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Planthropology
Planthropology
121. Paleobotany, Museums, and Lessons from Deep Time w/ Dr. Aaron Pan
Journey through millions of years of plant evolution with paleobotanist Dr. Aaron Pan, who unearths fascinating stories locked within fossilized leaves, fruits, and seeds from Earth's distant past. As Executive Director of the Museum of Texas Tech University, Dr. Pan bridges the worlds of scientific research and public education, sharing how ancient plant remains challenge our understanding of modern ecosystems.
Prepare to have your assumptions about plant origins completely upended. Did you know eucalyptus trees – quintessentially Australian icons – likely originated in South America? Or that Africa once had thriving palm forests despite hosting fewer palm species today than tiny Singapore? Dr. Pan's research in Ethiopia reveals evidence of lush, palm-filled landscapes that existed 21-27 million years ago, before continental collisions dramatically reshaped Earth's biodiversity.
The conversation explores how paleobotany differs from other paleontological disciplines, with plants presenting unique challenges since their various parts – leaves, flowers, fruits – can be scattered and fossilized separately. We delve into the collision of Africa with Eurasia that introduced zebras, giraffes, and lions to the continent, fundamentally altering both plant and animal communities in ways that continue to influence modern ecosystems.
Beyond the science, Dr. Pan offers insights into museum work and the importance of preserving both specimens and knowledge. With 9.5 million items in its collection, the Museum of Texas Tech stands as the 19th largest natural history collection in America. Whether you're fascinated by ancient plants, curious about how continents shape evolution, or simply love museums, this episode invites you to appreciate the incredible depth of time and the long, winding journey of plant life on our planet.
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. Midroll tunes are by Rooey.
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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 green sciences and, as always, my friends. I am so darn excited to be with you today. I got to go to a museum for this episode. Do you know how excited that makes me? Do you know how much I love museums?
Speaker 1:So this episode is with Dr Aaron Pan, who's a friend and the executive director of the Museum of Texas Tech University. He's done a lot of things in the museum world, from curator to executive director at a couple of different places, but by training. Aaron is a paleobotanist, which means that he studies really old plants, but he also studies evolutionary biology and paleontology and all kinds of super cool things. This was a fascinating conversation and, honestly, I could have talked to Aaron for another several hours and I might make him come back in the future and we can listen to him talk for several hours. We talked about everything from the history of plants on different continents and how they move from continent to continent. We talked about evolutionary biology and what we can learn from the past about our future. We talked about palm trees. We talked about museum collections and museum life and how important museums are in our society and in our lives and in our culture, and it was just so much fun. Aaron's a great guy, brilliant scientist and a wonderful director at this museum, so I don't want to belabor this too much.
Speaker 1:I want you to really like dive into this episode. So just, I'm excited you're with me and I'm excited I finally got to sit down with Aaron, and the more times I can go to museums to do stuff, I'm going to do that. So grab your tiny little brush or toothbrush or an electric toothbrush and your pick and a little scraper and a magnifying glass and whatever else it takes to find old plants and dinosaurs and settle in for episode 121 of the Plantthropology Podcast with Dr Aaron Pan. Hey, it's actually future editing Vikram and not past talking to Aaron Vikram. Yet Sorry about that. I know the other guys better Listen. I had forgotten that. I had just gotten over a cold when I recorded with Aaron, so there's some weird audio stuff. We had some room mic issues as well too, and it sounds pretty good, everything's good. I just I have to apologize that there's a couple of times in this episode that you can hear me trying very hard to survive, like and breathe, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Anyway, getting into the episode Recording, okay. Well, aaron, thanks so much for letting me invade your office and set up all my stuff. I realize, as I'm unloading the car, that like there's no way to do this in travel light. Yeah, you've got a lot of stuff Like I always mean to like. Oh, I'm just gonna take a few things and it's just sort of evolved over time. But I appreciate your time this morning. I'm excited to talk about, I mean, everything paleobotany, the museum and everything else. But, just starting off, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit?
