They they benefit

532
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,960
They're like coyotes and crows and pigeons, they benefit off

533
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:35,559
human right presence. But anyway, okay, well sorry for that.

534
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:37,920
I just I just was wondering. Yeah, I forgot you

535
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,920
just scay is not really in the Amazon. But okay, anyway, okay,

536
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,720
so going back to this, is there what other cool

537
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,680
ecologies are there with guadawa that you've noticed.

538
00:32:48,079 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so this was kind of like apartment living

539
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,480
for all these critters. And then you get frogs in there,

540
00:32:53,519 --> 00:32:57,160
you get you know, but those leaf shes, those those

541
00:32:57,400 --> 00:32:59,720
on the new shoots, you know that are on the

542
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,519
brand and so on. That's a wonderful shelter for lots

543
00:33:03,559 --> 00:33:07,440
of invertebrates. So you get them. Then you get fuliage

544
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:12,279
gleaning birds that come in. There are snakes. There are

545
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,599
ants because there's ants that live in these innernodes. Too.

546
00:33:17,079 --> 00:33:21,599
Done my share of ant dancing. Cut that thing open

547
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:23,519
and you don't realize it, and it's like, oh my God,

548
00:33:23,599 --> 00:33:24,559
these things pour out.

549
00:33:24,759 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 3: Oh god, it.

550
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 2: Can be pretty entertaining to try to get away from them.

551
00:33:30,319 --> 00:33:32,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, ants live in a lot of the hollow stems.

552
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,519
Oh god, there was another genus. I forgot this. I've

553
00:33:36,519 --> 00:33:39,279
been I've been editing a book and you know, so word,

554
00:33:39,319 --> 00:33:41,200
I've had so many words going through my head the

555
00:33:41,279 --> 00:33:44,039
last few weeks. I've forgotten a lot of genes. But

556
00:33:44,079 --> 00:33:48,480
there's a very common genus of Amazonian tree and polygonacy

557
00:33:48,599 --> 00:33:50,759
that's got you know. It's one of like thousands of

558
00:33:50,759 --> 00:33:54,119
plants that have mutualist relationships with ants that live inside

559
00:33:54,119 --> 00:33:57,359
of it. They live in the hollow stems. But but yeah,

560
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:00,160
so the ants will live inside the stems of guad what.

561
00:34:01,799 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 2: They can do that or they'll just you know, build

562
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:10,679
their nests around it. Either way. There's this I've never

563
00:34:11,039 --> 00:34:15,000
actually seen one. I've I've always wanted to. But these

564
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,400
big rats they're beautiful. Actually, I've seen pictures of them.

565
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:25,599
I think there's three species. It's like this Amazonian rat

566
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,639
and they're native. They they will go up and they

567
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:34,519
basically nest in the guadaluas. They'll chew off the top

568
00:34:34,639 --> 00:34:38,199
of the of the growing point and that causes the

569
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,639
plant to send out a bunch of branches at that point,

570
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,280
you know, because it's they kill the april goal growth

571
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:49,199
and so they make their nests up there, and so

572
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,480
they will actually you know, live in these bamboo growths

573
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:58,880
and they're not really eating the bamboo, they're eating other stuff.

574
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:01,719
But it's a big alter, you know. So in addition

575
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,280
to food, there's the shelter aspect for a lot of

576
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,760
these critters that are associated with the bamboo.

577
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, Amazon bamboo rat that to Lomas back to Linus

578
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:14,039
is a species of spiny rat from the Amazon basis.

579
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,039
You know, I imagine if you're a rat and you

580
00:35:16,159 --> 00:35:18,719
get like a plat, you know, you kill the the

581
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,159
appical marestem of one of these giant bamboos, and then

582
00:35:21,159 --> 00:35:23,960
it of course shoots out all these h you're saying,

583
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,840
it shoots out lateral branches. Then from that node. Oh yeah,

584
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:29,920
that's like a platform you got like an osprey. Now

585
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:32,599
you know, you really got it made. If that's you know,

586
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:35,880
if that's a platform way up there, you just got

587
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,079
to worry about hawks and stuff.

588
00:35:38,079 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 2: But yeah, jaguar is not going to get you up there.

589
00:35:42,159 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's so these are like major components of

590
00:35:47,039 --> 00:35:48,920
the ecosystem as you would expect them to be since

591
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:54,440
they're so dominant. I mean, these these massive bamboo colonies. God,

592
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:57,039
I could spend I could spend months down there just

593
00:35:57,199 --> 00:36:00,360
observing and making notes and learning about stuff. There's so

594
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:02,239
much going on, it's insane.

595
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 2: Apparently there's butterflies that have been talking to a guy

596
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:10,639
in Florida at the University of Florida, and he studied

597
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:15,840
the little blue butterflies and there seem to be you know,

598
00:36:16,039 --> 00:36:22,360
like endemic species forms associated with these these guadawa colonies

599
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,719
and things, and so yeah, there's just a ton of

600
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:30,320
biodiversity that is associated with all this bamboo.

601
00:36:30,679 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean they're they're huge. Are they like

602
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:39,800
a They're not a pioneer species, right, they need you'd

603
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:41,159
like primary forest cover.

604
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:54,159
Speaker 2: Hmmm. Actually, I think most so, most bamboos, they're not

605
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:59,199
necessarily colonizers in that sense, but many of them are

606
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:06,280
able to persist or even spread in secondary settings. So

607
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:12,119
there's undoubtedly some of them that are really dependent on

608
00:37:12,199 --> 00:37:17,000
a primary forest kind of kind of habitat. So it

609
00:37:17,079 --> 00:37:20,840
varies from species species how they're going to behave in

610
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:22,039
that situation.

611
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: Does guadawa do you get that in the in the

612
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,639
lower Amazon, like the actual flood plain area. To I

613
00:37:29,639 --> 00:37:32,679
imagine it's is it the same species or is it

614
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:33,840
something different?

615
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:40,039
Speaker 2: There's different species. There's some species that are actually very

616
00:37:40,079 --> 00:37:43,760
closely associated with the river systems, and they can even

617
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,199
withstand flooding for part of the year. I mean, I've

618
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:52,039
seen them growing in water, which is not what I

619
00:37:52,119 --> 00:37:55,440
normally expect for a bamboo. And then there's other ones

620
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:58,119
that that would not be able to tolerate that that

621
00:37:58,199 --> 00:38:02,480
they're kind of more in the the forest itself. Yeah,

622
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,159
and then you get these ones that are in the savannahs.

623
00:38:06,559 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, God, that would be cool to see. I

624
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,280
love savannahs, man. I mean I like forests, you don't

625
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:12,880
get me wrong, but I just I tend to like

626
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:17,159
the you know, more open, sunny and exposed areas. Okay,

627
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,840
and lastly, we'll move on from this genus and get

628
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,559
to the today's hot topic. But the guaduas. Do you

629
00:38:23,559 --> 00:38:25,920
know any is there any place in North America that's

630
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,440
growing them like any botanic gardens. I mean, you'd have

631
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:31,559
to have a glasshouse the size of a fucking tense

632
00:38:31,599 --> 00:38:34,480
story building the house one, But do you know of

633
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:36,639
any Have you seen any in North America like plant

634
00:38:36,679 --> 00:38:36,960
it out?

635
00:38:38,199 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, the main place is Florida, not surprisingly. Yeah, yeah,

636
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:48,360
there's a I'll give a shout out to Tropical Bamboo.

637
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:53,360
It's the nursery in West Palm Beach and they they

638
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,039
have an amazing setup where they grow lots of the

639
00:38:58,079 --> 00:39:01,320
asiatic ones too, but they have some guadawas that are

640
00:39:01,599 --> 00:39:03,320
you can just sort of walk down the roads and

641
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:07,480
you get that sense of it's like almost like being

642
00:39:07,519 --> 00:39:10,039
in a cathedral, you know, where you've got these big

643
00:39:10,159 --> 00:39:15,239
arching things overhead. And so they have three or four

644
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:19,119
five species now I don't remember the exact number, but

645
00:39:20,599 --> 00:39:26,239
they are really that's the main place, you know, Southern Florida.

646
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: So when in Miami, hit up what is it West

647
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,039
Tropical Bamboo.

648
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's called Tropical Bamboo Tropical Business. Yeah, okay,

649
00:39:36,079 --> 00:39:37,119
and it's West Palm Beach.

650
00:39:37,639 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, wonderful locks hatchies. But yeah, so.

651
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: You're going down to Florida, you're going down to Miami

652
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:45,320
and it's definitely put that on the map along with

653
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,679
the botanic or not. What is that fair Child that've

654
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:48,320
been there before?

655
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 2: Fairchild is the oh the one in Coral Gables and

656
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,360
that's beautiful. Yeah, and they have a lot of bamboo.

657
00:39:54,559 --> 00:39:58,159
Speaker 1: I saw hippo maine down there. That the toxic u

658
00:39:58,199 --> 00:40:00,639
for a tree. I'm really getting like pre dementia here.

659
00:40:00,639 --> 00:40:04,119
I'm having trouble remembering. Remember, someone's have to go to

660
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:05,880
Someone's gonna have to take care of me when I'm

661
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,559
ten years you know, ten years from now. I just

662
00:40:08,599 --> 00:40:11,920
got too many names in my in my head. I

663
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:16,239
can't believe I forgot the name of that polygonaceous Amazonian tree.

664
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,119
It's such a critical component of the egoism's there anyway. Okay,

665
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:23,639
So moving on from Guadawa to Chisca, which is your

666
00:40:23,679 --> 00:40:27,440
area of expertise, Let's talk about this genus. Let's talk

667
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:32,719
about distribution, how many species in it, different clades, you know,

668
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:34,239
subclades in the genus, et cetera.

669
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 2: Okay, So, as I mentioned before, this is my favorite

670
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,599
thing because I've been working on this group for a

671
00:40:42,639 --> 00:40:47,159
long time and right now we have a little over

672
00:40:47,199 --> 00:40:51,960
two hundred named species. So it's the biggest genus of

673
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,719
the most specious genus at bamboos worldwide.

674
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: Actually year, holy shit.

675
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 2: And we're not done. I'm working on half a dozen

676
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,360
new species right now. But in the last couple of

677
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:10,400
years I've had a project. This is my grad student

678
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:12,719
has also been working on this on the Guadala side

679
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,679
of things in Bolivia, and so I finally made it

680
00:41:15,679 --> 00:41:22,880
to Bolivia last year, and I've been corresponding with a

681
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,840
couple of the botanists down there, and I met with

682
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:28,519
one of them. We were in La Pause for about

683
00:41:28,519 --> 00:41:31,760
a week and I'm just going through their herbarium and

684
00:41:32,599 --> 00:41:34,519
looking at all the plants. This is not even getting

685
00:41:34,519 --> 00:41:38,480
out in the field, just seeing what people have already documented.

686
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:44,840
And so I was able to confirm there's like seventeen

687
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:50,159
or eighteen named species there of just Ciscaia, but there's

688
00:41:50,199 --> 00:41:54,679
another sixty five at least that do not have names.

689
00:41:54,679 --> 00:41:59,119
They're different species. These are not you know, this is

690
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:01,760
like we just did a quick pass through and it's like, no,

691
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:03,559
these guys are different.

692
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: Oh my god, undescribed just just they were. They were

693
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,199
just lumped in with other stuff, or they weren't named.

694
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,440
Someone just was like, it's a just skea. We don't

695
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,079
know what species. We'll get through it later.

696
00:42:14,119 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 2: And it was just kea sp. Just kea sp. On

697
00:42:17,519 --> 00:42:21,840
the labels and so I started, you know, doing some numbers,

698
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:26,039
calculating in my head because Bolivia, that's Bolivia, and then

699
00:42:26,079 --> 00:42:33,039
there's Peru, which is also it's actually larger land masks wise,

700
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,880
and you've got that huge north south axis along the andies.

701
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:43,960
And so I'm estimating that there's probably and knowing what

702
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:45,840
I know about some of the new species that still

703
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:50,599
remained to be described in Brazil or even there's still

704
00:42:50,639 --> 00:42:52,880
a couple in Mexico. There's one in Costa Rica for

705
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,679
crying outlets. We've done so much work there and there's

706
00:42:55,719 --> 00:43:00,239
still a new one. So I'm estimating there's an one

707
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,320
hundred and forty or so new species. Interesting.

708
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's wild. It's so crazy that you can go

709
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,119
into an erbarium and find I mean, there's just there's

710
00:43:08,119 --> 00:43:11,880
so much, there's so much left to be studied, like everywhere,

711
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:14,320
you know, everywhere, I mean just from herbarium records alone,

712
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:16,119
not even going out in the field. How are you?

713
00:43:17,039 --> 00:43:19,199
I mean, this is and I'll be honest, I told

714
00:43:19,199 --> 00:43:21,840
you this before. I kind of avoid I was grassblind.

715
00:43:22,679 --> 00:43:25,639
I'm guilty of it for a long time up until

716
00:43:25,639 --> 00:43:27,760
a few years. I still am because the the you know,

717
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,199
they're wind pollinated. The flowers aren't the easiest to study

718
00:43:31,199 --> 00:43:34,760
because they're small and they're not very showy, and that,

719
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:36,880
you know, But then you get into like the big

720
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,159
blue stems and some of the cool prairie grasses or

721
00:43:39,199 --> 00:43:41,639
the desert ones, and there's some really beautiful things out there,

722
00:43:42,119 --> 00:43:43,760
and also a lot of there's a lot of When

723
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:46,039
I was in California, there's god, there's so many invasive

724
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:51,119
European grasses that you're just kind of like, eh, but

725
00:43:51,119 --> 00:43:55,360
but you know, how would you because generally with most plants,

726
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,840
you need a reproductive structure to figure out how they

727
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:03,480
differ from each other. Looking at the ciskeias, what traits,

728
00:44:03,599 --> 00:44:06,400
what character traits are you looking at to figure out, Okay,

729
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:08,679
this is different from this, et cetera, et cetera.

730
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 2: That's a great question, and it's actually it's kind of

731
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:18,440
like working a jigsaw puzzle because people will collect these plants,

732
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,719
and a lot of people they know about this weird

733
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:25,960
flowering behavior. So if they see a bamboo in flower,

734
00:44:26,079 --> 00:44:28,719
build grab a piece of it. But what they don't

735
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:33,079
do is then make a complete vegetative collection. And so

736
00:44:33,159 --> 00:44:35,960
that's been a lot of my work is going back

737
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:40,320
to these places where somebody collected a flowering thing, and

738
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:45,039
then I can collect the vegetative samples, and then we

739
00:44:45,119 --> 00:44:47,320
have to sort of put them together to get the

740
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:52,960
complete picture. And it turns out in Tiskeia, Ciskeia is

741
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,119
unique in one respect among all plants, not just not

742
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:02,360
just grasses or bamboos. They have one big bud at

743
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,360
the node, which is like most of the other bamboos,

744
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:08,119
they do the same thing and they'll just have one.

745
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:13,159
But Ciskeia, in addition to the one big bud, has

746
00:45:13,199 --> 00:45:18,480
two to many, sometimes a couple one hundred of little buds,

747
00:45:18,519 --> 00:45:22,559
and those can be associated closely with the big bud,

748
00:45:22,639 --> 00:45:25,679
or they can go all the way around the stem.

