WEBVTT - Selects: Plant Migration 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.160 Hey guys, it's me Joshum. For this week's select, I've 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.560 chosen our August twenty twenty three episode on plant migration. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:09.880 This one makes me a brainy boy, what with its 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.320 earth science and something that goes on under our noses 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:17.120 without us really realizing that it's happening. And we figure 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.439 out that there's a lot to learn about plants on 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.400 the move, which makes it even sweeter. I hope you 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:24.119 love this one as much as I do. 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:37.440 Welcome to Stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.200 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.600 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.800 should know that we're all melting. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.000 Addition, yeah, I'm just a migrating fern. 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:53.160 Oh that's a good one to. 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:57.960 Be blowing through the forest looking for a new home. Sure, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:00:58.960 I'm a spore. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:00.880 What happens when you get their spore? 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.119 Well, I'll probably grow into a beautiful new fern because 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.200 ferns are pretty party. 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.000 That's awesome, And I'll bet you'll contribute to society and 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.720 all sorts of beneficial ways that ferns that were already 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:16.200 there couldn't necessarily do. 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:18.800 I hope so there is fern stuff in here. And 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:23.760 I have a wonderful fern scene at my camp on 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.000 the other side of the feeder creek that goes into 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:27.720 the main creek. I call it. I even have a son. 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.000 This is fern forest, and it's a forest of ferns. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:31.760 It's quite lovely. 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.360 God knows where they're from, because those things can travel 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:35.400 quite a bit, as we'll see. 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:40.560 Yeah, it could be from Alabama easily. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.399 I'm not kidding easily. Man. I've got a stat that's 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.360 gonna blow your mind in a second. Uh oh boy, Actually, 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:48.800 I'll just bust it out now you're ready. 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:51.080 Yeah, yeah, How far can a fern travel? 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.640 A fern can travel. The Tasmanian tree fern in particular, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.520 can send it spores five hundred to eight hundred kilometers 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.640 te hundred to five hundred miles from the mother plant. 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:09.760 And get this, a single frond a fraud produces more 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.640 than seven hundred and fifty million of those spores. Wow, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.480 So you can understand that ferns, I mean, you find 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:21.120 ferns everywhere. They're really hardy. They can actually survive cold, 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.280 colder temperatures than you would think. They also thrive in 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.639 the tropics. They're like a really great pioneer plant. They 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.000 usually are among the first large plants that show up 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.440 in like a newly cleared part of Earth. Right, this 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.480 all makes sense then, Okay, so what we're talking about then, 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:40.799 is that those ferns that showed up in this new 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.200 place and said, hey, let's get this, let's get this 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.679 biosphere going again, let's get this biome back into shape 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.560 after this wildfire or something like that, or there's like 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:53.920 a stampede because there was a really great ice cream 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.800 truck that drove through one of those two. Those ferns 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.600 have migrated. They came from Tasmania apparently all the way 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.560 to wherever the ice cream truck was. Right now they're there, 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.600 and so they actually moved in that sense, which is 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.680 really surprising because plants are what are known as sessile organisms. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:19.040 They don't move from place to place individually as organisms, 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.440 but as a species they can actually move around like 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.080 inch forms. Pretty good. 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.240 Yeah, it's pretty cool. I didn't really know much about this. 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.639 We're talking about plant migration and the idea, well not idea, 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:35.880 the very real fact that just like humans and animals, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:41.360 will go to more hospitable climbs as the climate may 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.320 change or just I don't know, just to seek a 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.880 better place to be. Plants and trees and things on 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:49.160 mass do the same thing. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.880 Yeah, and there's all sorts of ways that they do 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.440 that too. So they do it by dispersing their seeds 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.240 or their spores in that case, fern spores or single 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.840 cell organisms. They're not like a seed technically, but they 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.680 do the same thing. Right, They show up in a 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.200 place and set up shop and they start rocking out. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.320 Yeah, that's right. And ferns, you know, it depends and 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.720 we'll get all into this stuff. But how fast this 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:20.680 happens depends on different factors. How far these plants can 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:26.320 migrate depends on different factors. Why this is happening is 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:31.080 generally climate change. Yeah, And plants are in trees and 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.080 things are generally moving north or up in elevation if 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:37.440 they hit mountains. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.839 Or south in the southern hemisphere exactly. 