Speaker 2:Tell us where you went to school what you studied and kind of how you got to where you are. Okay, yeah, my name is uh aaron pan. Uh, I am now the uh executive director of the museum at texas tech university, um, and basically I've been really interested and I guess my technically, my research is mainly focused in, uh, paleontology, paleobotany specifically. But I'd rather sort of call myself a naturalist because I don't know if I can't fully focus on one thing at one time or not, but we do a lot of. I actually sort of do research on other things as well, or, more likely, I have some very kind colleagues who let me insert myself into asking weird questions and then pursuing it, and they helped me along with that too. So that includes things like native bees, velvet ants, abalone, systematics, sort of it runs the gamut.
Speaker 2:But my first research love is paleobotany and it sort of started, went actually K through 12, amarillo, amarillo Independent School District. I went to, you know, elementary school, middle school, amarillo High for high school and then I went off to University of California, santa Barbara, because I thought at that point that I was going to do marine biology and I was going to wanting to study whale evolution. So that was my first and so it you know it's not OK. Well, I'll head for the coast to do that. It doesn't hurt that. You see, santa Barbara's campus is gorgeous. It has a lagoon, it has a, it has a beach, it has, you know, and the dorms are right on the, on the marine terrace. Yeah, it's absolutely stunning. So not that Texas Tech isn't beautiful as well, but the ocean views are a little to be wanting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have like all beach and no ocean, like endless sand, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:If we were here during the Cretaceous, we'd be good Sure yeah, so that'd be good. But I went there for undergrad. Sure yeah, so that would be good, but I went there for undergrad. What's interesting is, if you go in biology at UC Santa Barbara to sort of weed out those who quote, unquote can't cut it. You don't get to take a single biology course your first year as a biology major. You have to take chemistry, and if you can do that then okay. Now it's software, you can start doing it.
Speaker 2:So what I did was um, and I really wanted to learn about organisms still in that time. So I actually became part of the college of creative studies at uc santa barbara, which is an interesting program where it's for those who know that they want to graduate school after they graduate, and so what? You actually get partnered with a counselor, mentor, professor who basically sort of determines what your schedule of classes will be. So it means that you can leapfrog. So it means that you may not necessarily have to take a preliminary course before you take the course you want. You can actually start taking upper division courses. You can start taking graduate courses your freshman year, and so I got to do that. So what was nice about that was that they let me take geology and paleontology courses my first year, and so that's where I really started to enjoy learning.
Speaker 2:And the professor who was my mentor, dr Bruce Tiffany, who's a very well-renowned paleobotanist, you know, basically, you know he made it so exciting that basically that's, I sort of fell in love with, with paleobotany at that point. Ok, and so so after I graduated from there, I really thought, hey, I want to graduate school, I want to do work in paleobotany, but I would really like to work in the tropics. So I'd love to work in the Neotropics, whether it was Southeast Asia and Malaysia or if it was in Sub-Saharan Africa. I'd really like to do that. And so I applied to schools and an amazing professor, dr Bonnie Jacobs, at SMU, you know, offered me, you know, thought I could be her graduate student at SMU and she worked in and she was very well known for working in sub-Saharan Africa.
Speaker 2:She had been working in Kenya. She lived in Kenya briefly. She worked Tanzania. She lived in Kenya briefly, she worked Tanzania, and she was very so she knew Africa was her place to study. So I was very excited to work with her and so I moved there in 2002 and then went to graduate school, got my PhD in 2007, was there briefly for a postdoc and then my first position was as curator of science at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool, that's a great museum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. What was nice about that one is that it is a multidisciplinary one as well. It's got the science part obviously in the name, and it's got the humanities part being the history part, so that was really cool as well. That's awesome, and then from there I also fell in love with museums. So that's sort of how it started, both how research and yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, and then I saw you were also, I guess, the director at the Don Harrington for a while as well, so you went home, I guess, back to Amarillo.
