Edit: Rereading this paper I realized I misunderstood this part, but I do still think there may be some concerns.

Okay, I found this whole part weird. Maybe I haven't really been exposed to something like this, but this issue makes me think, if you don't have to resources get valid results, why do the study? It seems overall there is a lack of specimens, a discrepancy in male and female numbers, issues with the quality of herbarium collections, and the overall age of these specimens don't line up with the data it seems they are looking for. This is something I would love to chat about because to me, this study just does not make sense to do with the available resources.

Weird, but makes sense given the date.

An genetically altered plant to meet human needs. This altered plant has a new distinct set of characteristics that humans chose, and creates a domesticated plant with phenotypes distinctly different from their ancestors.

For those who don't know, the American Chestnut is borderline extinct due to a fungus that.. from what I remember potentially came from a greenhouse plant. It basically prevents the American Chestnut to ever reaching sexual maturity. Short podcast discussing this: https://www.npr.org/2019/12/19/789819025/what-happened-to-the-american-chestnut-tree

These are all insanely similar. I find it interesting that the hypothesis would be, "there is no difference". It seems like a way to almost guarantee supporting your hypothesis, but maybe they phrased it that way because they wanted to find something but weren't sure which question to ask.

Could this be described as early permaculture? I really just love thinking about this. Instead of planting non-natives, you utilize the forest around you and artificially select which ones will fill your needs, without creating a monoculture.

I wish this is something we could accomplish in modern society. Could you imagine being like, oh I need a snack, or I need some medicine for my headache, and go into your backyard and just have a close-to-natural ecosystem fulfilling your needs? So sustainable, and also unimaginable, especially in New England where we don't have plants for a good chunk of the year.

I love this idea. I think it would be so beautiful, as well as a great way to get a good view of all sides of the plant. How would you dry them out? Plexiglass and then put in silica for a week-ish?

I love this! Ecosystems are so complicated, and we have so much to learn. The more details we know, not only the more we can appreciate the complexity of nature, but we can also add value (unfortunately that's what we have to do) in hopes of having more effective conservation efforts.

High-throughput sequencing: A way to sequence DNA and RNA in a rapid and cost-effective manner. Why is this not more popular, especially if it's cost effective?

This is a crazy point. When you think of scientists, you assume they all have access to a lab, and most of the same lab tools, but this is actually not the case. I wonder how this separation of specialties has held science back.

So, could you determine speciation primarily by a change in ecosystem role?

How reliable would fossil data be? You'd have to pay attention to very well preserved specimens, but are the fine details needed there?

This is kind of super limited. I understand it was the first massive morphometric study, and the flowers are the defining part of angiosperms, but there is so much more going on!

This is super interesting to me. What makes something structurally impossible in biology? Is it that it's so extreme that there is no way it could be advantageous, or is it that genetically, it's just not possible

Volatile fatty acids

This is INSANE. That is a super neutral pH. This makes me wonder a few things. 1) How much work is the microbiota doing in the initial breakdown? 2) What is the pH of the other stomachs, and what is going on in them. This is super cool overall!

Could you sample from freshly dead livestock?

If CO2 and CH4 are big factors in the stratification of rumen content, I wonder what the rumen looks like in livestock of different diets. This could be super interesting to study!

This is super interesting! I imagine these factors play a roll in every species microbiome. Taking a personal note on the impact of diet on microbial composition.

Most U.S. dairy cows are descended from two bulls. Not good.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/17/770696476/most-u-s-dairy-cows-are-descended-from-just-2-bulls-thats-not-good#:~:text=Twitter-,Most%20U.S.%20Dairy%20Cows%20Are%20Descended%20From%20Just%202,That's%20Not%20Good&text=Dan%20Charles%2FNPR-,Unlike%20most%20dairy%20cows%20in%20America%2C%20which%20are%20descended%20from,called%20University%20of%20Minnesota%20Cuthbert.

One way to combat these methane production is to feed these animals a better diet!

https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/library/ranching/the-role-of-animal-agriculture-on-greenhouse-gas-emissions/#:~:text=Fewer%20animals%20are%20needed%20to,carbon%20is%20converted%20to%20methane.