749
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,800
So these are truly independent little buds. And the little

750
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:33,000
buds give rise to the branches that have the leaves

751
00:45:33,039 --> 00:45:36,760
on them, and so it's kind of like Shiskeia is

752
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:42,800
doing a you know, separation of functions because the big

753
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,320
bud recreates the main stem, so they can rebranch and

754
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,119
lean on trees or do whatever they're going to do,

755
00:45:49,159 --> 00:45:53,440
and then the little buds make the leafy branches. But

756
00:45:53,519 --> 00:45:56,840
it turns out that that pattern of how many little

757
00:45:56,880 --> 00:46:01,239
branches and where they're located and is almost species specific.

758
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:06,039
And so if I have that, and then I have

759
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:11,000
the leaves, and I have the flowers plus the bracts,

760
00:46:11,159 --> 00:46:13,440
the special things that are on the new shoots. We

761
00:46:13,559 --> 00:46:15,639
call them calm leaves, but.

762
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 1: They look like sheaths or what are they?

763
00:46:20,199 --> 00:46:22,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, they look like sheaths, but they're actually a modified leaf.

764
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:25,559
So they usually have a little blade on them. It's

765
00:46:25,599 --> 00:46:28,280
a big sheath and a little blade, but you don't

766
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:30,960
always see it, you know, it can fall off whatever.

767
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,079
But that combination, so I don't I have described new

768
00:46:35,119 --> 00:46:37,239
species without having the flowering structures.

769
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,159
Speaker 1: Okay. And these buds these there are buds at the

770
00:46:40,199 --> 00:46:42,079
note and you said there's like a big bud for

771
00:46:42,159 --> 00:46:44,519
that to recreate the appical maristime if the top is

772
00:46:44,599 --> 00:46:47,280
damaged and they got lateral buds too or what is it?

773
00:46:47,519 --> 00:46:50,800
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, they have these little tiny they're small, much

774
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,440
smaller than the big bud most of the time, and

775
00:46:53,519 --> 00:46:57,880
I call them subsidiary buds, but they they produce the

776
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,239
leafy branches.

777
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:05,760
Speaker 1: So and these are diagnostic. These are like absolutely megod

778
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:09,039
diagnostic for anyone listening. So like Chiskea, you'll get like

779
00:47:09,079 --> 00:47:11,000
a main stem. It looks like a bamboo. And then

780
00:47:11,039 --> 00:47:13,760
at the nodes you get you get these much smaller

781
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,760
stems that shoot out laterally, just like guadua, you know,

782
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,679
but they're not spiny. Uh and it's I've noted man.

783
00:47:21,079 --> 00:47:24,840
I saw one in an Alersee forest, a temper rainforest

784
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:27,800
in southern Chile. I don't know what species of chiscay

785
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,880
it was. That was definitely outside of my realm. But

786
00:47:32,639 --> 00:47:34,519
by the way, after this, if you could go to

787
00:47:34,519 --> 00:47:35,719
my eye now, I'll send you a link to my

788
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:39,199
I Nashros if you can, I identify best you can

789
00:47:39,559 --> 00:47:41,639
any of the chiskeuas. But I saw one and it

790
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:45,400
had this They looked almost like hairs, and I realized

791
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,880
they were lateral buds that were just really thin and

792
00:47:49,039 --> 00:47:51,519
just emerging from one of the nodes like not hairs,

793
00:47:51,559 --> 00:47:54,639
but it looked like a these weird spiny, almost hair

794
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:58,800
like protrusions. And they were just lateral lateral shoots coming

795
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:01,800
out of one of the They look so peculiar and cool.

796
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,199
Speaker 2: They look weird and they are cool, so that it

797
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:09,920
could be either that they were these lateral branches or

798
00:48:10,039 --> 00:48:13,599
sometimes they will also make there'll be little root buds

799
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:17,920
in there, oh wow. And so sometimes they, especially if

800
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,840
they're growing under fairly humid conditions, they will actually make

801
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:26,760
these little roots coming out of the stems. And sometimes

802
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,599
those can be really sharp and pointy and be like

803
00:48:29,679 --> 00:48:31,559
root spines. But most of the time they're just kind

804
00:48:31,559 --> 00:48:34,719
of hanging out there. I mean, if the calm gets

805
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:38,159
the stem gets kind of knocked over. I've seen this

806
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,800
happen that, you know, those like that, whatever node hits

807
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,840
the ground, the big bud can sort of start growing up.

808
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:50,079
It bends itself to go straight up, and the roots

809
00:48:50,079 --> 00:48:52,280
will actually start growing and become like part of the

810
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:53,199
root system.

811
00:48:53,039 --> 00:48:55,280
Speaker 1: So they can root themselves basically just like.

812
00:48:55,199 --> 00:48:56,519
Speaker 2: A apparently they can.

813
00:48:56,639 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, these were green, so I think there were

814
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,039
probably shoots. But I mean, who know, can the roots

815
00:49:03,079 --> 00:49:05,199
be photosynthetic too, or are they green when they first were?

816
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:09,159
Speaker 2: They can they can? Oh wow, that's what people don't

817
00:49:09,199 --> 00:49:10,880
think of roots as being able to do that, but

818
00:49:12,199 --> 00:49:13,079
they actually can.

819
00:49:13,679 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just like I mean, well some just like

820
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,800
some orchid roots, like you know, there's there's some there's

821
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,400
some orchids that I think don't even produce don't even

822
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,559
produce shoots. They just have photosynthetic roots like some of

823
00:49:24,559 --> 00:49:27,880
these weird epiphetic I saw one in South Florida somewhere.

824
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:32,119
But anyway, okay, so this so just SKA occupies a

825
00:49:32,159 --> 00:49:35,840
diversity of habitats, I mean temper rainforest up to very

826
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:40,679
high high dry what's like the most drought tolerant just

827
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,239
skea like from the most arid climate that you know of.

828
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 2: So it's actually there's some species in Mexico that there's

829
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,000
one in particular I'm thinking of. They it's from kind

830
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:55,840
of western Mexico and it kind of goes all the

831
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:59,960
way down. It's also found in western northwestern Costa Rica

832
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:02,760
and those are in dry forests and they can withstand

833
00:50:03,559 --> 00:50:08,199
a dry season. They may, you know, kind of curl

834
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:10,840
up and not look very happy, but but they are

835
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:11,840
very drought tolerant.

836
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:14,199
Speaker 1: I didn't know they came up to Mexico. That's crazy, man.

837
00:50:15,079 --> 00:50:21,679
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's the northernmost Tiescaia is in uh Durgo, I.

838
00:50:21,639 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 1: Think, And these are what are they growing like pine

839
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:25,360
oak a gave forests or what.

840
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,599
Speaker 2: Some of them are in pine oak forests, some of

841
00:50:28,679 --> 00:50:32,320
them are in these like dry forests on the western side.

842
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:38,400
They can be in like a lot of the diversity

843
00:50:38,599 --> 00:50:43,400
is in Vera Cruz, and so you've got kind of

844
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:50,320
temperate or not temperate, but like semi deciduous tropical forests.

845
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:56,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, verya cruise obviously much more rainfall, you know, wetter climate,

846
00:50:56,719 --> 00:50:58,800
but yeah, I can imagine they'd be there. I just man,

847
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:01,440
that's crazy, though, Western myst what elevation are the ones,

848
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:03,559
these western Mexican ones that.

849
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 2: Those don't get too high. They're around fourteen hundred meters

850
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,880
two maybe up to two thousands somewhere. They're you know,

851
00:51:14,159 --> 00:51:16,760
I mean the mountains there are just not that high. Yeah,

852
00:51:17,199 --> 00:51:21,519
you know, certainly in central Mexico you've got some that

853
00:51:21,599 --> 00:51:24,239
are quite a bit higher. And there are bamboos that

854
00:51:24,679 --> 00:51:27,320
there are ciscaos that will go up to over three

855
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:29,440
thousand meters in those systems.

856
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:31,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy.

857
00:51:31,559 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 2: But the highest elevation ones that are in the Andes,

858
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:36,840
and they're over four thousand meters.

859
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 1: Wait, hold on with these Mexican ones, so they're not

860
00:51:39,559 --> 00:51:41,880
they don't go too low. They're not like lowland species,

861
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:43,559
like you're not going to find them growing with like

862
00:51:43,639 --> 00:51:46,000
columnar cacti with you.

863
00:51:46,039 --> 00:51:50,599
Speaker 2: No, no, no, generally not Cisco's are almost all growing

864
00:51:51,159 --> 00:51:55,000
above one thousand meters in elevation. There's a few that

865
00:51:55,039 --> 00:51:58,679
get down to you know, almost to sea level in

866
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:02,440
certain habitats, but the ass majority or are mid to

867
00:52:02,519 --> 00:52:03,159
high elevation.

868
00:52:04,119 --> 00:52:09,079
Speaker 1: Okay, but but the the most diversities in the Andes,

869
00:52:09,119 --> 00:52:12,320
would you say.

870
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 2: I would say between like the northern well, yeah, the

871
00:52:15,039 --> 00:52:18,360
Andes because like I was just talking about with Peru

872
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,199
and Bolivia, I mean, it's insane the amount of species

873
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:24,679
there that we don't even have names for. So really

874
00:52:24,679 --> 00:52:27,920
all along the Andes and then the Atlantic Forest of

875
00:52:28,000 --> 00:52:29,559
Brazil has a lot of species.

876
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, God, Insulburg, that was the name I was

877
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,519
thinking of. Sorry, you know, I'm probably on a spectrum,

878
00:52:36,519 --> 00:52:41,280
that's how that's of my brain works. But uh, Insulburgh, Granite, Insulburg,

879
00:52:42,079 --> 00:52:45,760
that those are Those are some precious forests. Man, Jesus,

880
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:47,920
they were there were they were burning last year, I guess,

881
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:49,920
and they're not accustomed to fire at all.

882
00:52:51,159 --> 00:52:54,639
Speaker 2: No, No, it's it's kind of scary, but yeah, some

883
00:52:54,679 --> 00:52:57,440
of those are absolutely beautiful places.

884
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,519
Speaker 1: Yeah. These but these just cases, I mean, God, the

885
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:03,000
thing that was so cool about them was that they're

886
00:53:03,119 --> 00:53:05,320
just I mean, some of them have like really glaucous

887
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:10,159
blue leaves. You know ericaria forests, they're growing in a

888
00:53:10,199 --> 00:53:12,800
lersae forests. I didn't. I had no idea. I've been

889
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:16,239
in the Fitzroyal Cooper soorties the Alerses for fifteen years.

890
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:18,599
I was growing a bunch for San Francisco Botanical Garden.

891
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:20,639
When I used to spend a lot of time there,

892
00:53:20,639 --> 00:53:24,239
I had no idea they shared habitat with a bamboo.

893
00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:27,159
I mean, these these things are fucking everywhere, man. So

894
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:31,880
what's what's the country with the most diversity in the

895
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:34,599
genus that you know of, like Bolivia or Brazil or what?

896
00:53:37,119 --> 00:53:43,320
Speaker 2: Right now? If you look at just number described I

897
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:46,559
think Brazil would would get the NOD. But if you

898
00:53:46,599 --> 00:53:50,559
look at if you count describe species plus the probable

899
00:53:50,679 --> 00:53:54,480
number of undescribed ones, it's going to be Peru or Bolivia.

900
00:53:55,039 --> 00:53:57,639
Speaker 1: And they come. Are there any in the upper Amazon

901
00:53:57,679 --> 00:53:59,559
of Peru and Bolivia? Are they a little bit higher

902
00:53:59,599 --> 00:53:59,840
than that?

903
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:05,519
Speaker 2: They're mostly higher than that. Yeah. Once you and when

904
00:54:05,519 --> 00:54:08,320
you're in those systems, you've got to be up at least,

905
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,400
you know, like fifteen hundred meters in elevation before you'll

906
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:12,480
start seeing ciskeayas.

907
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:17,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so these and in terms of ecology, what's

908
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:20,960
going on here? How many other organisms that do Chiskeaa

909
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:22,719
species associate with that you know of.

910
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:27,760
Speaker 2: So yeah, again it's we don't even have a really

911
00:54:28,719 --> 00:54:32,639
good idea that Cisquio's in these forests. You know, as

912
00:54:32,679 --> 00:54:35,239
soon as there's a tree fall or you know, somebody

913
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:38,400
cuts part of it down, if there's ciscaos there, they

914
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:40,679
tend to grow in and so there's a huge amount

915
00:54:40,679 --> 00:54:45,960
of biomass uh and sometimes it's almost impenetrable because it

916
00:54:46,039 --> 00:54:48,960
is these are smaller, they get entangled. They're just like,

917
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,679
you can't get through this. So there's birds, there's a

918
00:54:52,679 --> 00:54:56,320
bunch of bamboo specialist birds that track chiscaa's that are

919
00:54:57,199 --> 00:55:03,840
you know, that's their habitat. There's a ton of insects,

920
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:07,079
you know, different groups of insects, different groups of birds.

921
00:55:07,079 --> 00:55:10,719
Then say for guadawa because obviously you're at higher elevations

922
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:15,159
and so on. But we don't even have a good accounting.

923
00:55:15,199 --> 00:55:18,400
There's been very little work on the ecology of Ciscaia.

924
00:55:19,159 --> 00:55:22,639
Speaker 1: Are they're not hollow inside like the guadawas are? Are they?

925
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 2: No? These are solid?

926
00:55:25,119 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, when we were when we were going through

927
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:30,519
some of these habitats, I kept having nightmares of these things,

928
00:55:30,599 --> 00:55:32,360
like poking me in the eye because you'll see dead

929
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:36,519
branches everywhere, like the colonies alive and thriving, but like

930
00:55:36,599 --> 00:55:39,599
maybe the shoot died and you could see how they

931
00:55:39,639 --> 00:55:41,280
must have made excellent arrows too.

932
00:55:42,639 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely you could use them for yeah, not

933
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:49,320
for flutes, but for a lot of other things. Yeah.

934
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:53,800
Speaker 1: So I'm really interested in this monocarpic thing and the

935
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:57,320
fact that I mean they it'll take thirty years for

936
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:00,119
some of them to flower. Can you explain that a

937
00:56:00,159 --> 00:56:02,280
little bit more, because I mean it's it's a very

938
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,639
weird reproductive strategy. But I guess when you've got the

939
00:56:05,679 --> 00:56:09,440
ability to produce clonal offsets and these massive colonies, it

940
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:12,679
doesn't matter. I mean, you can help ensure your survival

941
00:56:12,679 --> 00:56:16,360
and you can wait longer before producing seeds. But what's

942
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,159
going on here? Some of them take thirty years to flower,

943
00:56:19,199 --> 00:56:21,880
and what do the flowers look like? And I assume

944
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:25,519
they're just wind pollinated like most grasses, right, That's.