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.159 So that's sort of the general pattern. And we mentioned 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.240 ferns because, like you said, those spores can really haul. 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.640 Ferns also mature very quickly, and you know, the wind 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.560 can just that's why I got that's why I got 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:56.320 a fern forest at my camp. Probably. 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.000 Yeah, so they check both of the boxes that you 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.719 need to be a fat migrating plant species. They produce 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.000 seeds or spores at a very young age, and their 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.920 seed or spore can travel very far distances right right, 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.159 so they can move around. And also it doesn't hurt that. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.240 Like I said, ferns are adaptable. The trees and other 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:21.080 plants still move quite so fast. But they move, especially 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.360 if you look at the fossil record, a lot faster 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.640 than they actually should. So if you pay attention to 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:32.159 a single organism saying oak, those acorns don't travel terribly far. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.560 They may get a little further away from the drip 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.000 line if a squirrel happens to bury it somewhere and 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:39.320 a new oak tree grows. 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:40.080 Sure. 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:45.080 I think it was Ander Samberg who described acorns as 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:49.040 solar powered factories for producing more oak trees. 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.080 Whoaa Andy Sandberg said that? 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:57.360 No, Anders Sandberg. Oh, okay, he's a philosopher at Oxford. 0:05:58.160 --> 0:05:59.159 That makes a lot more sense. 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.800 Yeah, yeah, Andy Samberg. He ate his lime accidentally in 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.280 his Corona bottle. That's that's what he's got. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:13.680 You knew he's married to, uh, Patricia Arquette Nosanna Arquette. 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.520 You've been guessing Patricia Arkette for a lot of things lately. 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.479 I feel like he's married to Yeah, I feel like 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.800 that's come up before recently. Maybe I don't know. 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:25.359 Her name just rolls off the tone. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.520 I know a big fan of hers. He is married 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:33.560 to what's her name, Joanna Newsom, the singer and harpist. 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.560 Oh neat And if you like, if you're. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.560 Into architecture and homes, you should seek out I don't 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.160 know if his architectural digest or something, but someone did 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.440 a spread on their home and it is really something else. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.839 Okay, so that's Andy Samberg Power. 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.080 Yeah, that would just checked a quick detour. 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:54.160 Wait wait I wasn't done. 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:55.279 Oh no, good, go ahead. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.600 So if you look in an individual tree, an oak tree, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.839 those acorns don't go particularly far away from the tree, 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.400 as the old saying goes, But the fact that they 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.800 do fall away from the tree moons that very slowly, 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.280 some of those seedlings are going to grow up a 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.240 little more northward or a little more southward than its 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.760 mother plant, and very very slowly, the whole group of 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.160 oaks can move southward or northward right. 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.400 Over hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of years 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:25.360 so long. 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.080 The thing is, if you look at the fossil record, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.240 they move way faster than that than they should. And 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.640 there's actually a paradox that was named by a guy 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.120 named Clement. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.080 Reid, right reads paradox. 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.320 Yeah, he's got a great, great title for. 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.760 It, of rapid plant migration. That's the full title. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.480 It sounds almost like snake oil from the nineteenth century. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:47.600 Yeah, I kind of does. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:49.840 So what is it? 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.440 Oh, okay, I didn't ever set me up. We're still 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.800 tight after all these years, for sure. So what he 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.040 found from the fossil record, like you were talking about, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:00.920 and as we'll see that that one, like, you know, 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.440 a pretty good way to study this stuff, especially pollen fossils. 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:05.800 Right, yeah, because they're so hardy. 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.960 Yeah. So he saw that trees were migrating a lot 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.760 faster than like the rate that you would think, and 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.720 so he like those oaks. I think was one example 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.600 you gave on the British Isles after the last glacial period, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.960 over a span of like ten thousand years or so, 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.960 they traveled about six hundred miles and it would normally 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.360 take about a million years. The seeds if the seeds 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.400 were just dispersed in a typical way. But what he 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:39.040 figured was that what may be happening here is like 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.560 some weird weather event happens that sent things much farther 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:50.880 than usual, or like some deer or something eats something 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.880 and then poops out something really far away from where 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.560 it started, and so all of a sudden, this animal 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:59.120 has spread it via their poopoo. 