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Planthropology
Planthropology
105. Native Plants, Academic Optimism, and Liquid Smoke w/ Dr. Robert Cox
What's up, Plant People?? I hope you're well! My guest today is a long-time mentor and friend, Dr. Robert Cox. Dr. Cox is a restoration ecologist whose wisdom in prairie ecosystems and passion for academia are as deep-rooted as the native species he studies. This episode is full of stories from Dr. Cox's academic adventures, which began in herpetology and evolved into the long-time study of plant ecology. We discussed a little bit of everything, from some of the roles fire and smoke play in plant germination to how Dr. Cox's career has ranged from researcher, to professor, to an Associate Dean's at Texas Tech University.
We also had an encouraging conversation about the future of our students and education as a whole. Dr. Cox paints an optimistic and inspiring picture of the young minds that walk the halls of higher education today, shaped by the rapid changes of our times. Together, we reflect on the paradigm shift in teaching, moving from information dispensers to mentors in critical thinking.
Finally, we spent some time chatting about native plants and the roles they play in our world. Ecological restoration has been one of Dr. Cox's major areas of focus throughout his career, and he has some really interesting and meaningful thoughts on what it means to restore a landscape and an ecosystem in light of climate change and our needs for agricultural production. I learned a lot from this conversation and left it feeling encouraged, and I hope that you'll feel the same!
As always, thanks so much for listening! Subscribe, rate, and review Planthropology on your favorite podcast app. It helps the show keep growing and reaching more people! As a bonus, if you review Planthropology on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser and send me a screenshot of it, I'll send you an awesome sticker pack!
Planthropology is written, hosted, and produced by Vikram Baliga. Our theme song is "If You Want to Love Me, Babe, by the talented and award-winning composer, Nick Scout.
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What is up? Plant people it's time once more for the Plantthropology podcast, the show where we dive into the lives and careers of some very cool plant people to figure out why they do what they do and what keeps them coming back for more. I'm Vikram Baliga, your host and your humble guide in this journey through the sciences and, as always, my dearest friends. I am so excited to be with you today, y'all. Today's guest is someone that I've looked up to for quite a while and I was really excited to get to talk to him for the show. So Dr Robert Cox is the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Programs here in the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, which is, you know, just so many words at Texas Tech University, and he was actually on my master's committee. He was one of my committee members and for a long time has been a great friend and mentor, and I was really excited to get to have him on the show because he's actually someone who's listened to the show for quite a while, which I think is neat.
Speaker 1:So Robert is a restoration ecologist and a plant ecologist and he teaches everything from range and plant ID to range ecology, to restoration ecology and several things in between. He's done studies on fire and whether or not smoke actually aids in germination of prairie species and different species of plants. He's looked at ecology and restoration and so many things all over the country and he is just such a good guy, just a good guy and he's someone that I am just so proud and excited to have in the position that he's in leading our academic programs and helping oversee students and helping them deal with their issues and get them new opportunities, and then, as a faculty member, someone who helps me put together my classes and everything as well. He's been a great resource and, like I said, a really good friend and mentor over the years. So I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation with Dr Cox. He is kind and soft-spoken and brilliant and I think that you're really just going to enjoy the time that we get to spend with him for the next oh, I don't know hour or so.
Speaker 1:So grab yourself a nice bottle of liquid smoke flavoring and maybe take a little for yourself and put some on your seeds to help them germinate and get yourself ready for episode 105 of the Plantthropology podcast Native plants, academic optimism and liquid smoke with Dr Robert Cox. Well, rob, thanks so much for coming in. I appreciate your time. I know how busy you are and it's fun to get to talk to you.
Speaker 2:It's nice to talk and nice to be here. Instead of doing whatever else, I would be doing so in a meeting or yeah, there's plenty plenty of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I you know, and it seems like I don't know if it's just an academia thing, but it seems like there's always another one and people really like their meetings. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:People love meetings and they love to talk at the meetings. I'm not a great meeting talker, but uh, you know, we, we do what we have to, I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's part of part of the gig, I guess. Um so, again, thanks for coming in. Um, I would just like to hear from you about your background and uh. Where'd you grow up? What did you study? How did you get to where you are today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of like a lot of people. Probably it's a little bit mix of serendipity and maybe fate, maybe sort of inspiration. In Utah my father was a professor at BYU. So we grew up south of Salt Lake City, right there next to BYU kind of, and he was a herpetologist oh cool. So I have very early memories of accompanying him on his PhD fieldwork and I don't know, maybe because of that, that always seemed like a pretty cool life to me, you know, being in the field doing awesome things and and of course he was um studying herpetology and so we were. I would go with him and we'd be catching snakes and lizards and looking at cool stuff, and plants weren't really on the horizon, except that they were there.