945
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:27,880
Speaker 2: What we think, Although we know that there are insects

946
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:32,880
that will that do visit bamboo flowers and also other

947
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,639
grass flowers, so they may be there may be some

948
00:56:36,679 --> 00:56:40,239
insect assistance, you know, in scattering the pollen, but fundamentally

949
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:44,320
they seem to be wind pollinated. I think it's it's

950
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:48,639
kind of tied together because if you're going to grow

951
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:52,679
in a place like a forest and you're competing with trees,

952
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:55,480
it's going to take a lot of energy to do that,

953
00:56:55,639 --> 00:56:59,960
and so you spend you know, there's there's a certain

954
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:05,559
amount of time that you're going to spend an energy

955
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:09,840
doing that competition and establishing yourself and growing, and then

956
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:14,480
you know, once that happens, once you start getting that

957
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:21,760
these longer time periods between flowering, it's really important that

958
00:57:22,079 --> 00:57:24,719
everybody flower at the same time or else, you know,

959
00:57:25,079 --> 00:57:29,199
one plant can flower, but that pollen may go to waste,

960
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:33,480
or you may only be you know, producing self fertilized seed,

961
00:57:33,519 --> 00:57:35,679
which over the long run is not going to be

962
00:57:35,719 --> 00:57:37,880
the best thing. So there's also going to be a

963
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:41,880
pressure to have a group flowering, you know, where everybody's

964
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:45,199
blooming at the same time. You can do the cross pollination,

965
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,599
but it may take so much energy to do that

966
00:57:50,639 --> 00:57:59,840
conversion that that essentially exhausts the plant. And so they've

967
00:57:59,840 --> 00:58:03,679
done on their pollination, they produce their seeds, and they

968
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:08,000
just die because there's so there's nothing left in there.

969
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:11,280
And so, you know, there's been some there's different ideas

970
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:15,280
out there about this. That's kind of my favorite is

971
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:19,480
that it's more related to the competition with trees and

972
00:58:19,519 --> 00:58:22,480
the amount of energy that it takes, you know, to

973
00:58:22,599 --> 00:58:25,719
both do that vegetative growth and then to switch over

974
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:31,320
to reproductive mode. But there's been some ideas like they're

975
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:37,079
avoiding predators, either predators of the shoots or predators of

976
00:58:37,159 --> 00:58:42,079
the seed especially, But you know, at some point, if

977
00:58:42,119 --> 00:58:46,559
you are doing this flowering like every ten years, that's

978
00:58:46,599 --> 00:58:48,920
a pretty yeah. I mean, you're going to avoid most

979
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:51,920
of them, the melian predators, most mammals, most small mammals

980
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:56,519
have a shorter lifespan than that. So it doesn't make

981
00:58:56,559 --> 00:59:01,199
sense to me necessarily that that's the driving there. You know,

982
00:59:01,239 --> 00:59:04,440
the longest known cycle in these bamboos is one hundred

983
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:05,559
and twenty years.

984
00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:08,679
Speaker 1: One hundred and twenty something will grow for one hundred

985
00:59:08,679 --> 00:59:10,960
and twenty years before it flowers.

986
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:16,960
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the Japanese timber bamboo Jesus. There are records,

987
00:59:17,039 --> 00:59:20,599
you know, it was cultivated by monks, in the monasteries there.

988
00:59:20,599 --> 00:59:23,960
So there's written records of these cycles in every one

989
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:27,320
hundred and twenty years boom they had to. So the

990
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:30,679
you know, the thirty to forty year cycles in the

991
00:59:30,719 --> 00:59:34,199
South American bamboos don't seem quite as daunting.

992
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, or nothing compared to it. Yeah. Philostacky's bamboo soidis

993
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:42,880
is also known as Madaki, the giant timber bamboo. Okay,

994
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:46,039
so what the seeds, Well, I got a couple questions.

995
00:59:46,079 --> 00:59:49,800
First off, the seeds of these things, the grains are

996
00:59:50,239 --> 00:59:53,199
probably a huge food source, is I mean, that's just

997
00:59:53,239 --> 00:59:56,679
sco When it does produce seed, I imagine it produces

998
00:59:56,719 --> 00:59:59,119
a lot of them, and a lot of them get eaten.

999
01:00:00,400 --> 01:00:03,599
Speaker 2: That's what we think. Yes, very likely. There are a

1000
01:00:03,679 --> 01:00:06,519
lot of birds that will track the bamboo flowering. The

1001
01:00:06,719 --> 01:00:11,480
small mammals so and the ones that don't germinate immediately,

1002
01:00:12,199 --> 01:00:17,440
they don't really have a long dormancy period. So if

1003
01:00:17,519 --> 01:00:20,360
the birds don't get them, and if they don't germinate,

1004
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:21,800
they probably get eaten by fungi.

1005
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: Okay, so they don't last too long. Probably. No, there's

1006
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:29,039
not like a seed bank of chisca seed in most

1007
01:00:29,039 --> 01:00:30,159
of the habitats no.

1008
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:34,079
Speaker 2: And I think for most bamboos are this is another

1009
01:00:34,199 --> 01:00:38,719
This would be another great ecological study. I've seen at

1010
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:41,119
least in a couple of places what I would characterize

1011
01:00:41,159 --> 01:00:45,400
as a seedling bank. So the seedlings germinate and they

1012
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:48,599
can sit there in the understory for a while and

1013
01:00:48,719 --> 01:00:52,320
you know it's not light enough, they can they act

1014
01:00:52,360 --> 01:00:54,840
like the little herbaceous bamboos. They're just growing there. You know,

1015
01:00:55,199 --> 01:01:00,320
as soon as an opening occurs, treefall, whatever, boom, they

1016
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:05,719
can start growing like they're you know, like they're supposed

1017
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:07,960
to be to get to their mature size. So I

1018
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:12,119
think there's actually a phenomenon there that just nobody has

1019
01:01:12,159 --> 01:01:15,079
really spent much time looking at. And that's the idea

1020
01:01:15,079 --> 01:01:17,480
of a seedling bank instead of a seed bank.

1021
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:20,679
Speaker 1: Like a like coast redwoods, which yeah, could they can

1022
01:01:20,719 --> 01:01:23,320
tolerate shade and then they wait for an opening. You know,

1023
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:24,960
they're growing kind of leg even then they wait for

1024
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:27,559
an opening and then they can put on seven feet

1025
01:01:27,559 --> 01:01:31,599
a year. Yeah, that's a cool. That's a really cool theory.

1026
01:01:31,599 --> 01:01:34,320
So it's like germanatum now and they can just hang

1027
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:37,280
in there, don't worry about it. And then if you know,

1028
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:41,639
in a decade there's an opening, they'll take off exactly.

1029
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:46,440
That's a really cool strategy. I'm confused about this, this monocarpeting.

1030
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:49,039
Do again, I mean, like agaves do it. Part of

1031
01:01:49,039 --> 01:01:50,800
the reason a gave is so good for tequila is

1032
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:53,679
because it's got this giant heart that's basically a storage

1033
01:01:53,719 --> 01:01:56,400
bank of sugar. And why do they do that so

1034
01:01:56,440 --> 01:02:00,559
that they can produce this massive, you know, mellow, dramatic

1035
01:02:00,639 --> 01:02:04,719
inflorescence that's in some cases thirty feet tall And there's

1036
01:02:04,719 --> 01:02:06,920
no way that that thing's not going to get pollinated.

1037
01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:10,320
It's so big and out there and so full of sugar.

1038
01:02:10,639 --> 01:02:12,599
But of course the catches. Now you've spent all your

1039
01:02:12,599 --> 01:02:14,760
sugar and you got to die. But that's why a

1040
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:18,679
lot of agaves evolved, the ability to produce clonal offsets

1041
01:02:18,719 --> 01:02:23,639
from the base. Where with chisca, where is it? Where

1042
01:02:23,719 --> 01:02:27,880
is it storing all this energy? And what I mean,

1043
01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:29,960
why does it take so much energy? I mean, what

1044
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:32,159
are the is it like a is the is it

1045
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:37,079
the flowering just so massive and impressive that it's such

1046
01:02:37,079 --> 01:02:39,159
a large expenditure of energy or what? So? Where is

1047
01:02:39,159 --> 01:02:41,679
it storing it? And why is it require so much energy?

1048
01:02:42,519 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, we think that probably a lot of that storage

1049
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:48,199
is happening in the rizone system. You know, the underground

1050
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:54,519
parts in Chiskea specifically because it's solid. I think you've

1051
01:02:54,559 --> 01:02:58,400
got the stems there too. You know, most other bamboos

1052
01:02:58,639 --> 01:03:00,440
are not going to be solid, so going to be

1053
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:04,559
more a rhydown things. But literally, when they're ready to flower,

1054
01:03:04,719 --> 01:03:09,440
every single growing point switches over into reproductive mode. It's

1055
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:11,519
not like they just make a couple of shoots. You know,

1056
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:18,119
like every single branch sends out an inflorescence and so

1057
01:03:18,239 --> 01:03:22,599
that does take a lot of energy to you know,

1058
01:03:24,199 --> 01:03:26,440
have this big flush of growth to make this new

1059
01:03:26,639 --> 01:03:34,079
all these new structures. Yeah, everything, everything, they're reproductive.

1060
01:03:35,800 --> 01:03:38,480
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. Okay. So I can imagine like one

1061
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:43,199
main shoot can have thousands of wind pollinated flowers on.

1062
01:03:43,159 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 3: Them, yep.

1063
01:03:45,159 --> 01:03:47,880
Speaker 2: And the flowers are they're small, they look like you know,

1064
01:03:48,639 --> 01:03:53,360
grass flowers, and most of them produce fruits or grains

1065
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:55,159
that look a lot like you know, a grain of

1066
01:03:55,239 --> 01:03:59,320
rice or something like that. There are some bamboos that

1067
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:05,280
make fleshy fruits, which are fascinating. There's it's not a

1068
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:09,360
huge number of them, but that that phenomenon seems to

1069
01:04:09,400 --> 01:04:13,920
be kind of more associated with the like more rainforesty,

1070
01:04:14,079 --> 01:04:19,719
you know, lower elevation, more humid forests, and we assume

1071
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:22,400
that that's you know, for animal dispersal.

1072
01:04:22,719 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. What is is it like a berry?

1073
01:04:25,280 --> 01:04:27,360
Does it or does it just have an arrow attached

1074
01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:28,039
to it or what.

1075
01:04:29,239 --> 01:04:34,519
Speaker 2: It's actually the there's so there's some Asiatic bamboos that

1076
01:04:34,599 --> 01:04:38,800
do this and some New World ones and they can

1077
01:04:38,920 --> 01:04:40,440
there's a couple of different ways they can do it,

1078
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:48,199
but essentially, yeah, the the outer part of the the

1079
01:04:48,199 --> 01:04:51,000
the paracrp, you know, the ovary wall would have been

1080
01:04:51,039 --> 01:04:53,840
the ovary wall becomes fleshy.

1081
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:58,039
Speaker 1: God, that's crazy. That's wild man. To think of a

1082
01:04:58,159 --> 01:04:59,119
grass doing that.

1083
01:05:00,760 --> 01:05:05,480
Speaker 2: It's really bizarre. There's some like the there's the one

1084
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:09,119
uh in the from the Atlantic forests of Brazil. They

1085
01:05:09,119 --> 01:05:12,760
look like olives, look like little green olives hanging on

1086
01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:14,599
you know about the size of olives.

1087
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:17,599
Speaker 1: Oh god, that's crazy. What's it? You need a genius

1088
01:05:17,719 --> 01:05:19,400
name really quick? Sorry, I have to get any rupty.

1089
01:05:19,400 --> 01:05:20,880
What's the genus thing? So I could look this up?

1090
01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:21,119
You know?

1091
01:05:21,960 --> 01:05:25,199
Speaker 2: Oh, so that one is al vimea A l v

1092
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:28,760
I M I A.

1093
01:05:28,199 --> 01:05:31,880
Speaker 1: M is in mary el Vimia. Okay, yes, okay, keep going.

1094
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:32,360
I'm sorry.

1095
01:05:33,159 --> 01:05:36,440
Speaker 2: Oh and ol Meca O l m e c A.

1096
01:05:36,679 --> 01:05:40,000
There's a couple of species of ol Mecca in Mexico

1097
01:05:40,039 --> 01:05:44,639
that make even bigger, kind of more roundy, rounded, kind

1098
01:05:44,639 --> 01:05:49,159
of fleshy fruits. There's even a guadawa that does it.

1099
01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:52,599
Speaker 1: God, that's wild, man. This is like the Ian Malcolm moment.

1100
01:05:52,639 --> 01:05:56,679
You know, like life uh finds a way. It's you

1101
01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:58,880
got a niche to exploit. You can get some bird

1102
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:02,719
or something that help you disperse your seeds. It's gonna happen.

1103
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:08,039
Speaker 2: So mm hmm. I like to think of monkeys dispersing

1104
01:06:08,079 --> 01:06:10,679
these guys, but I don't know if that's true, but

1105
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:13,199
it seems like it would be big enough to get

1106
01:06:13,199 --> 01:06:13,760
their attention.

1107
01:06:14,159 --> 01:06:17,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's man. I saw one of those common wooly monkeys,

1108
01:06:17,719 --> 01:06:19,920
which are not so common anymore. I guess there's only

1109
01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:23,239
like ten thousand left in the world. But uh, we

1110
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:27,880
went to this, We went to like this indigenous village

1111
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:29,960
and there was like this couple in there that had

1112
01:06:30,159 --> 01:06:33,000
found one that, like its parents had been killed, and

1113
01:06:33,519 --> 01:06:35,800
they named it Pepe and it was super friendly and

1114
01:06:36,159 --> 01:06:39,519
you know, fucking adorable and super mischievous and like hanging

1115
01:06:39,559 --> 01:06:42,840
out with us. It was pretty funny. It was cool

1116
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:45,519
to see it, but I imagine, yeah, that was that

1117
01:06:45,679 --> 01:06:46,440
was going on too.

1118
01:06:48,599 --> 01:06:53,960
Speaker 2: Yep, So exactly life finds the way. These guys are

1119
01:06:56,519 --> 01:06:57,119
just amazing.

1120
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 1: So the uh so when they so whence scay of flowers?

1121
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:03,000
It's like a huge event. And I guess you can

1122
01:07:03,079 --> 01:07:08,840
gauge how big an individual plant, like an individual clonal

1123
01:07:08,880 --> 01:07:10,840
colony might be, you know, one that's all the same

1124
01:07:11,360 --> 01:07:16,719
phenotype what. But the thing that's more mysterious and confusing

1125
01:07:16,800 --> 01:07:19,000
is how and yeah, if you you know, if that,

1126
01:07:19,119 --> 01:07:23,280
if that colony flowers and there's not another in another

1127
01:07:23,360 --> 01:07:27,199
phenotype or another you know, individual flowering, how does it?

1128
01:07:28,159 --> 01:07:30,159
I mean, then it's just kind of not screwed, but

1129
01:07:30,199 --> 01:07:32,840
there's a reduction in genetic diversity. It's just self plony.

1130
01:07:33,119 --> 01:07:35,760
How do they and that's not ideal? How do they?

1131
01:07:36,159 --> 01:07:38,599
How do they trigger each other to flower? Like? How

1132
01:07:38,679 --> 01:07:41,920
is there some sort of communication? Shouldn't use that word,

1133
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:45,119
but basically what it is where they're able to flow?

1134
01:07:45,440 --> 01:07:46,840
Or is there not? Is it just chance?

1135
01:07:48,519 --> 01:07:52,440
Speaker 2: So it I mean it is genetically controlled in some way.