I wonder what the biproducts of fermenting some of these fermented plants are!

Like hox genes for plants?

This is interesting to think about given what we talked about today. What happens in conservation when you can synthesize something valuable in a lab? Well, before we even get to lab synthesis, what happens when you can easily cultivate it? This! A loss of genetic diversity which arguably is just as bad as habitat loss and extinction. While there is a little bit of a saving grace, it may not always be enough to work with.

A benzophenanthridine alkaloid

A bioactive alkaloid

Alkaloid occurring in poppy

A toxic polycyclic ammonium ion. Can be extracted from Bloodroot, which is in flower now!

This makes total sense. Supply in demand. It's so crazy to see the reasoning behind the motivation for illegal sellers. There is a HUGE demand, and it is really only able to be made in large quantities at this level. Sometimes it's really interesting to think that such a strong drug can simply be grown.

This is actually insane to think about. There is something in opium that is so efficient at relieving pain- why??? Like, obviously plants have alarm signals but it's so crazy to think that by chance they are producing such an effective drug for humans. What is the purpose of this alkaloid in the poppy? Why is it so hard to recreate??

I wonder what it percent of medicinal qualities come from different parts of the plant. Is it typically in the bark? The leaves? Where is it usually stored. It would be super interesting to look at and compare!

Saponins are super interesting. They can be great medicinally, but also toxic. My favorite thing about that is that they bubble when they interact with water! Historically, parts of saponin-produce plants have been used as soap. (Thinking back to my Joshua Tree presentation)

Could you imagine watching a population for 70 hours!?

This makes sense that there were no pollinators. It's odorless and basically colorless, and primarily self fertilizes. I wonder if this is a relatively low energy plant?

This is because they primarily self fertilize, and there is no breeding with other populations. I wonder if self fertilization is part of the reason this species is not yet extinct. Although, if it didn't self fertilize maybe it's numbers would be larger because there was more diversity within a population. It seems like a delicate balance- relying on diversity from mutation.

This is super interesting. So, when you self fertilize, this most likely results in an identical genome. When you disperse further, you are exposed to a new environment that may need some adaptation. These new areas could result in a different genome if there is a favorable mutation, which results in the diversity. This is an interesting concept. I wonder if this is primarily climatic, or if it is on a smaller scale. What would diversity look like East to West, and why is the range predominantly North to South?

I think the "evolutionary coupling of taxa" is referring to just evolving in the same community, or coevolution...? Which ultimately makes sense, right? If something is there and accessible to you, wouldn't you learn to utilize it, and utilize it well? Especially if it was beneficial for you.

The yucca-moth makes me think of a Joshua Tree which I think is such a cool species! They are pollinated by yucca-moths, and if yucca moths over exploit them they will literally abort the ovary that the yucca moth laid it's eggs in. Their seeds were then distributed by giant ground sloths to more suitable habitat, and the extinction of the ground sloth is why the Joshua tree range is declining. I just think they're such a great species to describe so many interactions!

Interesting. I wonder how this control impacts hybridization.

So angiosperms have non-motile sperm cells essentially because they are utilizing the surrounding environment to do the work for them, essentially, rather than expending energy to swim to the egg themselves? And while gymnosperms don't have flagella or cilia, they do have wing like structures on their pollen. You can see the change in transportation methods there, from doing the work yourself, to catching a ride on the wind currents. Interesting. So rather than angiosperm pollen being adapted to it's environment to be transported, the entire plant has instead evolved a flower to expend the energy to be transported properly?? I wonder how advantageous that is, to have the adaptations on a larger scale.

I wonder what was causing this selection pressure. Lack of reliable weather? Or just niches rapidly being filled, and these plants were then outcompeted and needed to branch off a new way of fertilization?

When they said "rapid diversification" I never realized it was this much.

Quick abundant food to jumpstart into spring? While providing habitat is important, how important is proper flowering times to help these bees get going?

I wonder how New Hampshire looks specifically in this study. The soil here is very acidic due to the geology and acid rain. We have a lot of Ericaceae as well, but how much is enough?