Speaker 2:But in college I changed my major five times. Oh, okay, which is pretty normal, for nowadays I may have been ahead of my time a little bit, but for undergraduate students nowadays that's almost about average. So I started out as a pre-veterinary, then switched to pre-medical, then switched to conservation science, switched to wildlife and then back to conservation with a wildlife emphasis. Wow, in the midst of that I took a class called wildland plant identification, which is the same class that I teach now here at Texas Tech. I was going to BYU and almost every university in Western North America that has a rangeland or wildlife program has a very similar class in plant id and, and they cover about the same plants, maybe around 200 different species of plants, um, so I took that class, kind of got into it a little. I mean, I didn't ace the class. I always tell the students and when I teach now that I did not ace the class I. I did pretty well. I got a B, maybe a B plus, and I felt happy with that grade based on the rigor of the class.
Speaker 2:And the professor that was teaching that class then had a summertime job available for undergraduate students to work out in the Great Basin measuring plant communities and documenting the different kinds of plant communities that were there on an army base. So he had a contract with the army as a civilian contractor to measure and monitor the plant diversity and so he was hiring undergraduate students to do that, and so I worked as part of that crew for a year and then he had a master's degree available. So I took the MCAT. My scores were fine, but I was kind of more interested in the plants at that point. So I did the master's degree, thinking, oh, maybe medical school is always a possibility, still I can do a master's degree.
Speaker 2:But after that then I realized I now have that cool lifestyle that my dad had and I was out in the field doing cool field work, which I do much less of nowadays. But and so then the choice was what do I do next? Get an agency job working for a state or federal agency doing basically botany, which would have been great or maybe get a PhD and look into teaching. So I did a PhD in Southern California my master's was in botany and then PhD in Southern California, also in botany my master's was in botany, and then PhD in Southern California, also in botany.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you know, then, about the time the PhD was finished, I got a job working for the US Forest Service in Boise, idaho, still doing cool lifestyle stuff that I was in love with, working as a research ecologist studying wildfires in the Great Basin and how to restore those wildfire damages. And about that time my sister was doing a master's degree in soil science here at Texas Tech, and so she emailed me and said hey, you know, there's a job opening here in the college, in the Fish and Wildlife Department, I think it was called then. It sounds like you, so I read the job advertisement and did it. It sounded like they read my resume and sent it back to me, and so I applied and now I've been here for almost 16 years. Oh, wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:It's been good. I can't imagine a better pathway. Really, it seemed uncertain, especially in college. You switch in my major so many times. Sure, I have a brother who's 18 months younger than me but always knew he was going to be an engineer. And so he's 18 months younger, but we graduated college at the same time because he went straight through.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I sort of wound my way around and found a pathway that worked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that that's, I don't know. It feels like that's more common than not. These I changed twice. I guess I started off in biomedical engineering.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I guess I wanted. I also wanted to go to med school. My granddad was a doctor and um turns out like calculus and blood were not like my things, so like. So I did, you know, biomedical science, still thinking I would go into the field somewhere. And then general studies and then finally ended up in horticulture down at A&M, because I had a general studies advisor give me really good advice of like, find something you actually like, yeah, yeah. And you know, because in my mind I was still like, oh, I can do this, there's good money in this and that's important, like those things are not unimportant, yeah, yeah. But he was like you know, a big part of like being happy is like not hating getting up and going to work every day.
Speaker 2:Right, well, I mean that's so.
Speaker 1:I grew up gardening and that was definitely a big switch in my life, but it was a good one, fantastic, yeah, and so it's been good.
Speaker 2:You know I've enjoyed it, enjoyed my time here and plan on that continuing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Every role has been enjoyable so far.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. You know, in your field specifically, I mean you know you studied botany but in the context it seems like of you know, range management of wild land management. Yeah, my wife was a wildlife and fisheries major in college but she stayed on the animal side and the herpetology would have been right up her, you know, and she, when she was getting out, kind of thought about what to do and she ended up being a museum educator for about 12 years until just recently, and so she, like she, loved that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know I think it goes back to what you said your advice from your advisors you find something you love and you can. There's lots of opportunities, almost no matter what you study. Yeah, if you're studying something you love, then you're going to make yourself opportunities that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you find ways to keep doing it. I think so. You said you've been here 16 years. What is your, I guess, career here at tech been like Cause it? You know, it seems like you've done even several things in the context of being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, texas tech has been an outstanding place for me. I feel very fortunate to have been here. I never, you know, I was focused on the West, right? I know in Texas sometimes we think we're part of the West. The rest of the West doesn't think so. Oh yeah, right, but I probably never would have thought, oh, I'm going to Texas. But now that I've been here it's been a fantastic place for me. Texas Tech has been great.