1136
01:07:52,559 --> 01:07:57,000
We don't know how because there's been enough you know,

1137
01:07:57,039 --> 01:08:01,239
I've seen this myself where we've dug up plants. I'm

1138
01:08:01,280 --> 01:08:06,440
thinking of like one in particular in Mexico. It was

1139
01:08:06,480 --> 01:08:10,679
in on the volcan Perote in Sara Cruz, and I

1140
01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:13,639
knew it was a new species. It was a bizarro thing,

1141
01:08:13,679 --> 01:08:17,159
but it hadn't flowered. But we went back every chance

1142
01:08:17,199 --> 01:08:20,760
I got, and we finally the deforestation there was, you know,

1143
01:08:20,960 --> 01:08:23,640
clearly going to threaten it. So we dug up plants

1144
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:30,479
and moved them to a local botanical garden outside of Halapa,

1145
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:35,359
and in January of ninety three, I got a report

1146
01:08:35,359 --> 01:08:38,640
from somebody down there. It's like it's finally blooming. And

1147
01:08:38,760 --> 01:08:43,319
the plants that were in the garden loomed at exactly

1148
01:08:43,399 --> 01:08:49,199
the same time as the ones on the mountain. They

1149
01:08:49,199 --> 01:08:54,359
were obviously counting, you know, exactly the same way. C

1150
01:08:54,720 --> 01:08:57,960
There's other reports, like there was a guy back in

1151
01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:01,479
the I think, and he would have gone there exactly,

1152
01:09:01,520 --> 01:09:04,199
but he went to Jamaica and he dug up there's

1153
01:09:04,239 --> 01:09:08,560
a bamboo a ciscaia, there's basically one species of ciscaya

1154
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:12,479
that's found in the Caribbean, and he dug it up

1155
01:09:13,399 --> 01:09:18,039
and took it back to q Gardens in England and

1156
01:09:18,119 --> 01:09:23,039
it lived there. And when the mother population flowered and

1157
01:09:23,119 --> 01:09:26,960
died in Jamaica, the one in England flowered and died

1158
01:09:27,359 --> 01:09:29,399
as well, exactly the same.

1159
01:09:30,760 --> 01:09:34,720
Speaker 1: So they're they're counting. It's I mean, there's obviously they're

1160
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:37,880
not communicating across the Atlantic Ocean. There's not like hormones

1161
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:41,359
being exuded from the roots that are. They're just counting.

1162
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:43,319
Speaker 3: That's yep.

1163
01:09:44,079 --> 01:09:46,439
Speaker 2: And I think it must be associated with the marristems

1164
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:49,199
at the growing point in some way. You know, it's

1165
01:09:49,199 --> 01:09:53,640
not unusual when you see, like if you're in a

1166
01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:57,199
preserve and you've got all these bamboos and somebody's cutting

1167
01:09:57,199 --> 01:09:59,319
a pass and so they're they're using their machete and

1168
01:09:59,319 --> 01:10:03,279
they're cutting them ones right next to the pathway that

1169
01:10:03,359 --> 01:10:05,880
the others inside the forest or in other spots are

1170
01:10:05,960 --> 01:10:10,560
not being cut. Those ones will often flower out of

1171
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:14,359
synchrony with the rest of the population. So I think

1172
01:10:14,399 --> 01:10:18,199
that you know, there's like more cell divisions happening that

1173
01:10:18,399 --> 01:10:21,079
encourages them that they think they've they're older than they

1174
01:10:21,119 --> 01:10:23,880
actually are, so.

1175
01:10:23,880 --> 01:10:26,439
Speaker 1: Cutting them changes that it kind of messes up their

1176
01:10:26,720 --> 01:10:27,399
counting rhythm.

1177
01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:31,279
Speaker 2: It may it seems, but you know, we've never done

1178
01:10:31,319 --> 01:10:38,279
an experiment actually do to really see if that's you know, so, yeah,

1179
01:10:38,319 --> 01:10:40,359
we don't know. This is one of those things we

1180
01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:43,600
really do not know how they count that.

1181
01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:47,039
Speaker 1: I mean that that seems like, you know, instead of

1182
01:10:47,079 --> 01:10:49,600
going to Mars, we should find stuff like this up.

1183
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:52,199
You know, this is like, I mean, I'm done for

1184
01:10:52,239 --> 01:10:54,119
going to Mars. I don't want to live there. But

1185
01:10:54,319 --> 01:10:56,079
you catch my point. I'm just saying there's so much

1186
01:10:56,640 --> 01:10:59,159
I mean, I am smacking the face of every day,

1187
01:10:59,239 --> 01:11:02,159
like how there's so much about the life on this planet,

1188
01:11:02,319 --> 01:11:04,439
the other life forms, the living machine that we don't

1189
01:11:04,439 --> 01:11:07,439
know yet. But I mean that that alone is pretty

1190
01:11:07,479 --> 01:11:11,159
It's very mysterious. It's very cool. How does a plant,

1191
01:11:11,560 --> 01:11:14,199
if it is counting, how does it do that? And

1192
01:11:14,239 --> 01:11:16,520
I assume, I mean, that's a I could see how

1193
01:11:16,560 --> 01:11:19,359
that theory is workable too, because if the seeds don't

1194
01:11:19,439 --> 01:11:23,159
last long and they you get these masked events where

1195
01:11:23,159 --> 01:11:26,920
there's tons, there's tons, you know, hundreds of thousands of

1196
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:31,039
seeds being produced, and you know they're all germinating at

1197
01:11:31,039 --> 01:11:33,000
the same they don't last that long. They're probably all

1198
01:11:33,359 --> 01:11:36,800
you know, one stand that population will all be the

1199
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:38,920
same age, you know, they're all they all germinated the

1200
01:11:38,960 --> 01:11:42,720
same year or the year after, and so I can

1201
01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:44,560
see how that would work. Then then it's just a

1202
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:49,399
matter of counting. But you know, God, like, if it

1203
01:11:49,439 --> 01:11:52,079
is counting, like, how how does it know when to

1204
01:11:52,079 --> 01:11:54,359
stop counting? And how do the other individuals next to

1205
01:11:54,399 --> 01:11:55,680
it know when to stop counting?

1206
01:11:56,479 --> 01:12:02,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's it's encoded in thes somehow, and that's

1207
01:12:03,239 --> 01:12:06,000
you know. I like to say that cicadas are the

1208
01:12:06,079 --> 01:12:10,760
bamboos of the insect world. Yeah, but they must be

1209
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:13,680
doing something very similar because how do they know?

1210
01:12:15,039 --> 01:12:17,880
Speaker 1: Does every get well with cicadas? I mean that's the

1211
01:12:18,119 --> 01:12:21,600
peculiar thing too. Like seventeen years, thirteen years, like those

1212
01:12:21,640 --> 01:12:24,279
are solid numbers. I wonder if it's like that with

1213
01:12:25,239 --> 01:12:28,520
a lot of the bamboos, some of them.

1214
01:12:29,119 --> 01:12:31,800
Speaker 2: You know, we actually don't know the flowering cycles for

1215
01:12:32,199 --> 01:12:35,079
most of the species, which is another ridiculous thing, but

1216
01:12:35,119 --> 01:12:39,000
it's it can be very hard to It's not like

1217
01:12:39,079 --> 01:12:41,680
you can get a grant, you know, to like go

1218
01:12:41,800 --> 01:12:43,680
back every thirty years and.

1219
01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:47,600
Speaker 1: Check something, especially not now in the United States. Right

1220
01:12:47,600 --> 01:12:50,239
now we're trying to make our population dumber, so they're

1221
01:12:50,279 --> 01:12:53,479
better consumers and we can give tax cuts to billionaires.

1222
01:12:53,560 --> 01:12:54,479
Yeah that's wow.

1223
01:12:54,640 --> 01:12:57,399
Speaker 3: Sorry, go on, yeah, no, I hear you.

1224
01:12:58,640 --> 01:13:02,560
Speaker 2: So, you know, we we often rely on these herbarium

1225
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:05,840
collections that go back, you know, several hundred years in

1226
01:13:05,880 --> 01:13:10,119
some cases, and so we can try to estimate approximately,

1227
01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:13,399
you know, when was this thing flowering, and you know,

1228
01:13:13,479 --> 01:13:17,039
how often and so on, and so we can get

1229
01:13:17,039 --> 01:13:20,600
a rough idea. But unless you can pinpoint. You know,

1230
01:13:21,039 --> 01:13:24,960
most of these species do have multiple populations, and you

1231
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:27,880
can certainly get a little bit of drift between populations.

1232
01:13:29,199 --> 01:13:33,479
If they're geographically separated enough. They may may not cross

1233
01:13:33,479 --> 01:13:37,680
pollinate when they do flower. But you know, we have

1234
01:13:37,920 --> 01:13:43,640
some records of basically seedling to seedling, so we know

1235
01:13:43,800 --> 01:13:47,000
for some species with high confidence that you know, it's

1236
01:13:47,039 --> 01:13:51,520
about this amount of time. But because they take you know,

1237
01:13:51,560 --> 01:13:54,479
the flowering process in any of these standards can take

1238
01:13:55,920 --> 01:13:58,680
over a year, sometimes two years, from the time they

1239
01:13:58,760 --> 01:14:04,079
first start to produce the flowers and then they're out

1240
01:14:04,119 --> 01:14:07,399
there for a while and then pollination and so on,

1241
01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:10,079
and by the time they produce the seeds, it can

1242
01:14:10,119 --> 01:14:12,920
be over a year. Yes, and so there's a you know,

1243
01:14:13,000 --> 01:14:15,800
a little wiggle room there as far as calculating the dates.

1244
01:14:16,039 --> 01:14:18,800
Speaker 1: Do all bamboos do this? I mean, do all bamboo

1245
01:14:18,880 --> 01:14:23,319
species generally take a while to flower? Like they're all

1246
01:14:23,439 --> 01:14:26,840
relatively I want to say long live, but I mean

1247
01:14:26,880 --> 01:14:28,760
some can be one hundred and twenty years old obviously,

1248
01:14:28,760 --> 01:14:30,640
but some, I mean, do all of them do this?

1249
01:14:30,720 --> 01:14:32,640
Like they take like between ten to one hundred and

1250
01:14:32,680 --> 01:14:35,920
twenty years, depending on the species, to flower.

1251
01:14:37,079 --> 01:14:40,920
Speaker 2: Most of the woody bamboos, yes, the herbaceous bamboos actually

1252
01:14:41,560 --> 01:14:46,479
mostly just bloom every year, so they don't have There's

1253
01:14:46,520 --> 01:14:50,119
a few species of herbaceous bamboos that seem to do

1254
01:14:50,199 --> 01:14:55,279
the same gregarious monocarpy. And there are some woody bamboos

1255
01:14:55,319 --> 01:14:59,560
that will bloom fairly frequently and not die.

1256
01:15:00,079 --> 01:15:02,800
Speaker 1: You said gregarious monocarpy, Like what what do you What

1257
01:15:02,840 --> 01:15:06,039
do you mean? Gregarious means like like happy and drunk

1258
01:15:06,119 --> 01:15:06,960
or what is it?

1259
01:15:07,000 --> 01:15:10,920
Speaker 2: The means no group, it's like the whole group, all

1260
01:15:10,920 --> 01:15:13,960
of them at the same time. Yeah, that's the term

1261
01:15:14,039 --> 01:15:18,680
in the literature, is gregarious monocarpy. Monocarpy is one thing

1262
01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:23,159
because that means an individual plant will die after flowering,

1263
01:15:24,119 --> 01:15:27,880
like those agaves yeah, but they don't all all the

1264
01:15:27,920 --> 01:15:30,319
members of one species all flower and die at the

1265
01:15:30,359 --> 01:15:30,840
same time.

1266
01:15:32,079 --> 01:15:34,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the that's the weird.

1267
01:15:35,159 --> 01:15:37,520
Speaker 1: That's the weird, Like where the gave is always assumed

1268
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:41,199
like okay, it's only you know, for if a if

1269
01:15:41,239 --> 01:15:46,399
a gave that doesn't produce offsets, that just relies on pollination,

1270
01:15:47,159 --> 01:15:49,039
that's obviously a setback because you've got to be in

1271
01:15:49,319 --> 01:15:51,279
I just assume you've got to be in a large population,

1272
01:15:51,439 --> 01:15:55,640
like a whole hillside that's covered in numerous individuals, and

1273
01:15:55,680 --> 01:15:56,880
not all of them are going to be flowering at

1274
01:15:56,920 --> 01:16:00,720
the same time, but you know, ten or twenty mite

1275
01:16:00,720 --> 01:16:04,199
and that's going to be good enough. But with this,

1276
01:16:04,439 --> 01:16:09,039
I mean, yeah, I realized if smaller populations, that's going

1277
01:16:09,119 --> 01:16:11,840
to be impacted. If it's not producing clonal offsets and

1278
01:16:11,880 --> 01:16:15,640
it's just it's it's all a gave or monocarpic, then yeah,

1279
01:16:15,640 --> 01:16:19,840
you're sol If the population is small, there's a reduction diversity.

1280
01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:23,680
But I guess with these chesscas it's a it's a

1281
01:16:23,760 --> 01:16:25,760
little bit different. There's something else going on.

1282
01:16:26,960 --> 01:16:29,880
Speaker 2: There's something else going on, but you know, most of

1283
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:33,399
these populations you're going to have multiple individuals so at

1284
01:16:33,399 --> 01:16:36,760
a minimum, most of the time you're going to get

1285
01:16:37,039 --> 01:16:40,640
the cross pollination at least between individuals of the same population.

1286
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:46,359
But the other amazing thing is we know almost nothing

1287
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:51,399
actually about their reproductive biology. Are they self compatible? So

1288
01:16:51,520 --> 01:16:57,159
can one can the pollen from one individual actually fertilize

1289
01:16:58,000 --> 01:17:02,039
the stigmas of the same ends? We have no clue.

1290
01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:05,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was the thing though really quick. Sorry with

1291
01:17:05,880 --> 01:17:08,720
the like the mono back to the monocarpy thing, I mean,

1292
01:17:09,319 --> 01:17:14,039
will the whole population of chiskeaya's often be all flowering

1293
01:17:14,039 --> 01:17:16,199
at the same time, or will only like a quarter

1294
01:17:16,279 --> 01:17:18,399
of it be, because that's what I imagine it is

1295
01:17:18,399 --> 01:17:21,319
with the gave's, like you know, with these no offsetting,

1296
01:17:21,479 --> 01:17:24,760
but monocarpet gaves, I always imagine that's not the whole

1297
01:17:24,800 --> 01:17:28,199
population that flowers, because you know, they're not communicating somehow,

1298
01:17:28,239 --> 01:17:33,319
there's not like hormones or whatever. But with these chiskeaya's,

1299
01:17:33,359 --> 01:17:36,960
I mean, is it generally like the whole population since

1300
01:17:36,960 --> 01:17:40,960
it's probably an even aged stand, or is more likely

1301
01:17:41,000 --> 01:17:44,159
to be they in their counting they they will flower

1302
01:17:44,319 --> 01:17:47,159
at the same time or is it just a few

1303
01:17:47,520 --> 01:17:50,279
will be or what? What have you noticed? What? What

1304
01:17:50,359 --> 01:17:50,800
do you know.

1305
01:17:51,159 --> 01:17:54,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there is some variation among species, but most

1306
01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:58,479
of the time, yes, if it's time for it to flower,

1307
01:17:59,279 --> 01:18:01,199
all of them in that population will flower at the

1308
01:18:01,239 --> 01:18:01,720
same time.

