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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two

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Speaker 3: in our series about the sowarrow cactus of the Sonoran Desert.

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Speaker 3: If you're not very familiar with different cactus species, but

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Speaker 3: you've seen a few old Hollywood westerns, or if you've

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Speaker 3: just I don't know, looked at picture books made for

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Speaker 3: kids or cartoons or something, you will probably recognize the

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Speaker 3: ciwaro as the plant icon of the American Southwest. It's

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Speaker 3: got this large, round, vertical stem, kind of like a

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Speaker 3: tree trunk, and then these limbs that branch out from

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Speaker 3: the core when the cactus is mature. We were talking

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Speaker 3: in the last episode about how the sowarro is probably

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Speaker 3: just what a lot of people think of when they

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Speaker 3: think cactus, despite the fact that its geographic range is

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Speaker 3: somewhat limited compared to more widely distributed species like the

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Speaker 3: prickly pair. But it's just a fundamentally very charismatic plant.

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Speaker 3: And the last time we talked about some reasons why

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Speaker 3: that might be. It's sort of human shaped, you know,

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Speaker 3: it's got a trunk kind of like a human maybe

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Speaker 3: with arms looking raised in a posture that's kind of friendly.

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Speaker 3: So in the last episode we talked about that. We

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Speaker 3: also just generally introduced and described the species. We talked

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Speaker 3: about the origin of its scientific name and the tie

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Speaker 3: into Andrew Carnegie. We got a bit into its evolution

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Speaker 3: and some interesting features like its rib structure and its spines.

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Speaker 3: And so we're back today to talk some more about

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Speaker 3: the sorrow and should we do a pronunciation note people

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Speaker 3: pronounce this word different ways. We have landed on sowarrow,

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Speaker 3: but there are other options.

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Speaker 2: Apparently, Yeah, sowarrow is what the National Park Service says,

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Speaker 2: so we're going with that. But like you look up

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Speaker 2: souarrow in webster as, you'll find two different pronunciations for it.

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Speaker 2: So if you have one that you prefer, if you

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Speaker 2: think we're in the wrong here right in, we'll hash

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Speaker 2: it out in listener mail.

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Speaker 3: Sure, which probably also mentioned at the top, because we

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Speaker 3: rob in the last episode you were reading from this book,

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Speaker 3: but actually in the meantime I started reading it as well,

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Speaker 3: so we're both using as a major source for these

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Speaker 3: episodes a book called The The Well I did it

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Speaker 3: there with the har g I started to Saguaro the

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Speaker 3: Sowaro Cactus, a Natural History from University of Arizona Press,

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty that is by a group of researchers and

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Speaker 3: scholars named David Yetman, Alberto Burquz, Kevin Holteen, and Michael Sanderson.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So we'll refer back to that multiple times. But

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Speaker 2: it's an easy book to pick up. It's available wherever

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Speaker 2: you get your books, and it is a great deal

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Speaker 2: more depth. So if you if you really want to

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Speaker 2: dive into the world of the Suaro, it's a it's

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Speaker 2: a great text to have.

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Speaker 3: Now, Robert, I can't believe I didn't ask you this

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Speaker 3: in the last episode, or I hope I'm not repeating myself.

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Speaker 3: I think I didn't. We're talking about the suarrow because

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Speaker 3: you were recently in Arizona. So I assume you were

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Speaker 3: in the region of the Sonoran Desert, and so did

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Speaker 3: you get close to these things while you were out there?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, it's like you you really can't help but

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Speaker 2: do so, Like like I said, for example, you land

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Speaker 2: in Phoenix and you leave the Sky Harbor Airport there,

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Speaker 2: you're just going to see them everywhere. And if you

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Speaker 2: do any amount of hiking within their range, which we

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Speaker 2: always try and do. Yeah, you're going to encounter them.

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Speaker 2: You're going to encounter big ones, little ones. You're going

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Speaker 2: to see the tiny baby suarros. You're going to see

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Speaker 2: the giants, You're going to see the ribs, the skeletons. Everything.

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Speaker 3: Well, later in this episode, I've got some stuff I

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Speaker 3: want to talk about concerning their life cycle and abundance.

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Speaker 3: So I hope maybe you can add some uh, some

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Speaker 3: commentary from recent firsthand experience, like what ways you see

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Speaker 3: these things in their environment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it'll be interesting to reflect on that because

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Speaker 2: they're you know, they're they're everywhere, so you find yourselves

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Speaker 2: as you're walking you you kind of take them for

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Speaker 2: granted at times. I mean, you can't see the forest

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Speaker 2: for the trees, right and then this this is the forest. Uh.

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Speaker 2: But then yeah, they do kind of hypnotize you as

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Speaker 2: well at times, and you you can see the human

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Speaker 2: form in them. You can see you know, you see

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Speaker 2: those ribs, and you start thinking of them as a

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Speaker 2: as a living thing, and so they they still cast

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Speaker 2: their spell over you even as you sort of get

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Speaker 2: used to them being there.

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Speaker 3: Do they make sounds do they creak like trees?

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Speaker 2: I don't remember any creaking. No, but but but maybe

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Speaker 2: I just didn't hear it. We certainly wasn't out there

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Speaker 2: in any degree of wind, as I recall. All right, well,

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Speaker 2: I want to pick up talking about the relationship between

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Speaker 2: the sorrow and rain. So summer moisture from summer rains

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Speaker 2: is vital to the sorrow in the form of late

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Speaker 2: summer or fall monsoon season rainfalls in the Sonoran Desert.

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Speaker 2: And we've already referenced their particular temperature requirements as well,

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Speaker 2: like they have a part of their whole range issue

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Speaker 2: is they can sustain certain amounts of freezing temperatures, but

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Speaker 2: only a certain amount. And it's kind of like, you know,

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Speaker 2: a few different factors what they can physically handle themselves,

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Speaker 2: and then also the sort of power ups they get

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Speaker 2: from their environment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and being in the desert, you know, they're vulnerable

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Speaker 3: to temperature fluctuations on both ends, like getting roasted and

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Speaker 3: desiccated by the hot sun in hot weather and also

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Speaker 3: suffering freezes, especially in the northern part of their range,

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Speaker 3: so they have to protect against they're fighting two fronts there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so their flowering period evolved to take advantage of

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Speaker 2: this particular need for summer moisture, they flower ahead of

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Speaker 2: the monsoon rains, giving plenty of time for their fruit

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Speaker 2: to develop and seeds to be distributed in time for

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Speaker 2: the deluge. Their flowers are pretty big, so eight to

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Speaker 2: ten centimeters, are three to four inches in diameter and

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Speaker 2: white in color. And here's where it gets really interesting.

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Speaker 2: They open at night, generally after ten pm. And remember

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Speaker 2: we're mostly talking about Arizona here, just a slim range

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Speaker 2: in California. Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving time, so that

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Speaker 2: ten pm is going to be pretty consistent as far

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Speaker 2: as clock time goes.

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Speaker 3: Regarding the flowers, I actually read this on a USDA

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Speaker 3: National Plant Data Center sheet. It's just a fact sheet

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Speaker 3: about soorows that mention the nocturnal flowers smell like ripe melons.