Speaker 2:Started as assistant professor and then was promoted to associate and then to professor and then, about that time as well, was able to serve as associate chair in the department and then as interim associate dean and now is just as associate dean.
Speaker 2:And and that gives us that kind of trajectory of career has has really allowed me to look at college education, university education from lots of angles. Um, the administrative side is, uh, field work, less of the nice lifestyle that that originally drew me to the field, but I still try and make time to get out and look at plants and and and keep a little bit of that going. But it has also allowed me to see almost like behind the curtain of. You know, as professor, assistant and associate professor I was teaching and researching and just really into the teaching side of things and the research side of things. But, um, we can't do it without the administrative side too, it's sure, and and so it gives me a way to kind of see our students and our faculty at their best. You sometimes see folks when they're having a difficult time as well, and it gives you an opportunity to try and support them through that and find find good outcomes and solutions. But really it's those successes that that really are meaningful, sure.
Speaker 1:Well, and so I think a lot of folks listening are probably not. You know, we do have a lot of academic people listening, and so you know, when they hear you know associate dean, it has like it has a picture in their mind, but for so you're the associate dean of academic and student programs. Is that correct? Yep, did I get that?
Speaker 2:right. Yep, that's right. It's kind of a mouthful, especially when you tack on Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Yeah, I don't know how anything fits on our business cards Like they. It doesn't fit on like letters, when, when I make my signature block on a letter, I have to be really creative about how I break all those things up. It's weird.
Speaker 1:So in your current role. What does that? What does that entail? How does that relate to thinking about academics and student programs? How do you work with students and how do you work with the academic unit as a whole?
Speaker 2:Sure, there's several components to it. There's a day-to-day management component and then there's a long-term, maybe strategic thinking component for it. The day-to-day management component is within the college. We're responsible. My team and I have a student success center that I work with. I mean, they're the real professionals right, as an administrator I'm sort of moonlighting, but they're the real professionals. And our college we have, I'm convinced, the strongest, most professional group of student success specialists across the university. And so as a team we're tasked with managing the academic programs within the college. So we track students as they enter the university, as they progress through their programs, and then we're in charge of verifying that they meet the requirements for the degree and then actually literally posting the degree and giving them the degree once they've met those requirements.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's kind of the day to day management and that includes providing resources for students who might be struggling, ensuring that we retain the students, that we recruit students, both undergraduates and graduates, and then, you know, helping them move on through the programs to get their degrees and then their diplomas on out the door, the more strategic. Well, that's the student side of things, right. Sure, we also try and work with faculty in their teaching programs and promoting and advocating for excellent teaching. As a college, davis College we have always been among the top rated teaching faculty across the university. We'd love for that to continue, you know. And so supporting excellent teaching, supporting excellent student experiences and making sure that students have the resources and the faculty and the staff have the resources that we all need to make a university, to make a college, work.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the day-to-day part, and then the strategic part is thinking about, you know, our programs as a whole, both how they run and can we be more efficient, but also you know what kind of programs might be program in the 1980s and it was phased out. And you know maybe there's demand for a program like that again. Or maybe there's NRM, the Natural Resources Management Department has a major in conservation, law enforcement oh okay. So these are students who are interested in mostly becoming game wardens. You know maybe there's demand for that program to grow, oh okay. Or in plant and soil science, you know maybe there's going to be more demand for plant breeding and biotechnology. And how do we ensure that Texas Tech, and the Davis College specifically, is well positioned to train students and build that program and supply sort of that workforce demand?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and that's and I think that's important, because I think and I don't know if it is inside the industry, outside the industry or both but our whole sort of green space, so to speak, agriculture, natural resources, everything in between and outside of that, I think sometimes it feels like we get stuck in terms of like stuck in time, and maybe that's not the right way to say it. I know, on the outside, looking in, it often feels that way, Because I've had conversations with people like, oh, y'all are still, you know, doing X, Y and Z, Like no, yeah, we haven't done that in 35 years. You know, in terms of irrigation, in terms of management, a lot of things. And part of that is, you know, and I think we have a great ag comm department. I think we have produced some really great what's, what's the word? They advocates right People that advocate for which is hard for me to say agriculture.
Speaker 1:But I think, as as a whole, like we need to figure out how to tell our story better as we innovate. I think that's a big part of it too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know the college has really tried hard to move those kinds of directions as well. With the new dean we have Dr Crable. He's been here for just over a year now and moved very quickly to specifically shore up that part of sort of the college's mission. And so we have a new associate dean for outreach and engagement, dr Eric Earlbeck. We have a marketing and communications team now, where before we had one.