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:04.480 Right, And this this is how like large scale migration happens, 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.880 or I should say rapid migration over long distances, right right, Yeah, 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.760 it's the it's the unusual, not just the acorn falling 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.439 and hitting the ground. It's not just gravity assisted. It's 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.120 animal assisted, which is called zoochorey, or it's wind assisted, 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.120 which is called a nemo corey, or water assisted, which 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.880 is called hydrochory. And that's just the way that some 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.480 plants disperse their seeds. That's kind of on top of 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:31.760 the normal way they disperse it, which is just dropping 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:35.559 it from their leaves or the spores blowing on the wind, 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.160 which I guess is one type of corey. 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.280 Yeah, So like if a squirrel loaded up its mouthful 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.800 of things m hm, and somehow found its way into 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.040 your camper. As you said, off for Arizona. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:46.760 That would be a freak event. 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:51.200 Sure, it probably wouldn't be en mass, but you know, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:52.800 that's a way a dree could move. 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.360 All it takes is that one that one oak to 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.040 make it sure to just survive, and then it starts 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.920 its own new part of the range. 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:06.320 Yeah, absolutely, And we Alsho should point out when when 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.440 was redoing this. This is a while ago, like one 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:09.720 hundred plus years ago, right. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.440 Yeah, he was a geologist. I don't know if we said, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.679 but his reads Paradox of Rapid Plant Migration came out 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:18.959 in eighteen ninety nine and it was a smash hit. 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.800 Yeah, so people, I mean, for at least that long, 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:27.200 science has been sort of curious about this, this migration 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.280 happening at a rate that they would not expect. 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:33.600 Right. The thing is is that's really hard when you 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.600 throw in that X factor to calculate how fast and 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.920 actual species can migrate. And there's a few ways that 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.360 you can study that kind of thing. One, as you said, 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:49.520 is studying the fossil record, which is super helpful, but 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.160 it's not showing you what's going on contemporaneously or within 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.439 the last couple decades. This is ten thousand, a million 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.120 years ago something like that, right. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.960 Yeah, So if you wanted to study something a little 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.400 closer to home timeline wise, you would maybe set up 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.800 what's called a permanent vegetation plot, so just you would 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.120 mark off an area and you would go back there, 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:14.439 you know, every so often, like every six months or 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.120 every year or so, and just sort of chart what's happening. 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.440 That's one really good way. I think they've been doing 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.559 this for about one hundred years since in nineteen twenty, 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.680 so we've got a pretty good data set there. Something 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.079 else you could do is go somewhere like let's say 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:36.120 you dug up some cool scientific journal from a scientist 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.559 from you know, two hundred years ago that went and 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.480 explored some island, and while they may not have like 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.360 charted everything out exactly like you would in today's science, 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.800 they may have a really nice diary about all the 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:49.600 plant life there and things that they saw there and 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.960 where it might be, and you could go back to 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.600 that place and it's not quite as tight of a record, 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.079 but you could still get a pretty good idea of 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:57.640 what's happening. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.120 Yeah, depending on whose journal you're working for, and back 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.720 in twenty twelve, a Danish team of scientists followed the 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.839 record left by a nineteenth century geologist named Alexander von 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.000 Humboldt from Germany, who was just an interesting dude in 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:17.280 and of himself. He called coffee concentrated sunbeams. So he's 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:18.080 that kind of guy. 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:19.440 Oh man, that's great. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.280 They went back to Chimborazo Volcano in Ecuador, which Humboldt 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.600 studied in detail, and not only did he study the 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.360 vegetation there and he classified all sorts of new plants 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.400 that Europeans didn't know about at that point, he also 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.800 noted exactly where they were on the mountain as far 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:37.920 as the elevation went. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:39.960 Super helpful, super helpful. 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.840 So based on this information, the twenty twelve Danes were 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.440 able to go back and recreate his trip, and then 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.520 they were able to note what plants were where, and 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.439 they found that everything, all species, on average, had moved 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.560 up the mountain by about an average of about five 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:02.360 hundred meters, which is significant and it's like almost a mile. 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:03.880 It's like eight tenths of a mile. 