Speaker 2:I went home one because I, you know I really enjoyed the Horace Museum of Science and History, but I wanted to try some and grow in administration and things like that. And the Discovery Center was a great opportunity, one that was also one of the places that actually got me excited about science in the first place. So that's kind of cool to so as a little kid, that sort of gets to spark you and then you get to put your name on it and put a little bit of impression on there. So, yeah, I was there for eight years and then I had the opportunity to apply here and I couldn't pass that up because I miss doing academia. I missed the resources and stuff that are available for an institution like this. And Texas Tech University is amazing and this museum was amazing that it had again multidisciplinary. So my scattered brain loves that it's not just one discipline that we have a good expertise in, but there's multiple ones.
Speaker 1:You know.
Speaker 1:It's interesting to hear you say that we'll talk a little bit more about the tech museum, uh, sort of in the back half of this episode.
Speaker 1:But so I grew up here in lubbock my wife and I actually both did, and we grew up going to the science spectrum here in town. And so my wife, in her undergrad, alana, did wildlife science. So she wildlife and fisheries, but she focused more on collections and ecology, and so then she was the education director at the science spectrum for quite a while. She worked there for 12 years, did everything from, like, the front desk to the animal room to a little bit of everything. Spent the last I think five or six years as the education director and um or education coordinator I don't know how, I don't know how they title them, but um works there part-time, sort of as a consultant now. But yeah, she's tells the same story that like as a kid, like she knew going there and falling in love with science there, that that's something she wanted to do. It was like her dream job from the time she was a kid and then got to do it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you kind of had a very similar experience yeah, and that's what's incredibly lucky, because usually you know, you know how many times you actually get to sort of pursue. You know, actually you know make a living from, you know stuff that you were really interested in when you were little and and you know, yeah, so it's, it's fantastic, that great. I'm glad she did as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so she spent she spent a lot of time in museum world, so that was another reason I was excited to come do this, because, like, getting another perspective on it is really, really interesting to me. Um, but let's talk a little bit more, I guess, here up front about the actual subject matter. You studied paleobotany because this is so fascinating to me and I know about this much about it, so I'm excited to learn a little bit more.
Speaker 2:yeah, so, yeah, so paleobotany is the uh study of, uh prehistoric plants, okay, and um, basically it runs from the origin all the way through. I would would, I would probably say, uh, by the end of the Pleistocene fortune ring. That basically counts the whole gamut of what. What paleo botany is. Um, I've always been in, I've always really liked uh stuff that's near modern but still somewhat weird and unusual, and so so I really liked it with doing the to sort of stay in the Cenozoic, the.
Speaker 2:Cenozoic is from the end of, so basically from the abrupt extinction of, you know, non-avian dinosaurs all the way up through today. Okay, and so that? So that's, that's what the Cenozoic is, and for Paleobotany that would mean basically from the Paleogene or from the Paleocene all the way up through the Pleistocene.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you know. Basically, you know dinosaurs dead to end of Ice Age, okay, yeah. So that's sort of where I find it really fascinating. I think what is interesting also that many people don't realize with paleobotany which is unusual compared to things like vertebrate paleontology, which is studies of animals with backbones, or invertebrate zoology is because plants are always growing, they have meristemic growth, they always are producing, you know, body parts. They're basically producing body parts and then they're falling off.
Speaker 2:What's interesting is like you can't always tell if you have all these parts. If you find a leaf over here and you find a flower petal over here and you find a structure, a reproductive structure over here, like a fruit or a seed or something like that, you cannot necessarily say, oh, these all belong to the same thing and I can describe it as such. And so that's where a lot of interesting, weird stuff happens, particularly for things that are further in the past. Luckily, with the times I'm sort of looking at, particularly during the oligocene event through myosin, it's not as hard, but that's why often you have what are called organ taxon or you know. Basically, you know you have several things that are named different genera, but they may actually all belong to the same plant. Okay, which is weird, and that often happens in things like in the Permian and Triassic. You know materials and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:You know that's fascinating and I never would have thought of that, you know, you find, you know, okay, I am speaking from a place of not just pop culture, like paleontology, but but you know, that's a lot of the influence in my brain. But, like you have this picture, I think, where a lot of people probably have this picture of paleontologists going out and like I found a whole dinosaur, right, and I know that that's not super common, right, but I had not. Yeah, there's not generally just parts falling off a dinosaur, right, they're not running around like shedding legs and things, right, exactly If it's dead.