Speaker 2:Now we're building that out into a team of several and we have a new director for corporate engagement as well, to work with companies and developing opportunities for students and to understanding their sort of demands for workforce and for training. And all those go right towards that storytelling where we need to make sure that, amidst the teaching, amidst the research, that we're also able to tell the story of what we do and why we do it, and what agriculture, what natural resources or landscape design, what those give to the world.
Speaker 1:Well, and again, I think that is so important.
Speaker 1:You know something I hear from students which I didn't expect to hear.
Speaker 1:This right, it was not a story I expected to hear from students but like, apparently at the high school level, like they're not hearing about any of the new stuff we do. What they get told I think a lot is that like I don't know they hear that old story. Or you know they hear, oh, horticulture, there's nothing to do in horticulture, right, Go after a tech field or go after whatever. And then I think I so I teach you know, for those those out there listening that haven't heard this before like I teach intro horticulture. So I get non-majors across the university and they're always just shocked when they hear how many different facets of our society we touch, even just in horticulture. And so I think that the mission of telling that story, both to our kids at high schoolers, people who are trying to figure out what to do with their lives, but just society in general, I think it's just going to get more and more important, especially with all the misinformation and disinformation about agriculture and our space out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. You know we often talk about. The great thing for colleges of agriculture like the Davis College is that literally everybody in the world participates in agriculture somehow whether that's by producing, by wearing or by eating, every single one of us is participating in agriculture and we just need to make sure that we know that and that people understand the importance of agriculture, of natural resources and a landscape in their lives. And in some ways, that is an easy case to make once you, once you get into it like that.
Speaker 1:So just changing gears, just a little bit to talk, maybe at a higher level or a different level, about just students today, the academic experience today, cause you know, I'm already at the place in my life, like I'm in my mid-30s and I realized that, like I graduated from college 15 years ago and I don't know how that happened, like that was a little upsetting my college freshman I realized recently that my college freshmen were born the year I graduated high school and I didn't enjoy realizing that very much. That was upsetting. But like the whole landscape has changed, right, I think, especially over the past three or four years, but like just even over the past decade or two, the whole academic landscape has changed in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know you talked about how we look for the success stories and we celebrate those and all that. But like you, unfortunately fortunately, or unfortunately I think it's good that they have someone like you to go to. But you know we have students that struggle with everything, like what kinds of things do we do as a college? What kinds of things maybe at a larger level, could the academics who are listening, the teachers, the people out here listening, what kinds of things can we be doing for our students to like, make them more successful to handle some of those new stressors?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a good question and I don't think it's one that anybody actually understands very well right now. I feel like once I understand that, maybe I'll be on the fast track to something big, but maybe it's kind of the journey of trying to understand that. I think students today are remarkable. They have lived through some really incredible periods of world history, really incredible periods of world history, you know. I mean I think about me growing up. There was nothing like that. You know, I went to school, I came home, you know, and so students today are remarkable.
Speaker 2:They've had remarkable experiences, they have an unbelievable ability to adapt, and so I think that there's a quote I heard once that I think about quite a bit, that basically it said babies haven't changed, and so if young adults are different now than they used to be, that's because of us, and that could be good or bad. If they're different, if they're better now than they used to be, well, great, good for us right Maybe good for us.
Speaker 2:If we have concerns with the way young adults are right now, then it is something we did, because babies aren't different now than they were a thousand years ago. Yeah, um, I think, with all that remarkableness that that that I see in students, you know, understandably they're facing some challenges, um, but also some opportunities, and I think in almost every case, what may be perceived as challenges are probably best seen as opportunities. If you look at differences in generations, you'll hear people do studies and say oh, today's generations whether that's digital natives or Gen Next or Gen Alpha or whatever you want to call them they're used to information. They don't necessarily need information delivery in classroom. What they need are experiences and mentoring out of classrooms and in a lot of ways, that's probably about right, I mean you know I can look up how to identify a plant now.
Speaker 2:I don't need a professor to tell me that, especially if all they're doing is telling me right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or there's an app called Seek or Picture this or several others PlantSnap that you can take a picture of a plant and for many plants it's pretty accurate. It'll tell you what it is Right, yeah, so what's needed is the ability to interpret that information and apply it in real-world situations. And you know, I took plant ID and we memorized plants and that was it. The challenge for us in classrooms today is it's not just information delivery, and I think you know we've all had those classes where it's the professor up on the stage and they're talking for an hour and then you go home and maybe you've written one page of notes, or maybe 25 pages of notes, depends on the topic and on yourself and then the test comes along and you regurgitate the notes and great you, you got the information. And so the challenge today is an information delivery.