So Arabidopsis, our control plant, has the strict ABCE model, but the more vague fading boundaries concept in Nuphar and Persea is showing because there are not harsh lines within the genes, translating to a lack of harsh lines in organ function?

This is where I was able to really tie the paper together. I find the transition from the BC system to an ABCE system super interested. It's so crazy to think of the evolution involved, and the way the genes kind of moved around into vague areas that were eventually specialized!

It's important to keep in mind how latitude and elevation almost parallel when it comes to climate. If you are forced to migrate south, a higher elevation would be more suitable, as it can resemble a similar climate.

Such cute reduced petals!

This is super interesting because the last interglacial period had temperatures as warm or even warmer than current temperatures. If this species thrives in colder weather, will it be distributed fast enough to better habitat with the rate of current warmings? Figure 5 is showing more ideal habitat in Greenland and Yuzhny Island North of Russia. They aren't of great values, but they will be more suitable than present times.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033589401923166#:~:text=The%20last%20interglacial%2C%20commonly%20understood,volume%20and%20high%20sea%20level.

This is something we can connect with our last discussion! All these small habitats that provided refugia for S. procumbens resulting in speciation. It's interesting because the QTP is MUCH bigger than the Presidential Range. Extreme cold temperatures happen in both places, but I wonder what other abiotic factors impacted the speciation within the refugias!

I never considered dense, frequent fog to be a factor that plants need to adapt to. It's really interesting to think about! I can't imagine what photosynthetic rates are like in the Tongass in the PNW. Always cloudy and rainy, but also further north and experience low light conditions at certain times of the year!

This is why people will randomly have new rocks in their yard in the spring! The expanding and contracting of water moves the soil and can actually push rocks to the surface. This isn't great for plants as it can harm roots and root hairs. I wonder what the adaptations of plant roots in these areas are like!

U shaped valleys are glacially carved, whereas V shaped valleys are carved my rivers. I wonder how these different shapes impact the ecosystems within them!

This is an interesting thought given the root system was aerenchymatous- but why? Is this like an early CAM plant?

When reading this, I thought the CO2 levels were higher during this period, but this looks like it is not the case. Branching off of mine and Carlos' article, I'm curious as to what the mitochondria of the cells looked like in this plant. The productivity values of this plant are super interesting and weird. I can't imagine why it is like this.

The traits of this plant are super weird. I feel like I need to draw it out to see everything it does and doesn't have!

Aerenchymatous: "A spongy tissue that forms spaces or air channels in the leaves, stems and roots of some plants, which allows exchange of gases between the shoot and the root" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerenchyma

I wonder why this was possibly water resistant. Did it play a role in moving the water elsewhere that was more beneficial in replacement of the xylem?

What an interesting tiny observation. I wonder what the purpose of these are?

Quick edit: I just read the next few sentences. No one really knows. To me, it kind of seems like scar tissue. (:

Interesting trend! I wonder how energetically expensive flowering is, leading to the evolution of the optimal root system. It's probably more energetically expensive than other types of plants. It makes me think of a male peacock tail.

Sounds like armor!

This is really interesting.

I wonder how this impacts the water ecosystem.

I'm curious about the evolution of water retention. Did the cuticle evolved but then the pores were kind of like a leak in the plant?

It's interesting to try and think of everything as a whole during the evolution of these families. What abiotic factors were present, what predators were present, what did the world look like, what niches were even being filled? There's so much to take into consideration.

This is a super interesting thought. I wonder what the alternative is.

I would love to see a visual representation, like a phylogenetic tree, of these different species and the missing genes. I wonder what the ancestors and patterns look like!

Interesting. I wonder why it plays such a big role.

Is this suggesting that there are no introns because a piece of DNA was essentially copied and pasted into that area? That is what I am gaining from my google definition searches but I could be totally off.

This is super interesting.

This makes sense, as suddenly there is more competition for light.

I'm a little confused by this.

Super interesting

Almost like auxin but for water?

Super weird adaptation! (If I am understanding the google definition correctly) Would love to learn more about this!

Very interesting to think of the change in the dominant phase as plants evolved.

In fern gametes with archegonia?