Speaker 2:If you find a scapula of a dinosaur, you basically know Right, it died at that point. Yeah, it was dead. So basically you could have something producing that's been preserved and it's still living for longer than you didn't know about, which is kind of an interesting thing as well. I think the other interesting aspect of paleobotany is that in many cases the taxa like genera have a much longer span of existence than things like mammals I think mammals, sure, I don't know I can't get the number correctly and I will definitely be wrong, but it's really like.
Speaker 2:Genera are on the order of typically around average, about two to five million years. The genus exists okay, before either goes to extinct or, you know, it's modified so far that it's different. Uh, you have things that you have, you know. Uh, flowering plants like nothafagus, the southern beaches and the figalis, which are known, I think, back to like 80 million years ago. The genus itself no 80 a, a genus like homo, which is only known for, you know, you know what? Two million years, right, compared to some, to a genus that's known for that's known 80 million years yeah, that's really interesting and that's really fascinating and I think it's hard for people to grasp these timescales.
Speaker 1:Just conversations I have with people about, like you know, evolutionary biology and evolutionary history, we think I don't know. I think there are so many misconceptions about like what time even looks like and at some point, like our brains are just like a long time.
Speaker 1:I don't know, and I think people struggle with that, but that's really an interesting thought too, that you know before before. Uh, you know, the cataclysms that wiped out dinosaurs, like some of these species, were extant right, like we had some of these plants that were maybe not in the form they are today, but hanging around yeah, I mean, yeah, you definitely have families that existed back then.
Speaker 2:You know, in in the lake rotations that exist today. You, you know you have. I think the other fascinating thing is that and this is just the body of the discipline itself is all these sort of interesting things that you don't think about. So Australia, today is. You know, most people know it, for you know koalas, kangaroos, youos, but if you were to talk about what is the quintessential plant that Australia is known for, it would be gum trees, eucalyptus and phthalates.
Speaker 1:So that gums they're in every habitat.
Speaker 2:They're from these tall sclopple forests. You know, even very, very dry habitats there's, you know, there's many, many, many species. It's like the quintessential genus Eucalyptus.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, you think oh, it must have started there, or the oldest one must be from there.
Speaker 1:No, South America, really yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a group that they were working. They've been fascinating material in South America during the that's basically from the Eocene, but yeah, and they've got beautiful things with fruit attachments and preserved leaves. Yeah, eucalyptus, you would not think huh, would not think huh, it may have had its origin in South America, right? So it's a fascinating thing that you sort of you have an idea about what may be existing there, but you can't be fully for sure. You know, we'll go into a little bit later when I start talking about, you know, african forests and stuff like that, but you can't be fully for sure. We'll go into it a little bit later when I start talking about African forests and stuff like that. But the tropical rainforest that you have in Southeast Asia today, that are found in the archipelago in Malaysia or Melanesia, you would think the main quintessential tree that's sort of known is the family Dictero Carpaceae, which is most.
Speaker 2:I don't know if many people know about it, but they're a very important timber family. They basically sort of cause the really great structures of these forests. They're these gigantic trees that are. You know, can be tens and tens, maybe hundreds of meters up in the canopy. What's interesting is they often lose their lower branches so they have these nice cylindrical holes without much. Quote unquote, I guess would be flaw for the timber industry.
Speaker 1:So they're really cut down a lot. Oh interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's where some of those forests are sort of being threatened, but also because they often drop their lower branches pretty quickly. That's why you have probably in the evolution, some of these really amazing animals there. That's why most forests have things like flying, flying snakes, which are not obviously flying with it, right, you know, they're opening up their ribs and they're spreading out there and they're moving. They're basically slinging themselves and gliding from trees right trees, you know, you know over, you know tens to a hundred meters.