Speaker 2:It's all there yeah in the ethernet, you knownet, it's on the Internet, Just look it up. The challenge today is to help students and frankly we're learning this too as instructors to process information and apply it. Yeah, which is a great place to be. This is exciting engaging, which is a great place to be. This is exciting engaging. When done right, that kind of class is way more engaging than just lecture information delivery.
Speaker 1:So I think that's our challenge today in terms of education is making classes that help students learn to process and apply information, not just regurgitate it. Yeah, no, and that's I'm still thinking through all of it, cause that's that's really a good point. I love that quote, though, that babies haven't changed and and it's easy to, I guess, and you know we hear this, we hear it from our colleagues, we hear it across. You know, we go to meetings and we hear this, we go to conferences and we hear this, and like we go to meetings and we hear this, we go to conferences and we hear this, and like all the kids these days, blah, blah, blah, and you know, but I really like the fact that we need to, I like the thought process that we need to take some responsibility in that of like this is the world we've built.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like it's. You know they're still kids and I know that they're adults.
Speaker 1:But you know, again, I'm thinking through, like every they get younger. It feels like they get younger every year Like does your mom know you're here Like the first day of class? But no, that's really interesting. And teaching freshmen, I definitely get that. Oh, I'm sure. Like I teach, I tell them a lot Like look, you can pull out your phone and look up anything I'm going to tell you in this class, like it is, you have the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket. Yeah, but it's the critical thinking.
Speaker 2:It's the critical thinking and, you know, if you look, I'm pretty optimistic, I think, about students and about their future. The world's in great hands. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. If some of us older folks, once we get out of the way, these students are remarkable. They're bright, they're ambitious, they're kind. Yeah, they want to do what's right, not only for themselves but for people around them, and there's lots of reasons to be optimistic about what's coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that a lot. It was a good point, I think, to take a quick break so I can slide into mid-roll and thank the department of college for letting me do this, and then we'll come back and I'd like to talk about ecology on the back end and talk about plants a little bit more. Oh, yeah, you bet. Well, hey, there you complicated houseplants. Welcome to the mid-roll. I hope you've been enjoying this episode so far. I know I loved having this conversation with Robert and getting to talk about all of the stuff that goes into what we do as academics and our hope for the future in students, and I can't wait for you to hear the conversation we have about ecology coming up soon. But first I'd like to thank you, the listener, my friend, for being a part of Planthropology. We could not do this without you and I am glad you are here. Thanks also to the Texas Tech Department of Plant and Soil Science and the Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources for letting me do this podcast. Thanks to the PodFix Network for letting me be a part of it. If you want to connect with Plantthropology, you can find me all over the place. I am Plantthropology on Facebook and Instagram. You can find me as the Plant Prof on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and probably other places as well. If you would like to support the show, you can go to buymeacoffeecom slash planthropology and for the price of a coffee, you can literally buy me a coffee, because that's what I will use that $5 or whatever for Absolutely. This show is run on caffeine like 100%. If you would like to leave me some feedback, I would love for you to do that. Shoot me an email at planthropologypod at gmailcom. You can also reach out on social media. You can let me know what you think, If you've got ideas for upcoming guests or anything else, I would love to hear from you. Also, if you could leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser or Spotify or anywhere else you can, that really means a lot to me. It helps me know that I'm doing the things that you like to hear, but it also just gives me the warm fuzzies. And if you're looking to get me a gift, my birthday is in. Well, don't worry about when it is, it's soonish, maybe I wear a size five star review. It fits just right. I've lost a couple of pounds. It's great. Thanks again for being a part of this and what else Is there?
Speaker 1:Are there other things? There are probably other things that I can't remember right now, and that there are probably other things that I can't remember right now, and that's totally fine. What you get, my friends, is my jumbled brain coming at you through your headphones or car speakers, and you're welcome. All right, let's do it. Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, hang on, Wait. I thought of the other thing. There's another thing.
Speaker 1:I wrote a book. If you would like to read my book, go check out your local library and ask them for Plants to the Rescue. It's a great kids book. If your kids are into plants or if you would like your kids to be in the plants, you can also order it anywhere that books live, and that would mean a lot to me. Okay, now let's really do it All right. Well, we are back. I wanted to dive a little bit into some of the subject matter you work in and I think that something you said before the break about how students are not just interested in, like how to do the right thing for themselves, but for society, for the world in general, for the environment, everything else. I think that fits in so well with a lot of what you teach and a lot of what you do in prairies and grasslands. And so can you give us and I know this is hard to do, but can you give us sort of the elevator pitch of, like what you teach and your basic like subject matter.