1309
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:03,840
Speaker 1: God, that's so it's not hit or missed. It's like

1310
01:18:04,119 --> 01:18:05,079
everybody's doing it.

1311
01:18:05,800 --> 01:18:07,920
Speaker 2: Everybody's doing it. That's the gregarious part.

1312
01:18:08,079 --> 01:18:09,760
Speaker 3: God, that's absolutely.

1313
01:18:09,960 --> 01:18:13,479
Speaker 1: So fucking just based on counting too.

1314
01:18:14,880 --> 01:18:16,880
Speaker 3: That's so it seems weird.

1315
01:18:16,920 --> 01:18:20,119
Speaker 2: They know, they know, they just they have this mechanism

1316
01:18:20,159 --> 01:18:23,600
that tells them. But we also know that you know,

1317
01:18:23,640 --> 01:18:26,640
for example, in Ciskeia, the higher in elevation that you go,

1318
01:18:28,800 --> 01:18:32,079
the less the cycle seem to be shorter for one thing,

1319
01:18:32,199 --> 01:18:36,279
and then also they tend to lose their gregarious part

1320
01:18:36,279 --> 01:18:40,000
of it. So you can find, you know, some percentage

1321
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:43,479
of the population, maybe only five or ten percent, isn't

1322
01:18:43,479 --> 01:18:46,920
flower at any given time, and so individual clumps might

1323
01:18:47,479 --> 01:18:51,880
flower and die, but everybody's you know, on a different cycle.

1324
01:18:53,039 --> 01:18:54,840
The best example of that, I don't know if you've

1325
01:18:54,920 --> 01:18:58,199
been to Costa Rica, but if you go up on

1326
01:18:58,279 --> 01:19:03,199
the Inner American high Way up to ser A Mountain

1327
01:19:03,239 --> 01:19:08,520
of Death up there, the highway goes right right up there.

1328
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:11,760
You know, they got antenna towers now and everything. But

1329
01:19:12,479 --> 01:19:17,119
there's a dominant Ciskeia in the habitat there. It's called

1330
01:19:17,119 --> 01:19:22,560
soup parmo, and that behaves exactly that way. It's always

1331
01:19:22,600 --> 01:19:23,399
got some plants and.

1332
01:19:23,439 --> 01:19:26,359
Speaker 1: Flower What is that? Is that just the cold temperature?

1333
01:19:26,520 --> 01:19:29,560
Do you think that probably impacts that causes that or

1334
01:19:29,600 --> 01:19:30,359
what do you think it could be?

1335
01:19:32,000 --> 01:19:32,920
Speaker 3: It could be.

1336
01:19:34,239 --> 01:19:36,800
Speaker 2: It's I I don't know, there's so many I can

1337
01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:39,760
think of a lot of different you know, because the

1338
01:19:40,079 --> 01:19:43,920
you have a sort of a day night cold warm cycle.

1339
01:19:44,159 --> 01:19:47,920
The higher you go, it gets really yeah, you know, summer,

1340
01:19:47,960 --> 01:19:49,399
every day, winter, everything, right.

1341
01:19:49,319 --> 01:19:54,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the paramo, Yeah, totally, yeah.

1342
01:19:55,800 --> 01:19:57,840
Speaker 2: So it could be something to do with that. It

1343
01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:01,680
could be. I think about the sun. You've got much

1344
01:20:01,720 --> 01:20:07,960
stronger insulation up there than you do at lower elevations.

1345
01:20:09,039 --> 01:20:10,319
I don't know, but.

1346
01:20:10,239 --> 01:20:12,920
Speaker 1: There's still I mean, they're still obviously monocarpic, right like

1347
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:15,159
ol traske monocarpic.

1348
01:20:16,119 --> 01:20:17,159
Speaker 2: As best we can tell.

1349
01:20:17,199 --> 01:20:22,199
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, cool. I've never seen them flowering,

1350
01:20:22,279 --> 01:20:25,000
so maybe i'll get a maybe I'll get a chance

1351
01:20:25,039 --> 01:20:26,760
to actually see one. In flower God, there was a

1352
01:20:26,840 --> 01:20:29,680
species I don't know which one it was. We were

1353
01:20:29,720 --> 01:20:33,079
at like six or seven thousand feet in southern Chile

1354
01:20:33,239 --> 01:20:38,399
and these like relatively barren volcanic slopes, not barren, but

1355
01:20:38,439 --> 01:20:40,479
they you know, it was it was stressful up there.

1356
01:20:40,479 --> 01:20:43,640
You could tell we were near these hot springs, well

1357
01:20:43,760 --> 01:20:46,800
that's hot springs. They were like geothermal areas that smelled

1358
01:20:46,800 --> 01:20:50,279
like hydrogen sulfide. But I just remember looking across on

1359
01:20:50,319 --> 01:20:53,640
this other hill, like three hundred yards away, and there

1360
01:20:53,680 --> 01:20:58,640
were these massive colonies of chiskeaa in the center, and

1361
01:20:58,680 --> 01:21:03,880
then with a ring of the one of the ramnaci

1362
01:21:04,119 --> 01:21:07,279
members like this shrub like subshrub, ramnacious thing. I don't

1363
01:21:07,279 --> 01:21:10,279
know if it's a colletia or what surrounding them, but

1364
01:21:10,399 --> 01:21:13,439
these ciscaa's just had multiple stems. It was really beautiful.

1365
01:21:13,680 --> 01:21:16,239
I mean, it looked like a garden setting, you know,

1366
01:21:16,680 --> 01:21:21,079
like someone had intentionally planted it. But that was remarkable.

1367
01:21:21,159 --> 01:21:24,399
I forgot that, Yeah, I forgot how out of place

1368
01:21:24,439 --> 01:21:26,880
that seems to see in that kind of habit that

1369
01:21:27,000 --> 01:21:31,439
it was like this subalpine you know, southern Chile. It's

1370
01:21:31,520 --> 01:21:34,319
just fucking nuts. And then they're growing up in the

1371
01:21:34,399 --> 01:21:39,159
Paramo and in you know, arid montane areas of Bolivia.

1372
01:21:39,239 --> 01:21:41,920
To do you get many from like the arid montane

1373
01:21:42,119 --> 01:21:47,960
regions of Bolivia.

1374
01:21:45,520 --> 01:21:49,800
Speaker 2: Not so much the arid parts because there is you know,

1375
01:21:49,920 --> 01:21:53,039
even though there are some very drought tolerant ciscaos, there

1376
01:21:53,119 --> 01:21:57,720
is a limit, you know, and they just don't typically

1377
01:21:58,479 --> 01:22:00,359
get into the really driest part.

1378
01:22:00,600 --> 01:22:06,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, everybody's got theirs with the arid parts of

1379
01:22:06,600 --> 01:22:10,760
the andes. I think that really tests drought tolerance. Man. Yeah,

1380
01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:14,560
for sure. What are most are any polyploid? Are most

1381
01:22:14,560 --> 01:22:17,840
of them polyploid? Are they diploid? What's going on there?

1382
01:22:18,760 --> 01:22:24,399
Speaker 2: Oh, they're all They're all polyplids. All the neotropical woody

1383
01:22:24,439 --> 01:22:26,319
bamboos are tetraploids.

1384
01:22:26,720 --> 01:22:28,760
Speaker 1: Okay, so they got four sets.

1385
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:30,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got four sets.

1386
01:22:32,239 --> 01:22:34,159
Speaker 3: Damn. Okay, So that's their basis.

1387
01:22:34,199 --> 01:22:35,640
Speaker 2: Bamboos are diploids.

1388
01:22:35,960 --> 01:22:38,840
Speaker 1: Okay. So and that kind of is key to them there.

1389
01:22:38,840 --> 01:22:40,880
That's kind of like a clue to them being these

1390
01:22:40,920 --> 01:22:42,079
being two separate clades.

1391
01:22:43,600 --> 01:22:45,600
Speaker 2: It is definitely one of the one of the clues.

1392
01:22:46,159 --> 01:22:48,640
Speaker 1: But you said that some of you said some of

1393
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:52,840
the herbaceous ones have hybridized with the woody ones or

1394
01:22:52,880 --> 01:22:54,319
am I did I mishear you?

1395
01:22:55,439 --> 01:22:58,680
Speaker 2: So what we think is that going back to that,

1396
01:22:58,920 --> 01:23:01,560
you know, thirty million years ago or thirty five million

1397
01:23:01,640 --> 01:23:07,039
years ago, that there was a herbaceous ancestor and a

1398
01:23:07,079 --> 01:23:14,439
woody ancestor, and so that this one lineage had probably

1399
01:23:14,479 --> 01:23:18,840
already started down the pathway to becoming you know, woody.

1400
01:23:20,960 --> 01:23:26,319
But the genomics show pretty clearly that they crossed with

1401
01:23:26,479 --> 01:23:29,680
each other. So there was a herbaceous ancestor crossed with

1402
01:23:29,960 --> 01:23:34,399
one of the woody ones, and that gave us you know,

1403
01:23:34,479 --> 01:23:40,479
the like the paleotropical the old World tropical bamboos. It

1404
01:23:40,520 --> 01:23:43,399
looks like there were at least two woody ancestors that

1405
01:23:43,479 --> 01:23:46,039
crossed with each other and that gave rise to the

1406
01:23:46,079 --> 01:23:50,760
temperate woody bamboos. And I actually think that there was

1407
01:23:50,840 --> 01:23:55,560
another cross between one of those species and the herbaceous ones,

1408
01:23:55,600 --> 01:24:01,800
and that gave rise to the neotropical bamboos. But the

1409
01:24:01,800 --> 01:24:09,039
neotropical and paleotropical woody bamboos, they for the most part,

1410
01:24:09,640 --> 01:24:12,039
it's really hard, you know, like if I just showed

1411
01:24:12,079 --> 01:24:17,960
you a couple of them randomly chosen, you would have

1412
01:24:18,039 --> 01:24:21,159
a very hard time figuring out how those two clades

1413
01:24:21,199 --> 01:24:24,920
could be different. So it seems to be largely kind

1414
01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:31,640
of a genomics thing, because that paleotropical woody bamboo group

1415
01:24:31,760 --> 01:24:36,680
is actually hexaploid or higher. So they had even another thing,

1416
01:24:37,520 --> 01:24:42,439
some other chromosome doubling thing happened in their ancestry. So

1417
01:24:42,479 --> 01:24:47,159
they're hexaploids. The neotropicals are tetraploids, and so that at

1418
01:24:47,159 --> 01:24:49,920
that genetic level they are really different.

1419
01:24:50,319 --> 01:24:52,520
Speaker 1: And so we know they had different I mean the

1420
01:24:52,880 --> 01:24:55,640
tetraploids and diploids and hexaploids. I mean, these would all

1421
01:24:55,800 --> 01:24:58,920
theoretically they shouldn't be able to hybridize though.

1422
01:24:58,800 --> 01:25:04,439
Speaker 2: Right once they get to that point, it would be

1423
01:25:04,479 --> 01:25:07,920
a lot more difficult. And of course we figure that

1424
01:25:08,000 --> 01:25:12,319
all the original ancestors, which probably were all diploid, no

1425
01:25:12,359 --> 01:25:17,439
longer exists, you know, they they've probably gone extinct, certainly

1426
01:25:17,479 --> 01:25:19,840
at least for the woody bamboos. There are no diploid

1427
01:25:20,439 --> 01:25:25,960
woody bamboos, so at least in that lineage they went away.

1428
01:25:26,840 --> 01:25:30,479
And but they still can do it. You know, if

1429
01:25:30,520 --> 01:25:33,199
another if you had a tetraploid and a tetraploid, they

1430
01:25:33,199 --> 01:25:34,000
can hybridize.

1431
01:25:34,239 --> 01:25:35,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, no problem.

1432
01:25:36,039 --> 01:25:37,640
Speaker 2: I mean, Cisco's do it all the time.

1433
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:42,720
Speaker 1: God, I was gonna say, I've.

1434
01:25:41,640 --> 01:25:44,600
Speaker 2: Documented some of these and if they're if they're in

1435
01:25:44,680 --> 01:25:48,399
bloom at the same time, they can cross than for

1436
01:25:48,439 --> 01:25:51,399
the temperate bambooths they can. There seem to be no

1437
01:25:51,479 --> 01:25:54,560
genetic barriers once you get past the flowering cycle.

1438
01:25:54,800 --> 01:25:57,279
Speaker 1: Well, you said you've caught insects on these things. Sometimes

1439
01:25:57,359 --> 01:25:59,640
what are they probably doing just harvesting pollen or what

1440
01:26:01,560 --> 01:26:02,079
the flowers?

1441
01:26:02,199 --> 01:26:07,479
Speaker 2: So, yeah, this is something we've been trying to Like

1442
01:26:07,479 --> 01:26:16,520
the forests, like the olyary, these herbaceous stamboos have very

1443
01:26:17,000 --> 01:26:19,600
the pollen has a lot of texture on the surface,

1444
01:26:21,039 --> 01:26:23,000
just as you would expect if maybe they were going

1445
01:26:23,079 --> 01:26:25,520
to be insect pollinated, they could be a little a

1446
01:26:25,520 --> 01:26:34,199
little spiky things. Generally, grass pollen is fairly smooth. So there,

1447
01:26:34,199 --> 01:26:37,119
you know, we're not sure there's but there's never been

1448
01:26:37,159 --> 01:26:43,000
a demonstrated strictly insect pollination event that people have done

1449
01:26:43,039 --> 01:26:45,760
some of these experiments. So what we think is that, yeah,

1450
01:26:45,760 --> 01:26:49,000
they're probably over there, these insects are crawling around and

1451
01:26:49,000 --> 01:26:53,960
they're probably harvesting the pollen, and at this as they're

1452
01:26:54,000 --> 01:26:56,840
doing that, they're you know, helping to kick it out

1453
01:26:56,880 --> 01:27:01,079
of the anthers, and we don't think they're actually like

1454
01:27:01,800 --> 01:27:05,079
traveling from one flower to the next and really pollinating,

1455
01:27:06,039 --> 01:27:09,520
although that could happen, you know, I mean, but I

1456
01:27:09,560 --> 01:27:11,760
don't think that's the main mechanism mm hmm.

1457
01:27:11,920 --> 01:27:12,159
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1458
01:27:12,199 --> 01:27:15,039
Speaker 2: From many of these flowers, you know, they'll the the

1459
01:27:15,079 --> 01:27:18,960
answers come out first, and then once they've withered, then

1460
01:27:19,000 --> 01:27:20,800
the stigmas will come out or vice versa.

1461
01:27:20,920 --> 01:27:28,439
Speaker 3: So oh so they're protandrius then they can be yeah, yeah.

1462
01:27:28,279 --> 01:27:31,359
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, because I've seen I've seen bees on ambrosia,

1463
01:27:31,439 --> 01:27:36,600
which is when pollinated before harvesting pollen really quickly. Earlier,

1464
01:27:36,640 --> 01:27:39,520
you had said that when you brought up a plant

1465
01:27:39,520 --> 01:27:42,039
that I said it's invasive, was that a Rundinaria gigantea

1466
01:27:42,159 --> 01:27:43,560
or a Rundo donax.