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Speaker 3: Though that did make me imagine, like, wait, who's climbing

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Speaker 3: up to get up there and smell the flowers?

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Speaker 2: Its parallels, Well, you got to do your research. You

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Speaker 2: got to get the step ladder out and smell those flowers.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, right, so spines.

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Speaker 2: So they open up at night? Why night, you might ask, Well, evolutionarily,

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Speaker 2: the Suarro's flower game is aimed at nocturnal pollinators in

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Speaker 2: the form of bats, such as the nectar feeding lesser

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Speaker 2: long nosed bat. I included a picture of this guy

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Speaker 2: for you here has a particular Beavis look. Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: think you'll find.

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Speaker 3: I like that you included a Beavis for reference. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: it even it looks a little It's kind of blonde

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Speaker 3: like Beavis, but has the Beavis jaw and nose situation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd think that I watched Beavis and butthead all

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Speaker 2: the time since I referenced Beavis in the last episode.

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Speaker 2: But I haven't actually watched this show in decades. But

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Speaker 2: it's a classic. It's a classic, great show. And yes,

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Speaker 2: the bat kind of looks like Beavis. And then you

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Speaker 2: also have moth pollinators such as hawk moths, so nocturnal

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Speaker 2: pollination is key to the evolution of their flowers. However,

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Speaker 2: while the flowers open at night, they're still visited during

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Speaker 2: the day by daytime pollinators like various bees, and this

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Speaker 2: includes indigenous bees and bees that have been introduced, migratory

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Speaker 2: white winged doves and the doves and bees in general.

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Speaker 2: These two daytime pollinator sources are actually the most successful

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Speaker 2: pollinators among the most northern northern of the Souaros, and

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Speaker 2: according to the authors of that University of Arizona book

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Speaker 2: that we reference, the reason for this is that most

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Speaker 2: of the far northern Saros grow beyond the range of

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Speaker 2: pollinating bats, and they're only able to survive it all

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Speaker 2: up there, most likely due to the bees. So they've

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Speaker 2: kind of pushed beyond the range of the pollinators they

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Speaker 2: evolve to depend upon, or at least that's the way

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Speaker 2: it's shaken out over time. But the bees are keeping

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Speaker 2: them going.

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Speaker 3: So they have left their beloved beavis spat behind and

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Speaker 3: moved on to the bees.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The authors point out that the northern

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Speaker 2: Souaros likely exhibit decreased genetic diversity due to this, since

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Speaker 2: bees and doves have far more limited ranges compared to

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Speaker 2: the bats that might travel sixty miles while foraging during

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Speaker 2: their own northward migration. Now, beyond these pollinators the seedlings,

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Speaker 2: fruit and seeds of the suaro, which are quite small.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if we've described the seeds yet, but

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Speaker 2: they're very small. They're important for a whole host of organisms,

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Speaker 2: various ant and rodent species depend on the seeds. I

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Speaker 2: don't know if we'll get into it in this episode

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Speaker 2: or it'll be a subsequent episode, but humans, of course

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Speaker 2: make use of the fruit. We'll come back to that.

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Speaker 2: Termites will invade the plant to consume some of the

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Speaker 2: soft tissues, but apparently never healthy plant tissue. There's a

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven study that the authors referred to here

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Speaker 2: by Steinberg and Low, and in it it was revealed

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Speaker 2: that the average sorrow produces some forty million seeds in

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Speaker 2: a lifetime. Few of these seeds. Very few of these

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Speaker 2: seeds will survive long enough to germinate, and of those

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Speaker 2: that do germinate, as few as one individual plant per

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Speaker 2: parent plant will survive the first year, which is pretty

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Speaker 2: pretty incredible. This despite a ninety percent germination rate given

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Speaker 2: ideal conditions. There's just that much out there looking to

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Speaker 2: eat the seeds, the fruit, or the sprout itself before

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Speaker 2: it gets past that one year point and one year old,

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Speaker 2: soorrows are still tiny. I encourage folks to look up

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Speaker 2: pictures of these. They If you've ever been to certain beaches,

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Speaker 2: you may have encounted sand spurs, these little little little

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Speaker 2: prickly bets with tiny spines on them. That's about what

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Speaker 2: a baby, a one year old sorrow looks like.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, those things are the bane of dull being walked

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Speaker 3: near the beach.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, they're so tiny, but yet they will become

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Speaker 2: in time and given given that the correct role of luck,

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Speaker 2: they will become giants.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I guess that feeds right into something I

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Speaker 3: wanted to talk about, which is the is the broader

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Speaker 3: picture of how slowly Soorrows grow. And you're exactly right

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Speaker 3: that the earliest stages of growth are the most excruciatingly slow.

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Speaker 3: So studies carried out in Sorrow National Park indicate that

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Speaker 3: a sorrow seedling, after it germinates, on average, takes about

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Speaker 3: eight years to grow between one and one point five inches.

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Speaker 3: So you might see the seed fall leave, come back

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Speaker 3: ten years later and it's still you know, it's a

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Speaker 3: little little guy like that. Growth rates do accelerate after

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Speaker 3: that that early earliest decade, so it's not eight years

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Speaker 3: for every inch or inch and a half of the

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Speaker 3: cactus's height, but it still grows very slowly across its lifespan.

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Speaker 3: The Jetman at All book says that after twenty five years,

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Speaker 3: they are usually still less than a meter in height,

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Speaker 3: so incredibly slow growth. Depending on regional variations in climate,

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Speaker 3: it usually takes somewhere between fifty and one hundred years

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Speaker 3: for a swaro to get its first branch, the first

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Speaker 3: arm coming out wave and saying hello. Between fifty and

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Speaker 3: one hundred years for that, and a major factor in

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Speaker 3: the rate of growth seems to be the level of

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Speaker 3: moisture in the environment, so wetter conditions mean faster growth

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Speaker 3: and earlier branching, or at least usually mean that. The

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Speaker 3: authors of the book also note that variation in temperatures

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Speaker 3: during the winter to spring period seem to have a

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Speaker 3: pretty powerful effect on growth rates, with temperature volatility in

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Speaker 3: the early warm season negatively affecting growth, and I think

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Speaker 3: this is a fact they link to the idea of

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Speaker 3: increased temperature volatility coming with climate change. Obviously that puts

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Speaker 3: sorrows somewhat at risk, but even in the most favorable conditions,

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Speaker 3: it's probably going to be fifty years before a cactus

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Speaker 3: goes from seedling to getting an arm. The normal natural

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Speaker 3: full lifespan of the swarow is somewhere between one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty and two hundred years, so you know they live,

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Speaker 3: They live across multiple human generations and take multiple human

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Speaker 3: generations even to become the more recognizable mature shape.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is something like a number of these

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Speaker 2: details important to keep in mind later when we discuss

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Speaker 2: the indigenous indigenous mythic dimensions of the Sowara.