Speaker 2:You bet I'm a plant ecologist so I study wild plants in their wild habitats. Not all of them are native, right, we have lots of invasive species too but I study wild plants in their wild habitats and I'm especially interested in ecological restoration. So taking damage, a damaged ecosystem and trying to rebuild it to trying to restore it back to some semblance of what it was before and those listening if they know anything about ecological restoration might be cringing because there's all kinds of issues tied up in trying to understand what it was before and where you draw those lines and how you determine to what you're restoring. But still, in a very general, basic sense, interested in repairing damaged ecosystems and restoring them to something that's more natural.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting and again, I think that's such a good point, Like what was it before I asked the question. So when I have the conversation about, say, native plants, I think in some cases that can be a little loaded in terms of as a term Yep, Okay, how far are we going back? What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Exactly, and where do we draw the? And it's not only. It has both a temporal component and a spatial component, because it's native to where and native to when. And what do we mean by native anyway? Does it have to have evolved in this location? Can it have migrated on its own? Most folks feel pretty certain if humans brought it? It's probably not native. But what if humans brought it 10,000 years ago, right? Probably not native, but what if humans brought it 10,000 years ago Right Versus what if it was?
Speaker 2:brought you know, in the colonial era those are all sort of gray areas. Which is funny, because when you say I'm interested in restoring native species, everybody thinks they understand what that means yeah, but once you try and actually define what native means and define what restore means, then you start getting into all these sort of weird definitions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, that's a big conversation too. Again, and that's a big conversation too. But I think it's important that people hear that too, because you get on social media and you have people that are very much into quote, unquote native plants. We're native plant people. If it's not this, burn it down, Start over, okay, but like our climate has changed, our ecosystems have fundamentally changed because of us, because of other things, right, and so it's okay. Where are we going back to? I'm of the opinion, and please correct me if I'm like misguided on this, because this is something that I keep in my head. Like you know, I come at it from the landscape side, the urban landscape side.
Speaker 1:That's where a lot of my background is in that, not just native, but native and well adapted. Are those things we're looking at in like ecological restoration too, like what could we bring in that fits here? Or is it just you know? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know where that line lives. Yeah, I mean, that's a really topic of current discussion within ecology, within restoration, ecological restoration. I think you'll find in the field of ecological restorations, most folks are pretty set on native species. You'll find a strong contingent of folks who you say, look, if it's native and well adapted and behaves kind of native, sure you know, we may be better consider it because it's not like sometimes we have all that many uh, native species, especially through climate change, that might be well adapted to that spot now, um, but by and large, most folks in ecological restoration going to feel like we want to focus on native species. Okay, um, and, and you know, we do have lots of good native species we just don't have lots of access to good you know native species.
Speaker 2:Say, if you wanted to reseed a 10 000 or 1 million acre fire, where are you going to get those seeds from? And and you know, going back to the, how native is native um, are you going to insist on the species being native or you can assist on a native genotype or native source for the seeds so you could seed, um, let's say, a little blue stem which would be ecologically adapted to some of those areas that have burned here in Texas recently. But maybe you get the seed from South Texas, so it's the same species. But is that South Texas genotype really native to the panhandle? And does that even matter? And these are things that current topics of research and discussion how native native has to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really fascinating. So if you're listening as we record this, it is early March in 2024. And currently there are in the panhandle of Texas, large fires burning. Last I saw was like 1.2, 1.3 million acres of burn, unbelievable In just days. In what? Five days maybe? And aside from the loss of life, loss of industry, loss of livestock and buildings, everything else that goes with that, like yeah, there's all these and buildings, everything else that goes with that, like yeah, there's all these keystone species, these native species out there. You know, this is what short to medium grass prairie, yep, kind of as far north as you want to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and typically we'd say prairies are well adapted to fire. Yeah, so you know, under normal circumstances, we expect prairie to recover well and probably quickly from fire. We have the added stressor of periodic droughts through the region. This is a really drought-prone region to begin with. You know, think about the Dust Bowl. This is a Dust Bowl area as well, and so add those periodic droughts coupled with climate change, coupled with changes in grazing pressure, went from an unfenced migratory bison grazing system to fenced non-migratory livestock, and so, even though it's very similar in many respects ungulates grazing the impacts aren't always similar because of the non-migratory and all of that. So you know, under normal circumstances, expect prairies to recover well from fire. Under these circumstances, where we have such large areas burning all at once, we'll see, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's fascinating and just to dive into a little bit of specifics here, just because I think it's interesting, so I think maybe someone else will out there.