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.480 Yeah, yeah, that's the average. Yeah, there was a lot 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.080 of aeriation within that, but that's it's a long way 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.880 for sure, and what we found out and I guess 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.040 this comes up a little later, but a plant can 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:21.480 find more hospitable climbs going up five hundred meters than 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.679 they might by going let's just say north, like ninety 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.120 to one hundred miles. Yes, so like a much quicker 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.600 road to better climbs if you just go up that 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:32.520 mountain for sure. 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:38.840 Yeah, that's kind of two ways they move is longitudinally, yeah, 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:40.960 or altitudinally. 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:43.640 You gotta be in shape, though, Oh, for sure you 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.360 can climb that mountain. Should we take a. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.679 Break, I think we should. But just to wrap it 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:51.240 up real quick, there's a bunch of ways you can 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.800 study the movement of trees. But it's so slow and 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.080 it happens over such long timelines, longer than a human timeline, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.679 that it's harder to do than you'd think. But we 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:01.679 still have figured out some ways to do it. 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.840 All right, we'll be right back and we'll talk about 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:06.680 all this stuff in more detail, right it For this 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:30.080 one other way we failed to mention. Probably would have 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.680 been better to just say that before the break, But again, 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:37.000 still learning after sixteen years. Satellite images is another way 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.920 that you can study on the short term. You know, 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.880 the fossil pollen is much longer, and those plant plots 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.920 and things like that, vegetation plots our shorter term. But 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.440 satellite images can also help. 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.200 Yeah, if you want to catch like a venus fly 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.760 trap and the act of leapfrogging over some other planet, 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.240 satellite image is going to help you with that. Fossil 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:00.320 record won't show that. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.320 Here's the thing with all this though, It's not like 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:06.240 we're going to talk a lot about climate change, because 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.240 that's what's spurring a lot of the movement right now. 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.240 But the Earth's climate has changed a lot over the 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.360 you know, over the years, and this is not some 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.280 new thing. There used to be periods of time where 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.440 the Sahara Desert was quite green and there was grasses 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.760 growing there and tropical plants growing there, and elephants roaming 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.720 the Sahara and wildlife living there. And they've learned that 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.720 this is actually one of the things that helped move 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.200 you know, humans around, Like humans could actually migrate through 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.160 the Sahara with much more ease than they could before 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.760 during these green Sahara periods. 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.040 Yeah, that's so fascinating that you know, who knows when 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.160 we would have migrated out of Africa into Europe and 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.360 the ages had the green Sahara not happened, didn't that 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:54.000 just nuts? 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.320 Yeah, like hundreds of miles. It says here that they 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.880 would find tropical plants growing where they shouldn't be growing 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:05.160 alongside the desert stuff that survived. So that was this weird, 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:06.920 sort of mixed up biome for a time. 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.320 Yeah, in the green Sahara period, there were a few 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.200 of them that had been documented, but they figured out 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.920 that they happened about every twenty three thousand years. We're 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.560 due for one in about twelve thousand years something like that. 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.920 And it's based on the tilt in Earth's axis. That's 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.880 neither here nor there. But the point is during these 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.360 periods where the Sahara was just a humid kind of 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.720 tropical forest, there was a mixture kind of what you 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.239 touched upon, of different like you said, a hybrid biome 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.920 of stuff that wouldn't necessarily live together under normal circumstances, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.840 but got along just famously in the couple thousand years 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.520 that the Sahara was green and those plants were growing together. 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:50.680 Yeah, it's just amazing to think about. 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.840 And then in North America we have another example too, 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.600 after the Laurentide Glacier, which is way up in the 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:03.440 Arctic right now, down in Indiana and northern New Jersey. Yeah, 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.679 and when it retreated, it took everything with it. It 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:08.920 took bowlers, it carved out lakes, it did all sorts 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.200 of neat stuff. But what it didn't leave behind was vegetation. 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.119 So it left it was like a giant ice cream 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.760 truck basically. Yeah, it left nothing behind, and it was 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.000 just a great place for plants to pioneer and colon ice. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.359 Yeah. I mean that's why you have pine trees in 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:25.360 New Jersey, right. 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.520 I would think so, yeah, or in the south because 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:33.680 they were too far they were trapped below or yeah, 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:38.879 below the Laurentide Glacier down in the southeast, even though 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.640 they normally would have been growing in the north, right, 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.720 And as the glacier retreated, the climate changed in that area, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:48.520 and so the trees just moved on up. So that's 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:50.120 an example of migration as well. 