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Speaker 3: So Another question is when those soarrows get to the

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Speaker 3: mature stage, you know, they're reaching the end of their

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Speaker 3: lifespan at one hundred and fifty or two hundred years

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Speaker 3: of age. How do they die? It seems older, taller

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Speaker 3: sonarrows are vulnerable to being blown over by wind and

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Speaker 3: to being struck by lightning, which happens most often during

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Speaker 3: summer monsoon conditions. In the colder, more northern regions of

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Speaker 3: the Sonoran Desert, old soorrows are more likely to die

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Speaker 3: from freezes during winter. And this is interesting because whereas

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Speaker 3: something like lightning strikes or wind might have a more

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Speaker 3: you know, varied you might pick out individuals in a population,

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Speaker 3: especially big top heavy ones, or you know, the individual

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Speaker 3: lightning strikes might take out individual soorrows in a In

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Speaker 3: the more northern regions, a local freeze can kind of

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Speaker 3: wipe out a whole crop, a whole local crop of

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Speaker 3: cactus all at once. Another interesting fact they were talking

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Speaker 3: about is that if you see a sar with a

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Speaker 3: branch that droops downward instead of reaching up, you know

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Speaker 3: it's got the arm turned down. This is often a

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Speaker 3: result of injury from freezing conditions in the past. So

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Speaker 3: maybe there was a freeze that didn't fully kill the cactus,

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Speaker 3: but it injured the tissues, and so now it's got

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Speaker 3: a drooping arm.

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Speaker 2: Oh. Interesting.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, But beyond the wind, the lightning, and the cold,

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Speaker 3: the soorrow book points out some interesting types of vulnerability

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Speaker 3: you might not expect, especially given how massive and hardy

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Speaker 3: and well defended these plants seem to be. So you

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Speaker 3: would think, you know, like nothing can hurt them. You know,

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Speaker 3: they got all the spines, they're huge. But the author

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Speaker 3: is right. Quote John Alcock, who monitored the same soarrows

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Speaker 3: through the year over many years time, found that a

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Speaker 3: mechanical injury as simple as constant rubbing by a palo

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Speaker 3: verdi or ironwood branch could render a soarrow susceptible to

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Speaker 3: disease and ultimate rot. So they are susceptible to especially

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Speaker 3: if they get abrasions on their skin. You know, something

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Speaker 3: kind of cuts into them, or hurts them, or just

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Speaker 3: kind of rubs them enough, they can get these bacterial

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Speaker 3: or fungal infections. They can get these infections that ultimately,

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Speaker 3: you know, spread through the tissue of the plant and

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Speaker 3: kill it. The authors also provide some interesting and I

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Speaker 3: think vivid descriptions of the death of a sorrow. To

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Speaker 3: paraphrase Hemingway, the soorrow often tends to die slowly and

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Speaker 3: then all at once. So the slowly part is that

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Speaker 3: you can get this kind of in between life and

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Speaker 3: death zombie mode cactus stage where a doomed soorrow has

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Speaker 3: been has been lethally injured, like it has been through

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Speaker 3: a lethal freeze, but it may continue after that to

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Speaker 3: stand upright and produce flowers, that produce flowers and fruit

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Speaker 3: for years, but it's not going to survive. It is

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Speaker 3: now doomed inevitably to die within a certain timeframe, usually

283
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Speaker 3: less than a decade. But in the time between it

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Speaker 3: keeps on living, keeps on doing reproductive activity. But in

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Speaker 3: the final stage of death this comes on with shocking speed. Quote,

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Speaker 3: what recently appeared to be a healthy plant may over

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Speaker 3: a period of a few weeks, turn yellow, then brown,

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Speaker 3: then brown, with black streaks, branches will collapse and fall,

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Speaker 3: and finally these sickly outer layers will slough off. And

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Speaker 3: I connected this with images of the cacti that we

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Speaker 3: talked about last time, with that peeled away skin. Look.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and we see the ribs inside them that

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00:17:50,280 --> 00:17:55,159
Speaker 2: those hard woody rods that give them their structure and

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Speaker 2: their integrity.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. And so that structure, that internal structure can help

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Speaker 3: continue to hold the cactus up even after its you know,

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Speaker 3: softer tissues and the flesh are you know, have been

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Speaker 3: critically damaged by freezes, or are infected with rod or

299
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Speaker 3: something like that. But eventually it all, it all falls apart.

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Speaker 3: Another thing that the author has mentioned. I didn't make

301
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Speaker 3: a note of this, but I just remembered it is

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Speaker 3: you can get a weird situation where sometimes a big

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Speaker 3: mature cactus gets knocked over, maybe it gets blown over

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Speaker 3: by wind or something, so it falls over, but it's

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00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 3: still sort of alive for a bit, so it falls

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Speaker 3: but continues to produce fruit and flowers.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, Well, I guess we see that with with

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Speaker 2: trees as well. Sometimes the tree has been knocked over

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Speaker 2: by one or fallen to one cause or another, but

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Speaker 2: it's still going to continue doing the best.

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Speaker 4: It can't at life.

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Speaker 3: The thing I wanted to come back to is that

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Speaker 3: before the sowaro gets to the mature reproductive stage of

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Speaker 3: its life, it has to pass through a brutal gauntlet

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Speaker 3: of survival. Rob You were talking about this in the

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Speaker 3: The Unbelievable ratio of like how many seeds are produced

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00:19:17,359 --> 00:19:22,840
Speaker 3: versus how many actually survive to become a mature adult cactus. Again,

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Speaker 3: most of the info here is coming from that the

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Speaker 3: Yetna at All book. You mentioned earlier that the swaro

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Speaker 3: tends to set fruit in the early summer, and this

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Speaker 3: is usually going to be between June, mid June and

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Speaker 3: early July, and that this is timed to come right

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Speaker 3: before the summer monsoon rains. This is because the seed,

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Speaker 3: you know, the goal is there's a seed inside the fruit,

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Speaker 3: and the plant wants to disperse those seeds. And the

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Speaker 3: seeds are going to be dispersed either by animal transport,

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Speaker 3: so they'll be dispersed in the maybe the feces of

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Speaker 3: an animal that ate the fruit. This could be a

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Speaker 3: bat or one of many species of bird, or sometimes

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Speaker 3: it'll disperse just by falling. You know, it's not going

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Speaker 3: to get as far that way. But yeah, it's trying

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Speaker 3: to disperse the seeds. But when the seed hits the ground,

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00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 3: the seed needs warm, moist soil in order to germinate.

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Speaker 3: And the authors we're talking here about how a huge

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Speaker 3: amount of the seeds fall in places where they're just

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Speaker 3: not going to have a chance to germinate and survive.

337
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:33,000
Speaker 3: Sometimes they get eaten by granivores like doves and bats,

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00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 3: and then they'll get pooped out on a rock surface

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Speaker 3: or inside a cave roost or some of their dark place,

340
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Speaker 3: or they'll get dropped in an open area that's blasted

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Speaker 3: dry by the sun, so they just don't have a chance.

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Speaker 2: Now, I do want to add, for anyone who's not

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Speaker 2: familiar with this landscape, you do following a heavy rain,

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Speaker 2: you do have these wet areas. And I again, I

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Speaker 2: am a visitor to the Sonoran Desert. I don't regularly

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Speaker 2: spend my time there, but on my most recent trip,

347
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Speaker 2: we did go for a nice hike, a couple of

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Speaker 2: hikes in the Suarrows range, and it was for me

349
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Speaker 2: kind of surreal to be out. You know, it's it's

350
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Speaker 2: dry in so many respects. You're in the desert. You're

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Speaker 2: very concerned about how much water you have on you

352
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Speaker 2: And at the time I was running just a little

353
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Speaker 2: bit low, not dangerously low, but it was a little low.