Speaker 1:I saw a video not too long ago on Instagram or somewhere I don't remember where it was and it was this guy talking about he's in California restoring a sort of riparian species of I don't know if it was a grass sort of riparian species of I don't know if it was a grass he was talking about like invasive pampas grass that's taking over a lot of riparian areas or river areas, and he had a bottle of seeds and he said you know, I've. These are species that germinate after fires and I've treated it with liquid smoke and put it out. And the comments we're so like people were like you can't put liquid smoke in blah, blah, blah, blah, it needs the fire. But I was reading one of your papers from a few years ago about essentially that what it rolled is like smoke and then smoke dissolved in water and whatever play in seed germination in some of these species Could you talk about that a little bit, because I think it's fascinating, it's a great topic there's for almost 30 years now.
Speaker 2:Um, there's been an like this increasing body of research that shows that there are chemicals within smoke that can, uh, alter the germination characteristics for for some species, and this is usually especially occurs in certain kinds of fire, adapted ecosystems or ecosystems that have certain intervals of fire. So places like in California where there's the California chaparral, where that chaparral is a shrubby ecosystem and then it experiences fires on sort of medium term intervals, maybe anywhere from 15 to 30 years, and you expect that chaparral to burn again. It occurs in similar kinds of shrubby ecosystems in South Africa as well as in Europe, shrubby ecosystems in South Africa as well as in Europe, areas that often have a Mediterranean-type climate with hot summers and mild, cool winters with precipitation. So there's been this growing body of evidence that some seeds, some species are adapted to those chemicals within smoke and it's not the heat of the fire, it's chemicals within the smoke itself and those chemicals are water soluble. So you know, you could go to the grocery store in the spice aisle and buy literally barbecue smoke flavoring. It doesn't matter if it's mesquite flavor or hickory flavor, it's mostly the same anyway, but you can buy that bottle of liquid smoke flavoring and then you can dilute it some and soak seeds in it, and some seeds will germinate faster than when they've been exposed to smoke, than when they've not. Without a fire on a landscape, there's going to be the chemicals in the smoke, or the charred plant material is going to dissolve into whatever moisture there might be in the soil or if it rains, and then those seeds be exposed to that, and now the seeds that are adapted to do so basically can say oh, there's been a fire, now's a great time to germinate, there's space available, there's nutrients available, let's germinate now. And so this is great adaptation for some plants.
Speaker 2:There's also some evidence that for some plants, that delays their germination. That has less clear reasons for that. Why would you not want to germinate when there's light and nutrients, soil nutrients and space available to germinate into? But prairies are also a fire-prone ecosystem, but with generally much shorter interval Somewhere, you know, maybe every 3 to 10 years rather than every 15 to 30 years and so there's been much less evidence of that kind of smoke-stimulated germination in prairie ecosystems. It's certainly possible, though, that there are species that that could do that, and we found some hints. You know that there are some species that might be inhibited by by, uh, smoke and maybe some others that might be promoted by smoke, but this jury's still out.
Speaker 1:Really for prairies, yeah that's so fascinating and knowing that, like looking back on it, that feels like one of those things that we'll look back on and be like, well, of course, of course, right, of course it's that way because you know there are all these components in smoke and then it rains and it gets mixed in and we think about, you know, the long evolution of plants in a native ecosystem and I don't know. It's just a fascinating thought, but it's, it's also a good. I think it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier a little bit, that in people's minds, like agriculture, plant science is the same as it was a thousand years, you know, a hundred years ago, when we were studying, but we found all this new cool stuff.
Speaker 1:Like you can go buy grocery store liquid smoke and germinate some plants better.
Speaker 2:I was visiting with a colleague in last week I was in Washington DC attending some meetings and they made the comment which I 100% agree with. They said agriculture is high tech and in fact, if you look across high tech type careers, there are more high tech jobs in agriculture right now than probably any other like sector, and that runs the range from literally robotics, robotic design, to chemistry and genetics and nanotechnology. Agriculture right now is probably, I feel like, at a crossroads of technology development, where it's we're in for some amazing things right now and agriculture is leading the way in a lot of ways, and we need to.
Speaker 1:I think, in a lot of ways, like we have, I think a lot of responsibility is as an industry, as a sector, uh, to keep feeding people, you know, keep making things better, but also protect the environment and the process and all that, and I think all these innovations are so cool in that aspect for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely Just so, just, I don't want to keep you too much longer. Just a couple of quick questions that I was. So again we were talking about prairies and I want to go back to that for just a second because I think, like I grew up here, out here on the prairie right, Like yeah, it's agricultural land, but like I love driving outside of town and just seeing, like you know, two foot tall grass as far as you can see. I bet this was an intimidating landscape at one point, when you know, oh, it must have been.