1467
01:27:45,199 --> 01:27:49,199
Speaker 2: So, yeah, so a rundin area gigantea is a woody bamboo.

1468
01:27:48,920 --> 01:27:51,199
Speaker 1: And that's nice. I think I confuse that with the

1469
01:27:51,279 --> 01:27:53,079
Rundo donax. My apologies.

1470
01:27:53,720 --> 01:27:56,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what so, and I mean a lot of

1471
01:27:56,520 --> 01:27:59,680
people do because a roundinidy it's like, of course it's

1472
01:27:59,720 --> 01:28:05,680
a run anaria, but no, so arundo danax and fragmighties

1473
01:28:05,760 --> 01:28:10,000
are reeds, and that's a rundanoity E lineage. A runding

1474
01:28:10,079 --> 01:28:14,800
area is a temperate woody bamboo native to the southeastern US.

1475
01:28:14,800 --> 01:28:18,000
And there's three other species now of a rundin area,

1476
01:28:19,079 --> 01:28:21,560
So we actually have four native bamboo species in the

1477
01:28:21,600 --> 01:28:22,640
southeastern US.

1478
01:28:22,960 --> 01:28:25,000
Speaker 1: And so but and you're saying this isn't a different

1479
01:28:25,039 --> 01:28:27,880
subfamily now it's not considered part of Bamboos sodi or

1480
01:28:27,960 --> 01:28:30,000
because I still has it in bamboo sodi.

1481
01:28:30,119 --> 01:28:32,399
Speaker 3: But are they just a rending area?

1482
01:28:32,800 --> 01:28:37,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a rundon area, Yes, is bambusoid Okay? And

1483
01:28:37,800 --> 01:28:40,439
what but it's it's the origin of the name that

1484
01:28:40,560 --> 01:28:47,119
confuses people for the undenoit e. Oh, because yeah, I'm

1485
01:28:47,159 --> 01:28:51,159
confused now all right, Okay, Now a rundanoiity e is

1486
01:28:51,239 --> 01:28:52,079
named for arundo.

1487
01:28:52,760 --> 01:28:53,079
Speaker 1: Uh huh.

1488
01:28:53,520 --> 01:28:57,239
Speaker 2: But when you you can't say a rundoity e, so

1489
01:28:57,319 --> 01:29:02,000
they add an i n in there to make it according.

1490
01:29:01,600 --> 01:29:07,640
Speaker 1: To oh, okayization, So earlier? Did you say arundo earlier?

1491
01:29:08,560 --> 01:29:10,840
Or was it a round? I'm having like a geriatric moment.

1492
01:29:10,840 --> 01:29:12,520
You got to forgive me here, this was.

1493
01:29:12,800 --> 01:29:15,960
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, is a reed?

1494
01:29:16,560 --> 01:29:19,239
Speaker 1: Okay, Arrondo's a reed. And I don't think there's are

1495
01:29:19,239 --> 01:29:24,039
there any arundo that are native to North America. I

1496
01:29:24,039 --> 01:29:26,560
don't like, no, no, Okay, so that is yeah, that's

1497
01:29:26,560 --> 01:29:28,680
the invasive, that's the big one, all right, So but

1498
01:29:28,800 --> 01:29:31,199
that's that's a different Okay, that's again, that's the cluster

1499
01:29:31,279 --> 01:29:35,000
fucking confusion man Arundo and a Rundin area. A Rundin

1500
01:29:35,079 --> 01:29:41,760
area is subfamily Bambusti Arundo, the big invasive. Uh like

1501
01:29:42,159 --> 01:29:43,840
you see him on the Rio Grand at like Big

1502
01:29:43,840 --> 01:29:46,000
Ben National Park or down where I live in South

1503
01:29:46,039 --> 01:29:50,239
Texas right at like twenty six degrees latitude fucking everywhere.

1504
01:29:50,279 --> 01:29:55,319
But okay, thank you and my apologies. Okay, I want

1505
01:29:55,359 --> 01:29:58,760
to talk about before we before we dip out some

1506
01:29:58,880 --> 01:30:03,239
of the the you United States species of bamboo soidy.

1507
01:30:04,039 --> 01:30:06,119
You know, if you pull up Bambu soidi on i

1508
01:30:06,239 --> 01:30:08,840
nationalists and go to United States, you get a lot

1509
01:30:08,880 --> 01:30:12,079
of the invasive ones, which is not surprising. But then

1510
01:30:12,079 --> 01:30:15,479
there's a couple members like a Rundon area Gigantia that

1511
01:30:15,479 --> 01:30:17,760
are native here. Do you know much about those if

1512
01:30:17,800 --> 01:30:20,439
you studied them or what's going on there?

1513
01:30:21,399 --> 01:30:24,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've I've done some work on them. I

1514
01:30:24,319 --> 01:30:30,479
had a grad student who did his PhD that on

1515
01:30:30,600 --> 01:30:35,479
that group, and so he's the real expert and he

1516
01:30:35,960 --> 01:30:39,520
actually works at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. His name

1517
01:30:39,560 --> 01:30:42,960
is Jimmy Triplett. But we did do some field work.

1518
01:30:43,000 --> 01:30:45,880
He did a lot of field work there in the

1519
01:30:45,880 --> 01:30:51,960
southeastern US. And originally there were two species known, the

1520
01:30:52,640 --> 01:30:57,119
river cane, which is a Rendinaria gigantea, and which kaine,

1521
01:30:57,159 --> 01:31:01,920
which is a Rendonaria tecta. And that one is not

1522
01:31:02,000 --> 01:31:07,199
quite as widespread. It's more limited to kind of the

1523
01:31:07,239 --> 01:31:10,800
coastal plain and kind of swampy areas, like if you

1524
01:31:10,840 --> 01:31:14,079
ever go to the Dismal Swamp, you know, on the

1525
01:31:14,119 --> 01:31:17,199
border with Virginia North Carolina, it's going to be one

1526
01:31:17,239 --> 01:31:22,439
of the main understory plants, and it's in really swampy places.

1527
01:31:23,039 --> 01:31:27,000
And Gigantea is much bigger distribution. It gets in like

1528
01:31:27,039 --> 01:31:33,079
the very southern part of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, actually over

1529
01:31:33,159 --> 01:31:36,000
into Texas. So if you go to East Texas you

1530
01:31:36,039 --> 01:31:39,600
can find native populations of a runding area gigantea, which.

1531
01:31:39,399 --> 01:31:43,199
Speaker 1: Is a true a true bamboo. It's in the and

1532
01:31:43,239 --> 01:31:45,000
these are I mean, these have got to be these

1533
01:31:45,279 --> 01:31:48,279
formed massive? Is this this was cane break? Right? Is

1534
01:31:48,279 --> 01:31:49,359
that what they referred to as.

1535
01:31:49,239 --> 01:31:53,159
Speaker 2: Camber exactly exactly? And sure the cane break.

1536
01:31:53,479 --> 01:31:55,720
Speaker 1: They grew along rivers and they I mean they were

1537
01:31:55,800 --> 01:31:58,680
like form their own ecosystem too. They were huge and

1538
01:31:58,760 --> 01:32:04,399
dominant components each of these biomes. So yep, and did

1539
01:32:04,399 --> 01:32:07,000
they exactly what was the what was the Are there

1540
01:32:07,079 --> 01:32:09,119
monocarpic too or what's going on there?

1541
01:32:11,039 --> 01:32:18,479
Speaker 2: So a rendnera gigantea apparently individual populations kind of show

1542
01:32:18,560 --> 01:32:23,239
the monocarpic thing, but as a species, it does not

1543
01:32:24,359 --> 01:32:27,880
flower and die like across the whole part of its distribution.

1544
01:32:29,640 --> 01:32:33,239
So it has you know, there's people who've been trying

1545
01:32:33,279 --> 01:32:35,960
to track this and look at it, and you there's

1546
01:32:36,119 --> 01:32:39,560
there seem to be cohorts that bloom and die at

1547
01:32:39,560 --> 01:32:44,399
different times. So monocarpic but not gregarious.

1548
01:32:44,680 --> 01:32:52,600
Speaker 1: Okay, So so but you said some populations are not monocarpic, you.

1549
01:32:52,600 --> 01:32:57,079
Speaker 2: Know it, We don't really know. It looks like maybe

1550
01:32:57,079 --> 01:33:01,079
there are some that that kind of you know what.

1551
01:33:02,399 --> 01:33:06,000
And all the information I've seen is that yes, when

1552
01:33:06,039 --> 01:33:09,439
a plant of a rundinery edge identity of flowers and

1553
01:33:10,239 --> 01:33:12,359
you know, goes through the cycle, is going to die.

1554
01:33:13,479 --> 01:33:16,960
But it may not even be like the whole population.

1555
01:33:17,119 --> 01:33:23,079
There may be even within a relatively restricted geographic area

1556
01:33:23,159 --> 01:33:28,479
you might get cohorts and so it's complicated.

1557
01:33:29,119 --> 01:33:29,399
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1558
01:33:30,000 --> 01:33:33,039
Speaker 1: Yes, man, all this you're telling me, I mean what

1559
01:33:33,079 --> 01:33:37,640
I've learned today is yeah, man, it's pretty like it's

1560
01:33:37,800 --> 01:33:43,039
very mysterious. They're reproductive cycles. The how long do they

1561
01:33:43,079 --> 01:33:46,800
normally live before flowering? Like, assuming they are monocarpic, I mean,

1562
01:33:46,880 --> 01:33:49,560
a runding area is not something I mean, is it

1563
01:33:49,600 --> 01:33:52,239
like chesca? Like you're if you go into a place

1564
01:33:52,279 --> 01:33:55,520
where they're dominating, you're probably not going to see them flowering.

1565
01:33:55,600 --> 01:33:56,560
You're not going to see.

1566
01:33:56,520 --> 01:33:59,279
Speaker 3: Spikelets most of the time.

1567
01:33:59,279 --> 01:34:05,000
Speaker 2: That's probably true. They I think their cycles are more

1568
01:34:06,720 --> 01:34:08,880
trying to remember because I just saw somebody give a

1569
01:34:08,920 --> 01:34:13,840
talk on this in October, trying to remember. I think

1570
01:34:13,880 --> 01:34:16,760
even he was kind of struggling to define what a

1571
01:34:16,800 --> 01:34:19,920
cycle was. Yeah, but it's at least twenty years. It's

1572
01:34:19,920 --> 01:34:21,239
probably closer to forty.

1573
01:34:21,399 --> 01:34:25,159
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Jesus, I mean so still, yeah, it's it's

1574
01:34:25,159 --> 01:34:30,359
out there. How many other true bamboo bamboosoids are there?

1575
01:34:30,760 --> 01:34:34,920
Native bamboosoids are there in North America, well, in the

1576
01:34:35,039 --> 01:34:37,079
United States of say so.

1577
01:34:37,119 --> 01:34:39,560
Speaker 2: In the United States, Yeah, they're they're not. In Canada,

1578
01:34:39,600 --> 01:34:44,159
they're not, you know, I mean Obviously there's other tropical

1579
01:34:44,199 --> 01:34:48,159
bamboos in Mexico, but around an area is a member

1580
01:34:48,199 --> 01:34:51,560
of the temperate woody bamboo clade. And so the four

1581
01:34:51,600 --> 01:34:54,920
species that we have in North America are the only

1582
01:34:55,000 --> 01:34:58,800
representatives of that clade that are native to North America.

1583
01:34:59,640 --> 01:35:02,960
All the rest of them are from China and Japan

1584
01:35:05,119 --> 01:35:07,960
pretty much that that area, plus some of them are

1585
01:35:08,039 --> 01:35:12,119
native to high mountains in like India, Sri Lanka, Africa.

1586
01:35:13,960 --> 01:35:18,479
But the the four species we have, two of them

1587
01:35:18,520 --> 01:35:22,960
have been described in the last twenty years.

1588
01:35:23,520 --> 01:35:25,479
Speaker 1: And this is what was this one of your students

1589
01:35:25,560 --> 01:35:28,479
was working on, like splitting them out of Yeah, where'd

1590
01:35:28,479 --> 01:35:30,920
they split them out of? Gigantea or attecta or what?

1591
01:35:32,079 --> 01:35:35,960
Speaker 2: Well, you know, those are the two that everybody recognized,

1592
01:35:36,039 --> 01:35:38,560
and you know, they have their common names. And we

1593
01:35:38,560 --> 01:35:42,960
were talking to these spotanists in North Carolina and we

1594
01:35:43,079 --> 01:35:47,399
kept hearing about this thing called hillkane. It's like hillcane. Well, okay,

1595
01:35:47,439 --> 01:35:50,439
what's hillcane? And so we went one of these guys

1596
01:35:50,520 --> 01:35:53,279
went with us and we went to the western part

1597
01:35:53,319 --> 01:35:57,159
of North Carolina and pulled up in front of a

1598
01:35:57,199 --> 01:35:59,319
population of it, and Jimmy and I are looking at

1599
01:35:59,359 --> 01:36:02,319
each other. It's like, this is a new species. This

1600
01:36:02,399 --> 01:36:02,960
is different.

1601
01:36:04,079 --> 01:36:09,319
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Nobody had worked on it before. No, God,

1602
01:36:09,399 --> 01:36:11,520
it shows you how plant I mean, I think that's

1603
01:36:11,560 --> 01:36:14,079
a lot. I encounter that a lot too, like just

1604
01:36:14,319 --> 01:36:16,840
regular plant lins like, oh, it's just cane, you know,

1605
01:36:17,159 --> 01:36:20,279
like someone walks, but it's just a cane.

1606
01:36:20,520 --> 01:36:23,399
Speaker 2: But the locals knew that it was different. I mean

1607
01:36:23,439 --> 01:36:25,840
it had the name. Yeah, and you know this thing

1608
01:36:25,920 --> 01:36:28,880
is like three feet tall, it's deciduous, it grows higher

1609
01:36:28,960 --> 01:36:34,119
up in the mountains. It's actually deciduous, leaves new every year.

1610
01:36:36,800 --> 01:36:39,199
Speaker 1: You know what's the species? Hillcane?

1611
01:36:39,319 --> 01:36:42,680
Speaker 2: Is? What a runding area Appalachiana.

1612
01:36:43,000 --> 01:36:46,600
Speaker 1: Oh, that's cool. That's a cool name. Appalachian runding area.

1613
01:36:47,640 --> 01:36:47,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1614
01:36:48,640 --> 01:36:50,560
Speaker 1: And what was the other one?

1615
01:36:50,840 --> 01:36:53,399
Speaker 2: The other one Jimmy just published it a couple of

1616
01:36:53,479 --> 01:36:58,479
years ago. And that one is a runding area. Let

1617
01:36:58,520 --> 01:37:01,640
me see what did he call it? Alibam Is it alabamensis?

1618
01:37:01,680 --> 01:37:03,520
I think it's alabamns's got.

1619
01:37:03,359 --> 01:37:05,680
Speaker 1: All about I need to get there. There's some cool

1620
01:37:05,720 --> 01:37:10,279
There's so much cool stuff there mm hmmm, lots.

1621
01:37:10,079 --> 01:37:12,359
Speaker 3: Of diversity, yep.