Speaker 2:You know the same thing with things like colugos and you know flying squirrels and and draco, the, the, you know those flying lizards, you know flying lizards and stuff like flying, yeah, and so that is what's really you know. So plants are actually causing them and they're the quintessential family there. They likely had their origin in af and so basically, you know, and it probably moved from Africa to the Indian subcontinent. The Indian subcontinent has the pericarpaceae and diphtheroparps today as well, Not often found in sort of known sort of things like salt forests and stuff like that, Not necessarily like rainforests, or if there are some that are in rainforests but they're not necessarily the main majority, but they're found in these monsoonal forests and stuff like that in current India and then they sort of take off and become these sort of rainforest trees in part of Asia.
Speaker 2:So it's really unusual and that you know, we wouldn't know that necessarily without paleobotany. It's really cool and even today, you know, it's always interesting. You know the pool of the recent and the bias that that often has. You know, right, you know password, even if it's modified, it modifies slowly and so you know. But. But I think what's interesting is when these discoveries are made, like huh that's weird, yeah, and that's what's fun, I think about this type of research.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you discover, I don't know, this incredible diversity of life that you know, in some ways today is poorly understood to us and we don't, I don't know. And then we get like our conception of nature kind of pigeonholed sometimes and like this is what is is and this is what's always been. You know, we have this again incredible biodiversity over time and species that come and go and ebb and flow throughout time. And I think when people think about what does like a rainforest look like, what does a prairie look like, it's like okay, you mean, you know, and so we have in the like horticulture side of all this, we have this conversation, a lot about native plants, like plant, a native plant plant, you know, okay, how far back do you want to go, like when we talk about what's a native plant?
Speaker 1:So, you know, in my mind I think about what has close co-evolutionary relationships with other species around, what uh has had the sort of time to acclimate to a climate, to a set of biodiversity, and then what doesn't like get out of control, what's not invasive, those kinds of things. Is that something that y'all talk about at all in sort of these contexts? Is like what is actually supposed to be there because I asked? Because you were talking about, like eucalyptus evolving and sort of having its origins on a completely different continent than we think about and so like, where does that fit into this conversation? It's, it's hard because, again, it's, it's sort of what.
Speaker 2:What does it mean? Um, I'll take an example of some of our work africa, rainforest today and I'll say that I really also my focus is when I was working in Africa is I really wanted to work on forest communities. Okay, I think part of that is because growing up in Amarillo and the trees are a rarity, I wanted to see, you know, I wanted to, you know, study those, you know, because I was always excited about things like going to Muir Woods or going to seeing forests and stuff like that. They're fascinating. I'm also a short guy.
Speaker 2:That's a fun thing. But if you look at African wet and moist tropical forests today, and even in other habitats, the king and queen of all plant families making the body structure is going to be the legume family. Okay, the peas, the beans, that group, that's the.
Speaker 1:Hmm, that's the and hands down.
Speaker 2:Probably within those forests there is a subfamily of clade called, and that one is also basically the prominent one that makes up the canopy trees. That's the one that you have most of the obviously African forests are very diverse and they've got a lot of other plant species and families as well, but if you had to name one it would be the Phabaceae lacuminosae. Okay, yeah, the beans in that group and within that group, the deteriorates. That subfamily had an amazing radiation and ecological dominance of these forests and we can find back in the work that we're doing in Ethiopia. We're finding that also back even in the legacy and prior to that, in fact I think even in the EOC, dr Jacobs and their team's work that they did at Mahengi, which is a Amara lake around sort of, and they even fight leggings back then. So you know, basically sort of making up at least three or four or more species known at that one place. It's pretty fascinating.
Speaker 2:But what's weird is within those families, even if we know back that far, and they still dominate today and they dominated back then some of the players are different. So in Ethiopia we have a site called Mush, which is from about 21.73 million years ago, so it's in the early maya soon. Okay, this is a time period when, early on, in sort of ape and like older monkey, evolution stuff like that as well. Um, in ethiopia today, in the deteriority, there's only a single species and genus, uh, the tamarin. Oh, yes, that exists there and again, we don't even know necessarily if that was a natural or a pseudoclanic plant, but that's the only one that exists there today. Back in that time period there is a whole number of genera that don't exist in Ethiopia today that are there but do occur in Africa now in forests.