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.000 Yeah. Oh wait, I thought they but I thought they 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.440 were It was more hospitable in the south for these trees, 0:17:56.160 --> 0:18:03.439 and that migration sent them north. Yeah, that's what I said, right, Oh, okay, maybe. Yeah. 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.400 The other thing we should talk about as far as 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.200 climate change goes, because, like I said, we're going to 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.960 mention that a lot is the rate of change of 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:15.159 the climate is increasing, as most people agree on, and 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.359 that is kind of where we are now in discussing 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:22.400 this is like, is the rate of climate increasing too 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.760 fast for the plant migration to catch up or in 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.399 some cases are the plants migrating ahead of that pace? 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.560 And that's really sort of you know, a lot of 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.720 this episode is about this rate of change. In the 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.160 two hundred years since the beginning of the Industrial Age, 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.640 no coincidence, the temperature of the Earth has increased more 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:48.280 than one degree. And again, yeah we all know now 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.720 that you know, one degree is like a huge, huge deal. 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.600 It's one point eight degrees fahrenheit. 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.399 Yeah, exactly, But er point three seven of that change 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.080 over the past two hundred years has come, it's twenty eleven. 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:06.040 So it's people have you know, someone has stepped on 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.639 the gas here. Yeah, And it's happening much much faster 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.639 and seemingly in many cases, fasting faster than these plants 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:13.239 can catch up. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.640 Yeah. So plants are used to migrating like they've been 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:20.320 migrating through our Earth's history, but these conditions are different. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.600 It's not like it was before. Even when the Earth 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:26.440 was heating up after the last ice Age, I think, 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.600 did you say that it took about an average of 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.240 fourteen hundred years to increase by one degree after the 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:33.240 last glacial period? 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.119 No, No, that was the setup. That would have been 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:36.639 very helpful. 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.120 Actually, I mean think about it. So we've achieved one 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.360 degree in two hundred years, and after the last glacial 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:48.800 period ended, the Earth heated one degree every fourteen hundred years. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:50.439 Yeah, that's called a rapid increase. 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.560 Yeah, like you said, somebody's put their foot on the gas, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.720 and that's somebody is Western industrialized nations, right. 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:56.840 Yeah. 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.320 So that's one thing that's really kind of putting the 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:04.919 heat on plants literally is their southernmost ranges or their 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:09.920 northernmost ranges, depending on what I guess. They're equatorial pointing 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:15.200 ranges where it's hotter. Those are the ones that are 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.840 really at stake. So are those plants ranges big enough 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.200 that they'll be able to survive that change in climate 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:23.800 and just keep moving northward or are they going to 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.280 be outpaced by the movement of the climate because the 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:32.560 climate is racing towards the poles, just like the plants are, right, 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.720 So who's faster. Well, it turns out if you talk 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.880 about New England's trees, they move something I think red 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.719 oaks is what it was that this University of Vermont 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.760 group was studying. They move something like a tenth to 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:52.280 three tenths of a mile a year. Right. The climate 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.880 is moving something like four to six miles a year. 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.600 So the climate is really kind of showing up as 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:04.680 kind of the who's Usain Bolt of this race? And 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.960 I don't know the plants are like me racing Usain Bolt. 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.720 Yeah, that lab group in Vermont, they all have t 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.120 shirts that just say you do the math exactly. It's 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.560 very smarty, but they get their point across for sure. 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:21.560 There's another example of and you know, we've kind of 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.320 been talking about northern movement, which is generally the pattern 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.359 but not always. There's a researcher at Purdue name song 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.040 Lend Fay. I think Fay or Fhi. I don't know Fi. 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.439 I bet it's fine who studied eighty six species of 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.640 trees in the eastern US over about thirty years from 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:45.480 the mid eighties to twenty fifteen. And it depends on 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:50.640 what the tree is. Hardwoods, scarlet oaks, red maples, magnolia's 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.840 are moving west at about one and a half kilometers 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.760 a year because the Midwest is becoming more wet and 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.120 the conditions are good for those trees to grow. Soft 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:05.520 woods shortlya pines, red pines, bald cypress. They're actually moving 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.679 north about a kilometer of the year, a kilometer a year. 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:08.760 So. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.600 Different plants and trees are moving in different directions at 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:14.439