1622
01:37:13,239 --> 01:37:15,840
Speaker 2: And this one probably we knew there was some weird

1623
01:37:16,800 --> 01:37:19,199
things out there from the field work he did that

1624
01:37:19,600 --> 01:37:25,439
it's like it's not really Gigantea and it's not really tecta.

1625
01:37:25,640 --> 01:37:28,920
And he finally got around to, you know, doing some

1626
01:37:29,000 --> 01:37:33,560
of the genetic analyzes and that sort of was like,

1627
01:37:33,600 --> 01:37:37,199
oh that is that's different. You know, it has a

1628
01:37:37,279 --> 01:37:42,079
hybrid origin probably between Gigantea and Tecta. But it's stable,

1629
01:37:42,199 --> 01:37:44,359
it's been here a while, and it's different.

1630
01:37:44,840 --> 01:37:46,760
Speaker 1: Does it does it look different or is it kind

1631
01:37:46,760 --> 01:37:49,239
of like a cryptic species like you need get it's

1632
01:37:49,239 --> 01:37:53,840
hard without molecular analysis or what So he.

1633
01:37:53,840 --> 01:37:56,479
Speaker 2: Came up with some some characters that you can actually

1634
01:37:56,560 --> 01:37:59,680
use to identify it and separate it out. But it

1635
01:37:59,720 --> 01:38:04,159
was that reciprocal illumination process that you know, they some

1636
01:38:04,239 --> 01:38:06,439
of them looked a lot like tectas, some of them

1637
01:38:07,399 --> 01:38:12,479
looked in between. And then okay, you do the genetic

1638
01:38:12,520 --> 01:38:15,359
analysis and it's like, oh, this is a this is

1639
01:38:15,359 --> 01:38:19,800
a different clade within ourundon area. And then you go

1640
01:38:19,840 --> 01:38:21,520
back and take another look and it's like, oh, yeah,

1641
01:38:21,600 --> 01:38:26,199
it's got morphologically it looks a bit different in this

1642
01:38:26,239 --> 01:38:29,399
way or that way. Yeah, And so going back and

1643
01:38:29,439 --> 01:38:31,119
forth like that, we finally figured it out.

1644
01:38:32,479 --> 01:38:36,680
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah, okay, So so the cities of Birmingham, Montgomery,

1645
01:38:36,720 --> 01:38:40,840
Columbus in Atlanta formed like this little semi rhombus, and

1646
01:38:40,880 --> 01:38:44,439
it basically grows in within the boundaries of that. You

1647
01:38:44,479 --> 01:38:48,239
get a couple of populations southwest of Birmingham, but it's

1648
01:38:48,279 --> 01:38:51,000
mostly Yeah, that's man, that is such a cool region.

1649
01:38:51,840 --> 01:38:54,079
I really need to get there. There's a lot of

1650
01:38:54,119 --> 01:38:57,239
good stuff there. Lastly you would uh, well, not lastly.

1651
01:38:57,279 --> 01:38:59,119
I always say that, and then there's like ten more questions.

1652
01:38:59,119 --> 01:39:02,760
But what you said there was deforestation you would seen

1653
01:39:02,840 --> 01:39:05,199
in Verkus and you were collecting one of the just

1654
01:39:05,319 --> 01:39:08,159
gay is what was it? What was Was it just

1655
01:39:08,239 --> 01:39:10,960
deforestation for agriculture or was it logging or what?

1656
01:39:12,960 --> 01:39:16,239
Speaker 2: It kind of starts out mostly as deforestation, at least

1657
01:39:16,279 --> 01:39:24,239
in that region. They'll start off by going into areas

1658
01:39:24,279 --> 01:39:31,399
and burning trees to make coal for fuel. And as

1659
01:39:31,439 --> 01:39:34,439
these little pathways get more used and you know, then

1660
01:39:34,479 --> 01:39:38,560
people will come in. They may do some logging, it

1661
01:39:38,600 --> 01:39:41,880
depends on the area, but then you just start getting

1662
01:39:43,439 --> 01:39:46,800
over time they will just start using it more and more,

1663
01:39:46,800 --> 01:39:49,439
and then they'll start running cattle in there, and yeah,

1664
01:39:49,439 --> 01:39:52,560
it ends up then mostly being converted to pasture for

1665
01:39:52,680 --> 01:39:55,960
cattle or yeah, used for agriculture.

1666
01:39:56,119 --> 01:39:59,680
Speaker 1: So this isn't even like multinational companies like you'd see

1667
01:39:59,720 --> 01:40:03,199
in like Southeast Asia are parts of Brazil. It's just

1668
01:40:03,640 --> 01:40:09,479
it's just regular old what people do. Yeah, yeah, that's brutal. God,

1669
01:40:09,479 --> 01:40:11,720
there's so Yeah. I don't think it's ever. I don't

1670
01:40:11,720 --> 01:40:14,359
know if it's ever gonna stop unless there's Yeah, you'd

1671
01:40:14,439 --> 01:40:16,960
need like a paradigm shift, like a whole sea change

1672
01:40:16,960 --> 01:40:20,479
in the way people view things for it to stop.

1673
01:40:20,479 --> 01:40:22,159
But I mean, I just did a podcast with a

1674
01:40:22,199 --> 01:40:27,159
friend who was talking about explaining these like really sleazy

1675
01:40:28,079 --> 01:40:32,399
you know, World Bank funded development scheme not development schemes,

1676
01:40:32,399 --> 01:40:36,279
but natural resource extraction schemes and Laois where they've Laois

1677
01:40:36,319 --> 01:40:38,880
has lost like a fifth of its forest in the

1678
01:40:39,000 --> 01:40:41,880
last twenty or thirty years. It's like it's it's insane.

1679
01:40:41,920 --> 01:40:44,840
It's like, I believe deaficult behavior, Like wait, where do

1680
01:40:44,840 --> 01:40:46,039
you think this is going to go? Like you guys

1681
01:40:46,079 --> 01:40:48,840
can't keep doing this, you know, But it's mostly corrupt

1682
01:40:48,880 --> 01:40:53,279
politicians and then large companies basically exploiting people like cutting

1683
01:40:53,319 --> 01:40:55,399
like you know, going into an area, cutting the forest down,

1684
01:40:55,479 --> 01:40:58,960
turning the villagers into employees that they pay shit wages

1685
01:40:59,000 --> 01:41:03,359
and then you know, good old predatory capitalism. Anyway, So

1686
01:41:03,439 --> 01:41:06,920
with with you, how did you get you're you're you're

1687
01:41:06,960 --> 01:41:09,600
in Iowa right, You're at the Iowa State or what university?

1688
01:41:10,479 --> 01:41:14,119
Speaker 2: Yeah? Mine at Iowa State University. I've been here a

1689
01:41:14,159 --> 01:41:17,760
long time. I actually did my PhD here and then

1690
01:41:18,560 --> 01:41:21,359
the year I retired or sorry, the year I graduated,

1691
01:41:21,399 --> 01:41:24,159
my professor retired and I ended up getting his job.

1692
01:41:25,159 --> 01:41:26,720
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's cool.

1693
01:41:26,760 --> 01:41:28,439
Speaker 2: Cool, it's pretty great.

1694
01:41:28,600 --> 01:41:31,840
Speaker 1: It worked out great. How so you, I mean, I

1695
01:41:31,840 --> 01:41:35,439
guess being in Iowa, like it's well, it's probably not

1696
01:41:35,520 --> 01:41:37,560
too cold there right now because of it.

1697
01:41:37,880 --> 01:41:40,119
Speaker 2: You know, the Midwest, we're gonna have a blizzard tomorrow.

1698
01:41:40,279 --> 01:41:43,079
Speaker 1: Oh lovely. Okay, well the Midway, the Midwest doesn't really

1699
01:41:43,119 --> 01:41:45,039
get winters too much anymore. I've noticed. I still go

1700
01:41:45,119 --> 01:41:47,119
visit my mom in Chicago and she's like, oh, yeah,

1701
01:41:47,119 --> 01:41:50,039
I didn't start snowing until like late December, early January.

1702
01:41:50,840 --> 01:41:53,119
Speaker 2: It assisted. I mean, in the time I've been here,

1703
01:41:53,439 --> 01:41:57,560
we've gone from being at like zoned for uh for

1704
01:41:58,159 --> 01:42:02,520
A to five B or something thing. I mean, yeah,

1705
01:42:03,399 --> 01:42:05,720
we still hat winter, but it's been a lot more

1706
01:42:05,840 --> 01:42:08,359
up and down. Yeah, Like today's going to be seventy

1707
01:42:08,359 --> 01:42:11,079
degrees and tomorrow we're having three to six inches of snow.

1708
01:42:11,600 --> 01:42:14,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, that's crazy. It's crazy. I remember like last

1709
01:42:14,640 --> 01:42:16,840
January in Chicago, was they had like they were having

1710
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:20,279
sixty degree days or fifty or sixty degree days. It's like,

1711
01:42:20,319 --> 01:42:24,760
it's it's so undeniable. All the oil company pr in

1712
01:42:24,800 --> 01:42:28,119
the world is would still have a hard time convincing

1713
01:42:28,840 --> 01:42:31,199
everyone just open.

1714
01:42:31,000 --> 01:42:32,800
Speaker 2: Your eyes and look and you'll see.

1715
01:42:33,039 --> 01:42:35,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. So what you're in is Ioway stayed in like

1716
01:42:35,840 --> 01:42:37,600
the eastern part of the state, or western part of

1717
01:42:37,600 --> 01:42:38,000
the state, or.

1718
01:42:37,960 --> 01:42:40,560
Speaker 2: Where we're kind of right almost right in the middle.

1719
01:42:42,079 --> 01:42:45,880
Speaker 1: What was the habitat? Was the habitat just prairie back

1720
01:42:45,880 --> 01:42:48,760
in the day, like prairie slowly becoming more arid as

1721
01:42:48,800 --> 01:42:49,399
you go west.

1722
01:42:50,760 --> 01:42:57,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically before European settlement there was like seventy to

1723
01:42:57,319 --> 01:43:02,479
eighty percent of Iowa was tall, rest and yes, getting dryer,

1724
01:43:03,720 --> 01:43:05,239
shorter as you go to the least part.

1725
01:43:05,520 --> 01:43:07,880
Speaker 1: That must have been incredible. I tell people too. I

1726
01:43:07,880 --> 01:43:09,960
Mean someone asked me the other day, like they're like,

1727
01:43:09,960 --> 01:43:12,720
what's your favorite part of the world to go look at? Plants.

1728
01:43:12,760 --> 01:43:15,239
I was like, well, there's hyperdiverse areas, you know, like

1729
01:43:15,319 --> 01:43:19,199
South Africa or Brazil, but I mean, really, any place

1730
01:43:19,720 --> 01:43:23,920
where there's still native plant covers totally fascinating. Even if

1731
01:43:23,920 --> 01:43:26,640
there's not a lot of diversity, there's probably going to

1732
01:43:26,680 --> 01:43:29,760
be a couple of cool endemics or lineages that are

1733
01:43:29,800 --> 01:43:33,199
restricted to that biome. And then I was I used

1734
01:43:33,239 --> 01:43:35,640
IOA as an example. I was like, fucking Iowa was

1735
01:43:35,680 --> 01:43:39,039
probably incredible five hundred years ago, Like probably you know,

1736
01:43:39,279 --> 01:43:40,920
you think of it now and you think of like

1737
01:43:41,600 --> 01:43:46,960
you know, high you know, big lane freeways with mode margins,

1738
01:43:47,119 --> 01:43:50,720
you know, and and like plastic signs for the come

1739
01:43:50,800 --> 01:43:53,840
and go or whatever, you know, gas station, But it

1740
01:43:53,920 --> 01:43:57,880
must have been absolutely stunning some of those tall grass prairies.

1741
01:43:58,039 --> 01:44:01,960
There are there any left, Yeah, there.

1742
01:44:01,880 --> 01:44:05,159
Speaker 2: Is, But you know, Iowa is actually the most highly

1743
01:44:05,159 --> 01:44:09,640
altered state in the Union. There's about two percent of

1744
01:44:10,199 --> 01:44:14,680
more or less native vegetation cover left. But there's a

1745
01:44:14,720 --> 01:44:19,039
couple of places you know that there are preserves. There's

1746
01:44:19,119 --> 01:44:22,279
less than one tenth of one percent of actual native

1747
01:44:22,359 --> 01:44:26,119
prairie left. Yeah, I mean it's you know, but there's

1748
01:44:26,199 --> 01:44:32,039
a lot of efforts to reconstruct prairies. The biggest single

1749
01:44:32,199 --> 01:44:36,920
contiguous area of Native prairie is in the Lost Hills

1750
01:44:37,399 --> 01:44:38,279
in the western part.

1751
01:44:38,840 --> 01:44:42,319
Speaker 3: That sounds cool, Lost Hills loss.

1752
01:44:42,119 --> 01:44:45,439
Speaker 2: L o E s s oh Okay, I.

1753
01:44:45,520 --> 01:44:48,960
Speaker 1: Was thinking the Okay Lost Hills is in California, Lowess Hills, Okay.

1754
01:44:49,680 --> 01:44:56,039
Speaker 2: Yeah. And this is you know, through connected with the

1755
01:44:56,039 --> 01:44:58,199
process of glaciation and when they were seated, you know,

1756
01:44:58,239 --> 01:45:02,199
you get these winds blowing dust and you get accumulation

1757
01:45:02,359 --> 01:45:05,479
of these very fine particles and that's what these hills

1758
01:45:05,520 --> 01:45:07,279
are actually composed of.

1759
01:45:08,680 --> 01:45:08,880
Speaker 1: God.

1760
01:45:09,439 --> 01:45:13,560
Speaker 2: So yeah, they're not like super high, but it's a

1761
01:45:13,800 --> 01:45:16,000
very unusual substrate.

1762
01:45:16,319 --> 01:45:19,359
Speaker 1: You get any endemics or not endemics, but like specialists

1763
01:45:19,399 --> 01:45:22,119
and like plant specialists on that kind of substrate or what.

1764
01:45:25,279 --> 01:45:27,760
Speaker 2: Not. That many that I'm aware of, but there are,

1765
01:45:27,880 --> 01:45:31,479
you know, I mean, it's one of these things that

1766
01:45:31,720 --> 01:45:36,039
the lust is actually very stable. It's pretty fertile, but

1767
01:45:36,119 --> 01:45:38,119
so is the rest of you know, at least the

1768
01:45:38,159 --> 01:45:43,520
northern two thirds of Iowa. But it's it's a special

1769
01:45:43,640 --> 01:45:48,720
kind of drains. It's got more dry adapted things than

1770
01:45:48,760 --> 01:45:52,840
you would find out for because of the drainage. It's

1771
01:45:52,920 --> 01:45:55,319
just much better drained than a lot of the other parts.

1772
01:45:55,479 --> 01:45:58,359
Speaker 1: So it's like a it's almost like a dune almost

1773
01:45:58,399 --> 01:46:02,479
like it's like a more arid micro site or more

1774
01:46:02,520 --> 01:46:07,680
arid sites surrounded by more music stuff. That sounds pretty cool,

1775
01:46:07,840 --> 01:46:08,239
right there.