354
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Speaker 2: It's like, okay, I need to get back and get

355
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Speaker 2: some water. But then you're also passing puddles that are

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Speaker 2: still standing. You know, you're you're you're stepping, you're walking

357
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Speaker 2: through soft earth because of the recent rain, and so yeah,

358
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Speaker 2: it can almost seem it can be very difficult to imagine,

359
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:46,720
Speaker 2: I think if you haven't encountered this in this environment.

360
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so there will be seasonal rains and that

361
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Speaker 3: we'll get more into this in a minute. But the

362
00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 3: swarrow is very biologically poised to take maximum advantage of

363
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Speaker 3: when these frequent and seasonal rains do come, so that

364
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 3: it has water stores to tide it over through the

365
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:10,439
Speaker 3: periods of drought. But the seedling has all these things

366
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 3: to contend with, it might get dropped in a place

367
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 3: that's not favorable for germination. Not to mention how rarely

368
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Speaker 3: in time the overall climatic conditions align for the seedlings

369
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Speaker 3: to germinate. The authors of the book note that quote

370
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Speaker 3: the necessary conditions for germination of seeds and survival of

371
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Speaker 3: seedlings seldom occur, perhaps ten times per century, often less

372
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Speaker 3: frequently still, so that's sort of the good case scenario

373
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Speaker 3: tend to. You know, it can go be a long

374
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Speaker 3: time in between the years when things work out just

375
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:54,879
Speaker 3: right for the young souarros to you know, to germinate

376
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,639
Speaker 3: and then to survive through their youngest lives. And this

377
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:06,199
Speaker 3: leads to two very interesting consequences. One is areas with

378
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Speaker 3: tons of Sorrows all roughly the same size, and that's

379
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 3: because they're all pretty much the same age. It's like

380
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 3: a cohort or a crop that came from one of

381
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:22,919
Speaker 3: these periods when they all grew up together, when the

382
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,120
Speaker 3: conditions were right, and so you're not getting a lot

383
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,120
Speaker 3: of in between because you know, there are long gaps

384
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 3: in between these periods when conditions are right. And it

385
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 3: also leads to areas that are Soorrow habitats, but at

386
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 3: certain times in history seem to have no mature soarrows,

387
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:49,360
Speaker 3: and this latter condition can can cause and historically has

388
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 3: caused periods of what we might call illusory extinction. So

389
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:58,400
Speaker 3: the authors mention this in the case of the eastern

390
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 3: unit of Soorrow National Park, where between the time the

391
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 3: park was established in nineteen thirty six, and some surveys

392
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 3: that were done in the nineteen sixties, nearly all of

393
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:14,879
Speaker 3: the mature souarros disappeared. Quote, what was once a soorrow

394
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 3: forest became a comparatively uninteresting and structurally nondescript desert landscape.

395
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 3: Now that's alarming.

396
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I believe this is the case where they

397
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 2: have some photographs in the book of this Yeah.

398
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:31,919
Speaker 3: Yeah, And some casual observers were deeply disturbed. You know,

399
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 3: they thought the suarros had gone extinct in the area,

400
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 3: but they had not. The reality was that people were

401
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 3: observing the effects of this reproductive pattern where the right

402
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 3: conditions for germination and survival of seedlings only happen on

403
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 3: the timescale of decades. Then you pair that with the

404
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 3: extremely slow growth of the seedlings, and you can get

405
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 3: periods where nearly all of the mature saros in the

406
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 3: region reach the end of their natural lifespan, they die,

407
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 3: and the younger generation of souarros are still tiny. So

408
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 3: it looks like the cactus has just disappeared from the landscape,

409
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 3: but it hasn't. And in fact, in the case I

410
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 3: just talked about the historical case with the eastern part

411
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:21,880
Speaker 3: of Suarro National Park, there was an additional human factor involved.

412
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 3: Researchers figured out why this illusory extinction occurred between the

413
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 3: thirties and the sixties, and it was the combination of

414
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 3: the generational dying of a crop of mature souarros plus

415
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:39,080
Speaker 3: several decades of climate being not very favorable to seedlings,

416
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 3: plus human behavior in the area, primarily livestock grazing, which

417
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 3: meant you know you're going to have cattle or whatever

418
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 3: live stock just tramping through the area, so that you

419
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:57,719
Speaker 3: know that is negatively affecting the seedlings, but also people

420
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 3: cutting down woody trees for firewood or to fire kilns.

421
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 3: And when these human activities were eliminated, the Suaros bounced

422
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 3: back in the area and the cactus forest grew again.

423
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 3: Now here's an interesting question. Why would people cutting down

424
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:19,399
Speaker 3: woody trees for firewood have an effect on soarrow seedling growth.

425
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 3: This is another really interesting part of the young Souarro's

426
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 3: survival gauntlet. So warrow seedlings need protection, and for this

427
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 3: protection they rely often on what are known as nurse

428
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 3: plants or nurse trees. So rob I wonder if this

429
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 3: matches with your experience of looking for the little seedlings

430
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 3: out in the desert. If you go out into the

431
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 3: desert and find tiny soorrow seedlings thriving, especially in the

432
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,199
Speaker 3: colder parts of the Sawaro Range, the more northern parts,

433
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 3: it's usually the case that these seedlings are hiding under

434
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 3: the protective cover of a larger established plant, with the

435
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 3: most common species including the pallaverdi, the ironwood, creosote, mesquite,

436
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 3: and another shrub called the triangle leaf bersage or barsage.

437
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 3: I don't know how you say that, did you observe

438
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 3: this kind of thing? I've got a picture, by the way,

439
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 3: you can look at in the outline, rob where you've

440
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 3: got these young sowarrows, all kind of they're almost gathered

441
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 3: like children around a mesquite tree. You know, they're under

442
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 3: its branches and they're springing up around it.

443
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: This is this is this is fascinating. Yeah, I didn't.

444
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 2: I don't think I directly observed this or at least

445
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: identified it as such. But I think part of that

446
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 2: is that and this is another thing that might not

447
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 2: be obvious to folks who haven't visited this environment, is

448
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: that you do have a lot of plant life. It's again,

449
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 2: we have this kind of like Looney Tunes and old

450
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:54,439
Speaker 2: Western vision of like a desolate landscape with just a

451
00:27:54,520 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 2: few cactus columns holding up the sky. And it's not

452
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,199
Speaker 2: the case. It's a it's a very very botanically diverse area.

453
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 2: There's so many different types of cacti as well as

454
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 2: as other plants that have evolved to thrive in dry conditions,

455
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 2: and so you see this multi layered effect going on,

456
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 2: things living and thriving in the shadow of other plants,

457
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 2: you know, pretty much throughout these landscapes.

458
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking, it's funny how when I

459
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 3: was a kid, I used to picture the desert as

460
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 3: essentially sand dunes like you might get in the rubolcalli

461
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,360
Speaker 3: or something just like sand dunes with no plant life

462
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 3: except occasionally a souaro cactus poking up out of them.