Speaker 2:So, there's a genus called Anglerodendron, there's a genus called Anglerodendron, there's a genus called Anthemotha, there's a genus called Newtonia. That are all found at mush way back then. Well, what's weird is, and that forest is actually dominated by a genus called Anglerodendron, which you know it has a handful of it has I don't know the number I'm going to. I know it has more than, uh, eight, less than 20 species, okay, and so what's weird?
Speaker 2:is that most of them are all now found in the guineo-congolian base. You know I found in. You know the forest in the congo basin they're found in some of those forests in West Africa, and then things like Cameroon and Gabon, except for one species that occurs in the Usambaras part of the Eastern arcs of Tanzania. Huh, so that's weird, yeah, and so you're like, so was that?
Speaker 1:you know, so had you not found it at mush, you would say oh well, maybe what happened?
Speaker 2:was it just this, this, what, what pan-african forest, or something like?
Speaker 2:that so basically this one little lone one that's in tanzania. You know, during the ice age probably you've got isolated. Well, we don't necessarily know that now, because now if you have england dundra that was found in ethiopia way back in 21 million years ago, right as the dominant it's basically the dominant tree that occurs there. You know what was going on with that gene. So does that mean that more conservation work needs to be done to protect right this genus, because it did have such a much more importance psychologically even back then?
Speaker 1:that's really interesting. So it's hard to know, right, it's hard to know in some cases because we're looking at it through the lens of history, right, like through biological history of you know, what was here, what wasn't. So an example that pops into my mind and we're talking on a much smaller time scale here I was out at the Lubbock Lake, landmark, which I think is part of your unit. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for those that don't know, we have a. There's a native spring out there. It was an old lake. The headwaters of the yellow house straw that leads the brazos heads to the gulf of mexico, right, yeah, um, but there's a paleontological site as well, so there's, like, mastodon or mammoth bones there yeah, and basically it there it stands, there's been, uh, it goes back from to the ice age, all the way up to historical times.
Speaker 2:So basically, and you basically had human occupation there for thousands and thousands of years, that you have evidence of Right it's fantastic too.
Speaker 1:Well, so I was out there one day and I think Scott I believe out there, scott, it doesn't matter was giving me a tour and like just driving me around and it's really cool. And you know, there's this conception of a specific plant, the mesquite tree that I think people around here think showed up with cattle drives you know five, six hundred years ago, drives you know five, six hundred years ago. But he was saying, no, we've had digs out here where we find, um, you know, charred root remains or that are five, six, ten thousand years old. So when we talk about what's a native species and where does it live in, I think the the time element of this is so interesting when we think about climate, when we think about how things change over time yeah, it's really fascinating.
Speaker 2:And again, I think there's just like everything, you have to be careful, you have to study answers. So I mean, what's interesting is so, and again, I'm a big proponent of native bees and I really love, and I used to study, native bees as well. But what's interesting is, you know, and again, honeybees, the ones, the species here that's now you know, is not native, right, but if you go back five, seven million years ago, there's this fossil from Nevada of an apis. Huh, so apis was in North America just way back then. Now it went extinct at some point, for we don't know the reason, and so that's, I mean, it's fascinating in that regard. So I guess what would be best to note is that, like, obviously everything's changing, right, and so what we sort of think is, you know, it's always been there or it's not the case. I mean, you could do the same thing with, uh, lots of things like the dominant sharks that exist today right in the oceans are, uh, the carcharina form.
Speaker 2:These, which are the requiem sharks you know, things like white tips and uh, bull sharks and and that those are sort of less specious and they sort of like are very ecologically important. You know, before them it was the lamina forms and like. So lamina forms are there are not as many today, although there's sort of the charismatic ones as well. So those are things like thresher sharks, okay, and uh, great whites, okay, makacos, and they were dominant, you know, during, like the Cretaceous and before.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting that you know again.