1776
01:46:08,640 --> 01:46:11,560
Speaker 2: A lot as calcareous, yeah, because most of Iowa is

1777
01:46:11,680 --> 01:46:18,000
actually alkalin's that you know, limestone underneath, but this one is, yeah,

1778
01:46:18,199 --> 01:46:19,960
this is it's going to be a little bit more acetic,

1779
01:46:19,960 --> 01:46:23,399
but it's better drained, and so you're going to get yeah,

1780
01:46:23,640 --> 01:46:24,840
more dry adapted stuff.

1781
01:46:24,920 --> 01:46:26,840
Speaker 1: So what made you what made you want to get

1782
01:46:26,840 --> 01:46:27,720
into bamboos?

1783
01:46:29,159 --> 01:46:35,239
Speaker 2: Hm hmmm. So this was one of those serendipitous things.

1784
01:46:35,560 --> 01:46:40,880
I grew up in northern Virginia and I had the opportunity.

1785
01:46:40,880 --> 01:46:44,000
My dad had studied botany, so he sort of set

1786
01:46:44,039 --> 01:46:46,199
me on the path. He got me interested in plants.

1787
01:46:47,239 --> 01:46:48,760
But when I was in high school, I had a

1788
01:46:48,880 --> 01:46:53,439
chance to work at the US National Herbarium during the summers,

1789
01:46:54,159 --> 01:46:57,239
just as a volunteer. They didn't even have a formal

1790
01:46:57,279 --> 01:47:01,640
interim program at the time. But and the guy that

1791
01:47:01,720 --> 01:47:05,359
I worked with, his name was Tom Soderstrom. He worked

1792
01:47:05,359 --> 01:47:08,880
on bamboo. He did other grasses too, but he was

1793
01:47:09,000 --> 01:47:14,640
mostly working on bamboos, and so I showed up in

1794
01:47:14,680 --> 01:47:18,560
the summer and he put me to work on the

1795
01:47:18,600 --> 01:47:24,239
bamboo collections, you know, like labeling, sorting them out, just

1796
01:47:24,279 --> 01:47:27,680
getting everything in order, the slide collections. And I was like,

1797
01:47:28,680 --> 01:47:33,920
this is cool. You know, bamboos are fantastic. And so

1798
01:47:34,960 --> 01:47:36,800
I did that for a couple of summers, and then

1799
01:47:38,359 --> 01:47:40,560
he and one of the other colleagues there that you know,

1800
01:47:40,600 --> 01:47:43,159
we went to lunch and they're like, oh, hey, you

1801
01:47:43,199 --> 01:47:45,279
want to keep going on this, you should go to

1802
01:47:45,279 --> 01:47:50,079
Michigan State University. There's a guy there and he's really good.

1803
01:47:50,079 --> 01:47:53,479
He works with undergrads, you know. So I ended up

1804
01:47:53,479 --> 01:47:56,039
going to Michigan State and worked with this guy name

1805
01:47:56,119 --> 01:48:01,359
was John Demon and then you know, I was always

1806
01:48:01,399 --> 01:48:04,000
going back and forth home, so I was always visiting,

1807
01:48:04,319 --> 01:48:08,880
working into herbarium there. And then when it was time

1808
01:48:08,920 --> 01:48:11,479
to go to grad school, same thing. We kind of

1809
01:48:11,479 --> 01:48:13,840
went to lunch and they're like, oh, you need to

1810
01:48:13,840 --> 01:48:16,239
go work with Richard Pohle out at Iowa State University.

1811
01:48:17,279 --> 01:48:19,319
So I did, and the rest is history.

1812
01:48:20,279 --> 01:48:23,840
Speaker 1: But what about this lineage of plants though? Because these

1813
01:48:23,840 --> 01:48:25,720
are the stories I like hearing, because like I mean,

1814
01:48:25,760 --> 01:48:29,199
I'm into everything now I'm fascinated by everything that's growing

1815
01:48:29,279 --> 01:48:32,079
and forming an ecology and has an evolutionary story. But

1816
01:48:32,720 --> 01:48:36,600
I like asking people, you know, who specialize in one thing,

1817
01:48:36,720 --> 01:48:40,760
what got them so pad Like, what do they see

1818
01:48:40,760 --> 01:48:42,840
in that one thing that gets them so passionate about

1819
01:48:42,880 --> 01:48:44,880
it and gets them so jazz and that they're thinking

1820
01:48:44,920 --> 01:48:46,600
about it, you know at night, Like when I was

1821
01:48:46,600 --> 01:48:49,439
first getting into plants, I was really into the native

1822
01:48:49,479 --> 01:48:52,640
California cypruses, and I would go to sleep at night

1823
01:48:52,680 --> 01:48:55,359
thinking about these weird habitats, these things grow on the

1824
01:48:55,399 --> 01:48:59,119
weird soil, Like why are they not more widespread? Why

1825
01:48:59,119 --> 01:49:01,840
are they so restrict? Did that kind of thing? What

1826
01:49:01,920 --> 01:49:04,359
was it? And I can think of plenty about bamboos,

1827
01:49:04,359 --> 01:49:06,880
But for you, what was it that they got? You?

1828
01:49:06,920 --> 01:49:09,479
Their fast growth rate, how they formed these colonies, how

1829
01:49:09,560 --> 01:49:10,960
long lived they are? What was it?

1830
01:49:12,680 --> 01:49:15,359
Speaker 2: I think it was actually, I mean part of it

1831
01:49:15,399 --> 01:49:19,079
initially was, you know, I have all these wonderful mentors

1832
01:49:19,079 --> 01:49:22,439
and they were just you know, it was exciting to

1833
01:49:22,880 --> 01:49:25,880
sort of share something with folks who were so enthusiastic

1834
01:49:25,920 --> 01:49:29,760
about these plants. But when I first came here to

1835
01:49:30,279 --> 01:49:33,520
work with doctor Pohl, he had a project he was

1836
01:49:33,560 --> 01:49:37,800
working on a publication on a treatment of the grasses

1837
01:49:37,840 --> 01:49:41,479
of Costa Rica. So after my first year in grad school,

1838
01:49:41,479 --> 01:49:44,439
I went down with him to Costa Rica to do

1839
01:49:44,520 --> 01:49:50,279
field work and just getting out there. I remember before

1840
01:49:50,279 --> 01:49:52,119
we left, he's like, you need to learn how to

1841
01:49:52,159 --> 01:49:57,439
drive afore wheel drive stick shift. I'm like, okay. So

1842
01:49:57,479 --> 01:50:00,560
somebody one of the other grad students taught me and

1843
01:50:00,600 --> 01:50:03,000
we got down there and we had our Toyota land

1844
01:50:03,000 --> 01:50:07,840
Cruiser and we were driving to the first field site

1845
01:50:08,000 --> 01:50:10,520
and we get to a certain point. It was all

1846
01:50:10,560 --> 01:50:12,319
paved road and I was thinking, oh, this isn't to

1847
01:50:12,359 --> 01:50:15,920
your dad. And we pull up and all of a sudden,

1848
01:50:16,159 --> 01:50:19,479
he's like, okay, you drive now. So I got in

1849
01:50:19,520 --> 01:50:22,199
there and you know, and started and it turned into

1850
01:50:22,239 --> 01:50:29,399
this god awful dirt road. He saw what he was doing,

1851
01:50:29,640 --> 01:50:31,640
he knew what he was doing, but it was like,

1852
01:50:32,880 --> 01:50:34,960
you know, and I did it. I was able, So

1853
01:50:35,000 --> 01:50:37,279
I was kind of proud of myself. But we got

1854
01:50:37,359 --> 01:50:39,439
up there and then we were in this cloud forest

1855
01:50:39,920 --> 01:50:44,800
and there's the bamboos and it was just so you know,

1856
01:50:44,880 --> 01:50:49,159
the discovery because there were so many new species and

1857
01:50:49,319 --> 01:50:52,199
just being in the field and being able to look

1858
01:50:52,239 --> 01:50:54,399
at them, and you know that all kind of just

1859
01:50:54,439 --> 01:50:57,880
went like, Okay, this is what I was meant to do.

1860
01:50:58,760 --> 01:51:02,199
You know, in so many beauty full places like those paramos,

1861
01:51:02,239 --> 01:51:06,319
like the soup paramos, Yeah, cloud for it, I was

1862
01:51:06,399 --> 01:51:09,000
just like, oh, this is it. I know what I

1863
01:51:09,079 --> 01:51:09,439
want to do.

1864
01:51:09,680 --> 01:51:12,880
Speaker 1: It's just it's so overwhelming with diversity, and you're I mean,

1865
01:51:13,079 --> 01:51:15,039
that's what gets me is when I'm in those places,

1866
01:51:15,079 --> 01:51:17,960
I look at everything growing around me, and it just

1867
01:51:18,119 --> 01:51:22,800
it all feels so mysterious, so mysterious, and I don't

1868
01:51:22,800 --> 01:51:26,159
want to say foreign because it's you almost feel like

1869
01:51:26,199 --> 01:51:27,640
you're at home. Yeah, You're like, this is what I

1870
01:51:27,760 --> 01:51:31,960
was meant to do. But there's just so many questions

1871
01:51:32,479 --> 01:51:36,479
to answer to. You know, how does this, how does

1872
01:51:36,520 --> 01:51:39,479
this associate with this? Why is this doing this? How

1873
01:51:39,479 --> 01:51:42,119
did this get here? You know, how did it evolve?

1874
01:51:42,199 --> 01:51:45,640
What else it related to? Where? You know, it's a

1875
01:51:45,720 --> 01:51:49,680
it's really fucking magnificent. It's like such a it's such

1876
01:51:49,720 --> 01:51:52,239
a joy, and it's such a distraction from like how

1877
01:51:52,359 --> 01:51:55,840
droll at times and ugly the human world can be

1878
01:51:56,640 --> 01:51:59,760
and just you know, biophilia just being just.

1879
01:52:00,079 --> 01:52:02,079
Speaker 3: So interested exactly with life.

1880
01:52:02,199 --> 01:52:04,279
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's pretty good.

1881
01:52:04,279 --> 01:52:06,359
Speaker 2: You know, you're there, you're looking at your plants, and

1882
01:52:06,359 --> 01:52:09,439
all of a sudden a two can flies overhead or something,

1883
01:52:09,520 --> 01:52:13,279
and just all the surprises and all the discovery that

1884
01:52:14,199 --> 01:52:14,720
you can do.

1885
01:52:15,119 --> 01:52:17,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was it Chasca you were going to see

1886
01:52:18,119 --> 01:52:20,600
in Costa Rica. Yes, what elevation was it?

1887
01:52:22,359 --> 01:52:26,439
Speaker 2: Uh, that was about I'm gonna say it was about

1888
01:52:26,479 --> 01:52:30,520
twenty twenty two hundred meters something like that.

1889
01:52:30,560 --> 01:52:33,159
Speaker 1: It's like almost seven thousand feet about.

1890
01:52:34,439 --> 01:52:35,279
Speaker 2: Pretty close. Yeah.

1891
01:52:35,359 --> 01:52:40,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, it's cool. Well, thanks a lot for being

1892
01:52:40,560 --> 01:52:42,439
down to do this. I appreciate it. I'm trying to

1893
01:52:42,439 --> 01:52:45,239
think if there's any questions I forgot to ask you,

1894
01:52:45,319 --> 01:52:47,479
but I think I think we got most of them.

1895
01:52:47,520 --> 01:52:50,680
Speaker 2: So we covered a lot of stuff. Yeah, that's been

1896
01:52:50,760 --> 01:52:53,359
fun because you gave me a chance to talk about

1897
01:52:53,359 --> 01:52:54,199
my favorite things.

1898
01:52:54,319 --> 01:52:56,760
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's wild. It's cool. There's such a

1899
01:52:56,800 --> 01:52:59,479
cool story there. You think how these things got here?

1900
01:52:59,479 --> 01:53:02,159
It was probably the bre raft from Asian, like, you know,

1901
01:53:02,399 --> 01:53:03,439
twenty million years ago.

1902
01:53:05,279 --> 01:53:11,000
Speaker 2: It's certainly one possibility. Although bamboos don't like salt water

1903
01:53:11,199 --> 01:53:16,279
very much, there's really no that I'm aware of. There's

1904
01:53:16,319 --> 01:53:24,319
no like really salt like you know, coastal adapted things

1905
01:53:24,399 --> 01:53:28,520
like that. So you know, we we speculate about that,

1906
01:53:28,560 --> 01:53:30,119
and you know, was it birds?

1907
01:53:30,479 --> 01:53:30,720
Speaker 1: Was it?

1908
01:53:31,560 --> 01:53:36,399
Speaker 2: Did they hoped in some way? You know? Yeah, they

1909
01:53:36,600 --> 01:53:38,239
like they didn't do it all in one fell swoop.

1910
01:53:42,319 --> 01:53:44,359
I still I tend to go with birds, but I

1911
01:53:44,720 --> 01:53:47,159
like even that that birds preams like what they're not

1912
01:53:47,159 --> 01:53:49,640
going as these things sitting their feathers for you know,

1913
01:53:50,079 --> 01:53:52,439
a trip of well, yeah, a thousand miles.

1914
01:53:52,279 --> 01:53:55,920
Speaker 1: That and most migration, most migration patterns are north to south.

1915
01:53:55,920 --> 01:53:58,079
There's very few that go across I mean, I don't

1916
01:53:58,119 --> 01:54:00,640
think there's any that go across the Atlantic the Pacific

1917
01:54:00,640 --> 01:54:03,840
at lower latitude. Certainly at higher latitudes there's less distance

1918
01:54:04,479 --> 01:54:06,520
between land masses, so it's not as much of a

1919
01:54:06,520 --> 01:54:10,199
big deal. But yep, yeah, I think about it. I

1920
01:54:10,279 --> 01:54:13,119
wonder if there's you know, extinct birds that maybe were

1921
01:54:13,159 --> 01:54:18,279
doing you know, east west flights across large bodies of

1922
01:54:18,319 --> 01:54:20,479
water or who knows. Man, it's it's.

1923
01:54:20,359 --> 01:54:24,479
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, I mean, that's where it is. It's it's

1924
01:54:24,680 --> 01:54:28,000
great stories we can tell that we don't really know.

1925
01:54:28,720 --> 01:54:32,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, it leaves so much to imagination. Man, It's it's

1926
01:54:32,760 --> 01:54:33,840
fun to think where some.

1927
01:54:33,800 --> 01:54:36,399
Speaker 2: Of those questions come from. And that's that's the part.

1928
01:54:36,439 --> 01:54:40,319
It's like there's no shortage of questions to ask and

1929
01:54:40,399 --> 01:54:41,199
things to discover.

1930
01:54:41,520 --> 01:54:46,119
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, hopefully someone figures out the reproductive cycles and

1931
01:54:46,199 --> 01:54:50,520
strategies of ciscaia and you know the gregarious monocarpy and

1932
01:54:50,560 --> 01:54:53,159
how that's how that works and if they are counting

1933
01:54:53,239 --> 01:54:53,479
or what.

1934
01:54:53,600 --> 01:54:57,000
Speaker 2: You know exactly, that would be so cool cool.

1935
01:54:57,000 --> 01:54:59,239
Speaker 1: All right, well, doctor link Clark, thank you so much,

1936
01:54:59,439 --> 01:55:00,880
and yeah, until next time.

1937
01:55:01,920 --> 01:55:04,039
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks, YenS, great talking to you.

1938
01:55:04,119 --> 01:55:05,439
Speaker 1: Bye you too. Bye.