463
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 3: And so no, the reality is something more mixed. You know.

464
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 3: You will get this actually quite crowded scrub or shrub landscape,

465
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 3: you know, with a lot of kind of hardy, thorny

466
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 3: kind of plants, and then the cactus is coming up. Yeah.

467
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 2: I kind of go back to the to the the

468
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 2: observation that Frank Loyd Wright made that the desert was

469
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 2: felt like the bottom of the ocean, you know, and

470
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 2: like the bottom of the ocean is very diverse, but

471
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 2: is different compared to say a forest that one might

472
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: be used to, or you know, certainly a more temperate zone.

473
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 3: So coming back to nurse plants and nurse trees, if

474
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 3: a soorro seed manages to reach warm, moist soil and

475
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 3: actually germinate, which again many do not, it first puts

476
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 3: out these two tiny seed leaves called coudledans, And unlike

477
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 3: the flesh of the adult cactus, which is protected by

478
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 3: both sharp spines and a kind of inherent nastiness and unpalatability.

479
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 3: Remember we talked last time about how you cannot just

480
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 3: cut and chug or cut and chomp the flesh of

481
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 3: a soorrow. It will make you sick. It's not good

482
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 3: for you. The flesh of the soorrow is actually tough, acidic,

483
00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 3: contains irritants. It's just like not very palatable. There are

484
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 3: some creatures that can kind of consume it. But unlike that,

485
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 3: the tender cudaledans of a freshly germinated seed are relatively

486
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 3: easy pickings for rabbits, mice, and pack rats, ants, birds,

487
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,120
Speaker 3: all kinds of things want to eat the seedlings. The

488
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 3: seedlings are also easily crushed underfoot by larger animals like

489
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 3: deer or grazing cattle you know, livestock animals, and they

490
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 3: are vulnerable to the sun, so if they don't have

491
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 3: adequate shade, they will get roasted and desiccated. On the

492
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 3: other hand, if they don't have protection against the cold,

493
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 3: they will easily freeze to death because they don't have

494
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 3: the mass that the adult cactuses have that helps protect

495
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 3: them against freezing as they don't have the mass or

496
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 3: the defense mechanisms of mature souarows that allow them to

497
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 3: survive these short dips below freezing temperatures. So the authors

498
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 3: of the book right quote, nurse plants are so named

499
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 3: because their shade branches litter, plus the other plants that

500
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 3: grow in their shade shelter the seedlings from sunburn and freezing,

501
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 3: protect them against trampling, conceal and shelter them from herbivores, and,

502
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 3: in the case of some luguminous trees, provide a nitrogen

503
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 3: enriched soil environment. So the nurse plant offers the whole package.

504
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 3: It keeps you from burning. Not burning keeps you from

505
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 3: dry you know, getting too hot, drying out and desiccating

506
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 3: keeps you from freezing, keeps animals from eating you or

507
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 3: crushing you. And sometimes it even gives you some natural fertilizer.

508
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 3: So it's a nice deal, right. It would almost be

509
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 3: nice if the soaros could find a way to pay

510
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 3: back their nurse plant somehow, But in this case, what

511
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 3: goes around does not come around, because it seems what

512
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 3: often happens is by the time the sowarrow is becoming

513
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,479
Speaker 3: large enough that it has its own defenses and it

514
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 3: has enough mass to survive frosty weather and doesn't need

515
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 3: the nurse plant's protection quite so much anymore. It also,

516
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 3: at this point has a pretty robust root structure. Now

517
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 3: we haven't talked a lot about the root structure of

518
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 3: the toworro, but it tends to unlike other plants which

519
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 3: have a deeper taproot goes down deeper in the soil,

520
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 3: the soworrow tends to have a wide, shallow root structure.

521
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 3: And what this does is it kind of sucks up

522
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 3: a lot of the rain water that would previously have

523
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 3: seeped down into the soil and been absorbed by the

524
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 3: deeper roots of the nurse tree, and in this way,

525
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 3: the growing soworrow may quite often sort of murder the

526
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 3: plant that raised it, or if that's putting it too strong,

527
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 3: it at least starts to outcompete the plant that raised it.

528
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 3: Very is this the thanks I get situation? However, because

529
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 3: the growth of the sorrow is so slow, the author's

530
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 3: point out that this process never serves to wipe out

531
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 3: the population of nurse plants in an area because the

532
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 3: nurse plants have plenty of time to reproduce and recruit

533
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 3: new generations before they are sort of betrayed and destroyed.

534
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, the betrayal and destruction is still a very slow

535
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 2: process for the sowarro.

536
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 3: Also, I mentioned that the association between soorrow seedlings and

537
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,960
Speaker 3: nurse plants is stronger in the northern part of the

538
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 3: soarro's geographic range. The authors of the book right that

539
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:35,479
Speaker 3: in the southern regions where you find somorrow, because of

540
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 3: the higher humidity in the wet season, soworrows actually don't

541
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 3: do so well under plant canopies. I think I don't

542
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 3: know all the reasons for this. They don't get deeply

543
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 3: into it. They say that they kind of suffocate under

544
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 3: plant canopies. I think it could be that there's, you know,

545
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 3: just other factors come into play, like they're more in

546
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 3: competition for light and stuff like that. But whatever the reason,

547
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 3: they don't do as well under plant canopies in the

548
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,200
Speaker 3: southern part of their range, so instead they are found

549
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 3: more isolated from other plants in rocky areas, where they

550
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 3: rely on rocks and boulders to provide the kind of

551
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 3: shelter that something like palloverdi and other plants provide further north.

552
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is this is this is fascinating again.

553
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 2: It It may seem counterintuitive to many to think about

554
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 2: a cactus as being at all vulnerable to the sun,

555
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 2: or to think about freezing temperatures in a desert environment,

556
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 2: but these are all definitely in play.

557
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 3: One thing I wanted to briefly come back to that

558
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 3: the authors mentioned, which I thought was kind of interesting,

559
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 3: is when they say that the cactuses are protected not

560
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 3: just directly by the nurse plant, but by the community

561
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 3: of other plants that grow up in the shelter of

562
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 3: the nurse plant. So it's almost like the nurse plant

563
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,760
Speaker 3: provides a kind of an environ meant of collective defense

564
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 3: by you know, by by shading and protecting these plants.

565
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 3: A lot of the plants gathered there, and they also

566
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:09,399
Speaker 3: kind of help shade and protect each other.

567
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:13,080
Speaker 2: That's a great point. And I think this is another

568
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 2: thing that it can seem counterintuitive to us because of

569
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 2: our agriculture brains. You know, we think about monocrops. We

570
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 2: think about, oh, there's the crop. There's a million of

571
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 2: them right next to each other doing well. As opposed

572
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 2: to the more the natural environment you'll encounter or the

573
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 2: approach that you'll see in like horticulture, where there's a

574
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 2: realization that no, it's not just this one plant growing there.

575
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 2: It's like this plant is growing next to this one,

576
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: in the shade of this one, in the partial shade

577
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,239
Speaker 2: of this one, in the soil that is manipulated by

578
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 2: this one. You have an entire ecosystem going on there,

579
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 2: and it's it's more than it's more than just the individual.