Speaker 2:I mean, the Lubbock area was really, I think, considered unsettled, unlivable by Americans, europeans. You know it was intimidating. There was no water, there's no, really no surface water available, and they just pretty know it was intimidating. There was no water, there's really no surface water available, and they just pretty much thought it was a desert. People you know here I grew up in Utah and did PhD in Southern California and lived in Boise, idaho, and a lot of times the first thing they'll say is, oh, you must miss the mountains so much. I do love the mountains and I spent a lot of time in the deserts out there as well, but you know, those deserts, those mountains, they've got really nothing over the prairies. When you're out on the prairie, no matter what time of day it is, in the evening, watching the sun come up or go down, even at midday, in the evening, watching the sun come up or go down, even at midday, you're really you're there in one of the most unique, beautiful ecosystems on earth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's amazing, amazing, amazing place to be.
Speaker 1:It is and they're so. These are such complex ecosystems too the number of the amount of species, diversity it's really easy to stand and just look at this grass, yeah, but from animals to plants, you know, and we think about in terms of carbon sequestration and nutrient exchange and cycling, like prairies do so much for our planet and people are just like that's grass.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, and and you know, not only all of that on the native side, but they support essentially all of the agriculture on earth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, of course there's agriculture elsewhere. But if you look at where agriculture is, it's in prairies, it's in grasslands around the world, and you know it's amazing that our North American prairies can do all of that agriculture. It's amazing there's any prairies left? Yeah, and there are. And little by little there's more and more. As agriculture advances and consolidates, you know, farms get bigger and bigger, which may be cause for concern for some reasons, but that also means that lots of less productive areas get returned to grassland, to prairie, and you know there's some reason to be optimistic about that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's cool and in terms, of you know, ecological restoration, that's always good to see. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would tell my students it's a career with 100% job security. There will always. Always be a need for people who can understand damaged ecosystems and work to improve them. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, rob, I appreciate your time. The last question I want to leave you with and I ask all my guests this if you had one piece of advice, one thing, and it can be about anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with, what would that be? Easy questions right.
Speaker 2:Right. Honestly, the very first thing that comes into my mind is to just take the next step, and I think that that works for academic questions, that works for ecological questions, that works for difficult life questions as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just take the next step. You don't have to do it all at once. You probably can't do it all at once, but you know, if it's a damaged ecosystem, what's the next thing that you can do to improve it, Take that step. If it's your academic program, what's the next thing that you need to do, whether it's the next test to study for the next class to take? Whatever that next step is, just do it. If it's some difficult issue in your personal life, just take the next step. You don't have to do it all at once.
Speaker 1:I think it's really good advice and it makes big problems into small problems. In some cases you just take a bite out of it.
Speaker 2:Take a bite out of it, and then, after that, do the next one, and then do the next one, and you'll be amazed at what you can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's a great in all of those kind of realms of life. I think that's really good advice. So if people have questions about you know, coming to Texas Tech or ecology or whatever else, where can they find you? What's the best way to get in touch? Right, they can email me.
Speaker 2:It's robertcox at ttuedu. You can look up on the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources webpage and search for my name and it'll be there. If you do a Google search, actually I don't know I should see what number of search level I am. That's always scary Googling yourself, yeah yeah, I haven't done that, but you know probably for sure if you do TTU Robert Cox yeah probably there somewhere. I assume I'm going to be there in one of the one of the links.
Speaker 2:I don't think so but, but email's great and always, always love to hear from folks and talk about ecology or or the Davis College or restoration, awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks so much for your time. I really enjoyed that. It's fascinating. I'd love to have you back on at some point to deep dive some of the ecology stuff a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anytime.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it Super Y'all. I would also like to encourage you to keep putting one foot in front of the other, just taking the next step, and I know some days that's hard and I know for me some days it's really, really hard. But, robert's right, it is the next little thing we can do and then our big problems become slightly smaller problems and I think that is just such great advice. Thanks so much, robertbert, for your wisdom and your insight and just everything else. It was a lot of fun getting to talk to you and I hope you had a good time as well. Thanks again to you, the listener, for being a part of plant anthropology. You know I do this for you and it means the world to me that you enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Thanks again to the texas tech department of plant and soil science and the davis college for your support of the show. Thanks to the PodFix Network and thanks also to the award-winning, fantastic composer, nick Scout, for the song If you Want to Love Me, babe, which is the new theme music for Planthropology, and I hope you enjoy that as well as much as I do. Y'all know I love you. Keep being kind to one another and if you have not, to this day. Been kind to one another. Give that a shot. It's a good way to be. Keep being really cool. Plant people and I will talk to you real soon.