580
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 2: And I guess part of that too is like humans

581
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 2: have an individual spirit, and we are also often prone

582
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:03,399
Speaker 2: to think about ourselves as being disconnected from everyone else

583
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,359
Speaker 2: around us in the world and the people that came

584
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 2: before us.

585
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 3: But I think another way that it's interesting relating to

586
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 3: ourselves is that kind of like the relationships between humans.

587
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 3: You know, it's not purely it's not usually as simple

588
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 3: as one plant purely helps or harms the other. I

589
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,359
Speaker 3: mean there it's a complex web of interactions and when

590
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 3: in which the different organisms are both helping and hurting

591
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 3: each other in complex ways.

592
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. It reminds me about our various discussions about parasites

593
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 2: and symbiosis and how sometimes the line between one and

594
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 2: the other is a little a little hard to navigate,

595
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 2: like when where does where does parasitism end and something

596
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,759
Speaker 2: a little more even begin? Does it start as one

597
00:36:55,840 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 2: thing and become another? Yeah? It gets a little money.

598
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 3: All right, are you good if we talk a bit

599
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 3: about metabolism. Yeah, So we've already discussed several of the

600
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 3: giant Sorrow's adaptations to survive in the dry conditions of

601
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 3: the Sonoran desert. So again, you've got things like the

602
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 3: fact that it uses this wide, shallow root structure to

603
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 3: quickly absorb massive amounts of water after fleeting rains. It

604
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 3: has this waxy epidermis and water storing tissues that allow

605
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 3: the cactus to hold huge amounts of extra moisture within

606
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 3: its flesh. And some of the authors we talked about

607
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 3: in the last episode compared the cactus to just an

608
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 3: enormous drum of water, like a giant standing drum of

609
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 3: what I mean, that's quite true, Like much of its

610
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 3: mass is water.

611
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:58,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're bright green, while everything other trees in the

612
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 2: vicinity have just turned to like brown, you know, dried out,

613
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 2: almost like a deathly state, and the cactus, the soarro

614
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 2: is still glowing green.

615
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, full of water, but once again, not drinkable water.

616
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 3: It's you know, it's trapped in some kind of mucilage

617
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 3: with all sorts of stuff, chemicals, and so.

618
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 2: You yeah, not to drink even in survival situations, especially

619
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 2: in survival situations where your dehydration is not going to

620
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 2: be helped by nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

621
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so there's that, but even counterintuitive things like

622
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 3: we talked the last time about how you might think

623
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 3: the spines are only to deter herbivores from eating the

624
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 3: flesh of the cactus, like to keep them away or

625
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,359
Speaker 3: to do other things like prevent them from rubbing against it.

626
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 3: And you know, the spines do help with that, but

627
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 3: they also help with water and they help with controlling

628
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 3: the microclimate around the cactus because the spines help shade

629
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 3: the surface of the cactus under the hot sun, mitigating evaporation.

630
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 3: And they also i'll trap a boundary layer of warm,

631
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 3: humid air around the souarro's skin, kind of like wearing

632
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:06,280
Speaker 3: a sweater.

633
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crazy.

634
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 3: But one interesting water conscious adaptation we haven't talked about

635
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 3: yet is that souarros use what's called crasulation acid metabolism

636
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 3: or CAAM. That's the acronym the CAAM photosynthesis. If this

637
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 3: sounds familiar to listeners, we did briefly talk about this

638
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 3: in an October episode from a few years ago where

639
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 3: we were getting into the subject of a Spanish moss

640
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 3: monster that was featured in an episode of cul Check

641
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 3: the Nightstalker. But the connection to Spanish moss is that

642
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 3: it also makes use of cresulation acid metabolism for roughly

643
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 3: the same reason as the cactus, which is to preserve moisture.

644
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 3: So what is CAM photosynthesis? Like other plants, the sowarro

645
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 3: gets its energy through photosynthesis, So, in simplified terms, it

646
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 3: uses sunlight to power a series of chemical reactions which

647
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 3: take carbon dioxide that it absorbs from the air through

648
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 3: these little holes. Most plants have these little holes on

649
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 3: the undersides of their leaves. In the case of the cactus,

650
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 3: it's going to be these little holes in the stem

651
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 3: which can open and close. These are called stomata, and

652
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,439
Speaker 3: they open and close to absorb carbon dioxide from the air,

653
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 3: and then they fix that carbon dioxide into sugars into carbohydrates.

654
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 3: And so for this reaction, the plant actually does need water,

655
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 3: which it absorbs through its roots, and the chemical reactions

656
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 3: produce the necessary carbohydrates for the plant to live, sustain itself,

657
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 3: and grow and reproduce. These are the energy storing molecules.

658
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 3: And then the reactions also produce oxygen as a byproduct,

659
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 3: which is very lucky for us, lucky for all of

660
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:02,360
Speaker 3: the oxygen breathing metazoins out there. But the most common

661
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 3: form of photosynthesis in the plant kingdom is known as

662
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 3: C three carbon fixation. Something like ninety percent of plants

663
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 3: use C three. There's another type known as C four

664
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:19,799
Speaker 3: carbon fixation. Crasulation. Acid metabolism is an alternate form of

665
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 3: photosynthesis that it still does basically the same thing. You know,

666
00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 3: the beginning and end is roughly the same, but it

667
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:32,319
Speaker 3: uses a few extra steps. The CAM pathway comes with

668
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 3: a reduced total carbon carbon output, so it's gonna be

669
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 3: less productive overall for the plant. But what this pathway

670
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 3: sacrifices in total energy molecule production, it makes up for

671
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 3: in water preservation because it saves water. Most species of cacti,

672
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 3: which are adapted to hot and dry conditions use CAM photosynthesis.

673
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 3: So what's the trick here. I'm not going to go

674
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,320
Speaker 3: into a full depth on the chemistry, but the major

675
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 3: macro scale distinction of camp photosynthesis is that it allows

676
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 3: the plant to keep its stomata closed during the daytime.

677
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 3: And remember that the stomata are these little tiny holes

678
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 3: or pores in the skin of the plant. Again most

679
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 3: often on the underside of leaves, but in the cactus

680
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 3: they're going to be on the outer the layer of

681
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 3: the stammer of the arms, and these little holes allow

682
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 3: the exchange of gas and vapor with the air outside. Now,

683
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 3: a C three pathway plant will keep these pores open

684
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 3: during the daytime so that the plant can continuously absorb

685
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 3: carbon dioxide from the air while the sun is shining

686
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 3: to power the photosynthesis in its leaves, so in the

687
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 3: C three pathway, it's like the raw materials are being

688
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 3: delivered to the factory while the assembly line is running.

689
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 3: But for the suaro in the desert environment, having the

690
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:05,800
Speaker 3: stomata open during the day is a dicey proposition because

691
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 3: the sun is blazing hot, the air is very dry,

692
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 3: and those conditions together mean that a lot of water

693
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 3: inside the plant will be evaporating and escaping while the

694
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:20,840
Speaker 3: windows are open. So instead, what the soarro does is

695
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 3: it keeps its pores closed tight during the daytime and

696
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 3: then opens them instead at night, when there will be

697
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 3: less evaporation and water losc as temperatures are lower, so

698
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 3: it feasts on CO two after midnight by the light

699
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 3: of the moon. Now, like any other plant, it still

700
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 3: needs sunlight to power photosynthesis. It can't do anything about that.

701
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,040
Speaker 3: It needs to use the sun to power the reactions,

702
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:51,200
Speaker 3: and there's none of that at night. So cam photosynthetic

703
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 3: plants have to convert the absorbed carbon dioxide from the

704
00:43:55,200 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 3: night time into an organic compound called malic acid, where

705
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 3: they can store it for later use. Now it's important

706
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 3: to note that malic acid is not an especially weird

707
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 3: or exotic compound. In fact, it is produced by I

708
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 3: think every plant on Earth, or if not every plant,

709
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 3: nearly every plant. Most plants at least maybe all of

710
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 3: them make this stuff. And you are already quite familiar

711
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 3: with malic acid. I can guarantee by taste because it

712
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 3: is the main chemical responsible for the tart flavor, and

713
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 3: a ton of fruits like unripe apples, grapes, pears, and plums, apricots,

714
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 3: all these fruits are going to have a sourness that

715
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 3: comes from malic acid. Now, of course, it's not the

716
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:46,800
Speaker 3: only source of sourness in fruits. You also have citric acid,

717
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,720
Speaker 3: which you get in citric fruits and stuff. But malic

718
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 3: acid is going to be the tartness in a lot

719
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 3: of natural fruits and some vegetables too. I think it

720
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 3: may be a dominant flavor in rhubarb, I think I've read.

721
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 3: And one in Tristing fact I came across is that

722
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 3: it is sometimes even used as the vinegar flavor in

723
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 3: salt and vinegar potato chips. Are you a salt and

724
00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:09,760
Speaker 3: vinegar guy, Rob.

725
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 2: You know I'm not a huge potato chip guy, But okay,

726
00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 2: if I potato chips are on like say, the gaming table,

727
00:45:15,960 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 2: and they often are I'm gonna be more drawn to

728
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 2: salt and vinegar than I am to whatever kind of

729
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 2: like spicy face melting flavor has been has been tried

730
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 2: it out?

731
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the extreme flavors haberneuro death or whatever.

732
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love those things, and I support it because

733
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 2: that means I am less likely to eat a whole

734
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 2: bunch of those chips.

735
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 3: Right. So, the one thing that I thought was kind

736
00:45:41,080 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 3: of surprising is that you would use malic acid as

737
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,120
Speaker 3: a vinegar flavor in a salt and vinegar chip, because

738
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be vinegar flavor, so you'd think that

739
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 3: would come from vinegar, which is based on acetic acid.

740
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 2: I never thought. I just assumed there would be in

741
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 2: the factory, like some sort of like vinegar mister hitting

742
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 2: the potatoes slices at some point.

743
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 3: So I think some chips do use the powdered form

744
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 3: of acetic acid on salt and vinegar chips, but other

745
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 3: chips use malic acid. I was reading about this in

746
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 3: an article for the website Serious Eats by Dan Suza

747
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 3: called the Science behind Salt and Vinegar Chips. This guy

748
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 3: went through and studied the ingredients of a bunch of

749
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 3: different brands of salt and vinegar potato chips, and he writes, quote, surprisingly,

750
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 3: a couple of brands in our lineup opt for citric

751
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 3: acid from citrus fruits, malic acid from apples, lactic acid

752
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 3: from milk, or even fumeric acid which apparently comes from

753
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 3: lichen and the quote continues to give them pucker and punch.

754
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,359
Speaker 3: So I was looking through which ones are the ones

755
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 3: that opt for malic acid. Some very familiar brands like lays,

756
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 3: Uts and Whys all use malic acid in their flavoring mix.

757
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 3: So it's not the only flavor there, but it's part

758
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:00,280
Speaker 3: of the flavoring they use for the chip. And while well,

759
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 3: not all tartness is exactly the same, you know you'll

760
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 3: get different acidic types of flavors, and malic acid is

761
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 3: going to have a slightly different kind of tartness and

762
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 3: acidity than acetic acid from vinegar or citric acid. So yeah,

763
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess they just try different things

764
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 3: and figure out what flavors they like. But sometimes you're

765
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 3: going to be getting malic acid in your chips.

766
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 2: Fascinating.

767
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 3: So again, malic acid is all over the plant Kingdom.

768
00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 3: It's not unique to cacti, but what makes it special

769
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:36,799
Speaker 3: in the cresulation acid metabolism plants is that they use

770
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 3: it to store carbon resources during the off cycle. So

771
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 3: the carbon from the air is stored in the plant

772
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 3: as malic acid. It's brought in during the night and

773
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 3: then turned into malic acid stored there, and then once

774
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 3: the sun fires up in the daytime, the plant can

775
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 3: close its pores tight to protect its horde of water

776
00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 3: and minimize evaporation, and then vert the malic acid back

777
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 3: into CO two inside its tissues and then fire up

778
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 3: the photosynthetic assembly line. So rough analogy, it's kind of

779
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 3: like having a form of cold storage. It's a place

780
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 3: you can store the materials you need when it's not

781
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 3: convenient to be getting them at the same time you're

782
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 3: using them.

783
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 2: And it allows the day shift to continue the night

784
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: shift's work.

785
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 3: Right. So, I was looking up some other examples of

786
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 3: camp photosynthesis and familiar plants, especially food crops, and it

787
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,760
Speaker 3: turns out it just keeps popping up in interesting places.

788
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 3: Pineapples famously actually rely on cam Another plant that uses

789
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:54,240
Speaker 3: camphotosynthesis to survive in dry conditions is the agave plant,

790
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 3: the juice of which is fermented and then distilled to

791
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,360
Speaker 3: produce tequila. So anytime you have a marger rita, some

792
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 3: of the complex sweet and tart flavors that come from

793
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 3: the tequila element. Of course margarita, you're gonna have what's

794
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 3: the other stuff in there? I think orange, liqueur or

795
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 3: something and citrus. Yeah, but the tequila part itself, Some

796
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:20,760
Speaker 3: of these flavors are downstream products of crasulation acid metabolism.

797
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 3: Another cam plant is vanilla. Now this one is not

798
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 3: fully cam. I'll discuss the distinction in a minute, but

799
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 3: this is interesting because the orchid flower that produces vanilla

800
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 3: vanilla beans doesn't grow in especially dry conditions like the desert.

801
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 3: It tends to grow in kind of, you know, moist

802
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 3: forest conditions like the dense, shady understory of a humid

803
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 3: tropical forest. So if the I was wondering, if its

804
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 3: environment is pretty wet, why does it need cam the

805
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 3: answer to this question. I had a harder time finding

806
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 3: a very clear CLI answer to this, and I was

807
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:06,319
Speaker 3: seeing suggestions of different reasons in different sources. So maybe

808
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:09,479
Speaker 3: it's kind of complicated, but it seems one possible part

809
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 3: of the answer brings us back to Kulchak, the nightstalker

810
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:17,240
Speaker 3: and paramou Fa. So remember that Spanish moss is an epiphyte,

811
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 3: meaning it grows not on the ground but on the

812
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:24,480
Speaker 3: trunks and branches of trees. And because it grows on trees,

813
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 3: it can't put roots into the ground to collect moisture,

814
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 3: so it has to collect moisture from the air and

815
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 3: directly from rainfall with these epiphytic roots or with these

816
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 3: things I think called tricombes on its outer tissues. So

817
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:42,439
Speaker 3: this is a less stable, less dependable way to get

818
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 3: water compared to having roots sunk in the ground. Thus

819
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 3: it needs to use cam to protect what water it's

820
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 3: able to suck out of the fog and out of

821
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 3: the storm. Vanilla orchids are not full epiphytes, but it

822
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 3: seems they are semi epiphytes, so they do they have

823
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 3: roots in the ground, but they climb up trees. They

824
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 3: climb up the trunks and branches of trees like vines,

825
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 3: and as they climb up they produce these secondary aerial

826
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 3: roots to absorb water directly from the air and from

827
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 3: the rain. So kind of like Spanish moss, the aerial

828
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:22,880
Speaker 3: roots are a less stable, less consistent way to harvest

829
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 3: water than the roots sunk in the earth, and so

830
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 3: this could be a reason why these vanilla flowers rely

831
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 3: on CAM at least in part. Could be other reasons too.

832
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:36,800
Speaker 3: It might have to do with light and heat stress

833
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 3: in their hot environments, maybe as they like climb up

834
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 3: trees and become exposed to the sun. But whatever the reason,

835
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,839
Speaker 3: when you taste vanilla, you can think about how wow,

836
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 3: you know? So the compounds that I'm tasting now are

837
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 3: downstream of growth through in part crysulation, acid metabolism. And

838
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 3: it's worth noting that the different photosynthesis pathways are not

839
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 3: mutually exclusive for a plant, so many plants can switch

840
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 3: between like direct C three photosynthesis and CAM depending on conditions.

841
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 3: It seems like vanilla orchids do this. A lot of

842
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:20,560
Speaker 3: camplants use C three when water is abundant, and then

843
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 3: they switch defensively to the CAM pathway when they are

844
00:52:24,120 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 3: under thread of drought. This is called facultative CAM photosynthesis.

845
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 3: But the swaro is an interesting exception. It is one

846
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 3: of the rare plants that, as far as we can tell,

847
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 3: basically never goes into C three mode. It is pretty

848
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 3: much only CAM, which is called obligate camphotosynthesis and coming

849
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:46,080
Speaker 3: back to the Jetman at All book, there's this whole

850
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:49,880
Speaker 3: interesting section about this in a chapter by one of

851
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:54,279
Speaker 3: the authors, Kevin Halteen. Halteen writes about some experiments that

852
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 3: demonstrate and study the suarro's obligate relationship to CAM. One

853
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 3: way you can do this is you put the soworro

854
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 3: inside an air type plexiglass box and then measure the

855
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:08,400
Speaker 3: amount of CO two in the air in the box

856
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:13,200
Speaker 3: over time. And sure enough, these experiments show that carbon

857
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 3: uptake by the sowarro is almost entirely confined to the

858
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:21,400
Speaker 3: nighttime it's after midnight. In a period between midnight and

859
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 3: dawn and the rest of the day, carbon uptake is

860
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 3: either zero or it's actually negative. So during the day

861
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 3: it's you know, releasing carbon dioxide, which we don't usually

862
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 3: think of plants doing. So why would that be going on?

863
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 3: I guess there could be multiple reasons, but Holteine explains

864
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 3: that this is actually pretty common for cam plants during

865
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 3: the day because it happens when the malic acid is

866
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 3: inside the tissues is converted back into carbon dioxide, so

867
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:54,760
Speaker 3: the photosynthesis can happen some of this co two escapes

868
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 3: from you know, it leaks out of the plant before

869
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:01,279
Speaker 3: it can be converted into sugars. And another interesting thing

870
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 3: that they note is that the suaro shows differential carbon

871
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 3: uptake across the seasons of the year, regardless of some

872
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 3: objective external conditions like the amount of water present. This

873
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 3: seems to be an adaptation related to the fact that

874
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 3: they grow more in the summer and then they shift

875
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 3: into a more conservative, safer gas exchange strategy in the

876
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,840
Speaker 3: off season when less new tissue growth is needed.

877
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:36,240
Speaker 2: Fascinating, fascinating. Yeah, there's such amazing engines really, you know, again,

878
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:40,800
Speaker 2: it's so easy, especially with such a long living, slow

879
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 2: growing organism as this, to just think of them as

880
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 2: almost inert. You know, they're almost indeed like stone columns

881
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 2: holding up the sky. But they are very active in

882
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 2: what they're doing is amazing.

883
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so much of it is just centered around

884
00:54:57,520 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 3: gathering and protecting water resources. I mean, it's to psychologize

885
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 3: something that's actually just biological adaptation. It's like a water obsession,

886
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 3: you know, it feels like almost a religious orientation toward water,

887
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 3: which is a metaphor actually that you know that that's

888
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 3: not new to me suggesting here. You know, people think

889
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 3: of that often with desert organisms having a kind of

890
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 3: obsessive or religious devotion to the water and their environment.

891
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 3: It's what everything revolves around.

892
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, Now we're gonna go ahead and close out

893
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 2: this episode here, but we have a lot more to

894
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,360
Speaker 2: talk about with the Sorrow, so well at least do

895
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 2: one more episode, and in the next episode of Belief,

896
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 2: we're going to get into indigenous traditions that involve the soarrow.

897
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about some other animal interactions and

898
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:55,759
Speaker 2: some other growth features of the soaro itself, So be

899
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 2: sure to tune in for that episode, and in the meantime,

900
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 2: certainly feel free to go ahead and ride in. Any

901
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 2: of you desert dwellers or desert tourists out there, or

902
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 2: cartoon watchers and Western officionados. We'd love to hear from

903
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 2: you as well, if you have thoughts on anything we've

904
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 2: discussed about the souaros thus far, or any media representations

905
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 2: and so forth. It's all fair game. Just a reminder

906
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:22,399
Speaker 2: to everyone out there that Stuff to Blow your Mind

907
00:56:22,480 --> 00:56:25,240
Speaker 2: is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes

908
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Short form episode on Wednesdays and

909
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:31,320
Speaker 2: on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just

910
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Yes,

911
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if we have watched a film with

912
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:39,759
Speaker 2: the sowaro in it. We have watched some, We've watched

913
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 2: desert movies. We've watched Arizona movies, but I don't know

914
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 2: if we've watched anything filmed specifically in the Sonoran Desert.

915
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,839
Speaker 2: I'd have to go back and check, but I'm not sure.

916
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I think there's some sowarro

917
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,759
Speaker 3: in the movie Tarantula, the Okads Giant Spider movie that.

918
00:56:55,760 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 2: Would make sense. Yeah, yeah, number of Arizona movies. I

919
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 2: need to go back and check. By Yes, bright In,

920
00:57:01,239 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 2: We'd love to.

921
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:04,600
Speaker 3: Hear from you huge thanks as always to our excellent

922
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:07,279
Speaker 3: audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get

923
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 3: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

924
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:11,520
Speaker 3: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or

925
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,440
Speaker 3: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

926
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 3: a Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

927
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

928
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

929
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.