Speaker 2:so what? Like the group that's dominant now in many cases is often like the up and coming. You know the new, you know the new Right. Yeah, and some of these religious things were the ecological dominance in the past, which is interesting. So yeah.
Speaker 1:So I have a question and you know, feel free to tell me if this is sort of out of your field of study, but this leads to a question in my mind and I think it's maybe part of all this. So when we think about, you know, observing things like climate change, when we look at the way that species are progressing or regressing, like if we're losing and I don't mean evolutionarily, I mean like population wise, right, like you know, we're seeing species die off and insects and all kinds of things what can studying like paleobotany and old plant systems tell us about, like today and maybe our future?
Speaker 2:so I I think, well, I'll first, uh, preface that I you know some of this. I'll probably be stepping out some of this. I do think what is important from understanding deep time is how and I was not a cop, but like how unique and amazing these lineages are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, and what a travesty would be for like these things to go away after existing for so long and it's basically being able to peer into deep time. You know it's, it's, it's. It would be a shame. I would think also that in some of these lineages you know, yes, some of these lineages, you know, yes, some of these lineages with climate change are going to be winners and some of these are being losers. It would be a big shame for us, as humans, to be the ones to determine who are these winners and who are these losers, doing it haphazardly and, in many cases, not even understanding the truth of what you lost or what this treasure was, and so that's sort of a huge, I think with it's hard today, with things like habit of destruction and stuff like that, I don't think we really know what our full magnitude is in terms of what we're going to be doing yeah, Cause again the planets.
Speaker 2:The planets fairly hardy and you can take a lot of punches and get up, but we're doing a whole lot of punching right now. That's really and that's not a not a good. So it's um, these, these forests that hold so much biodiversity, you know part, you know part of the arguments are well, you know they may be beneficial to humans because they may have species that have chemicals and stuff that help with fight disease. Or they have you know, or you disease, or they have you know, or you know there's some genetics that can be helped in, in, in, in, in these ways, which I understand. That. But I think you also want to preserve the answer, maybe the museum person. Just because they exist, they're fascinating, they're, you know, they're beautiful in their own right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so there's that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's interesting, I think, and I think that's a good answer that you know it gives us some context, but also, yeah, what a shame it would be. What a shame it would be. And you know you brought up the new museum part and I think that's actually a good segue. Let's take a quick break. When we come back let's talk about the Tech Museum and what you all do here, some of the species you have represented here and some of, I guess, the outreach and educational efforts you do. Well, hello there, welcome to the Midroll. Thanks for sticking with me through the first half of this episode. I again could talk about dinosaurs, paleontology and museums all day, all day and hope you're enjoying it too.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being a part of Planthropology and what we do here. Thanks for listening. Thanks for your support. There's a lot of ways to support the show. If you want to tell more people about it, go do that. Tell them with your face. Word of mouth is still the best way to talk about a podcast and to spread it around and to get new ears on it. If you want to share on social media I am Plantthropology all over the place. I'm also the plant prof all over the place Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast player, as well as on YouTube and different places.
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Speaker 1:If you like what we're doing, send me an email at planthropologypod at gmailcom. Tell me I'm doing a good job. Tell me I'm doing a bad job. If you think that I am, and make suggestions for future guests, just say hi. I like it when people say hi. That is a wonderful thing and, but again, mostly just thanks for listening, Thanks for being a part of all of this for the past nearly six years, which is just crazy. We're going to have to do something big in November for the six year anniversary of the show. More on that later, but for now, let's get back into this conversation with Dr Aaron Pan and let's talk a little bit about palm trees and a lot a bit about museums. You mentioned over the break that you actually did some work on palms as well and before we get into the museum stuff, I think like that sounds really interesting, so I'd love to hear more about that.
Speaker 2:So what's cool? There's a site that we have in Ethiopia from the late Oligocene. Basically it's about 27 million years ago in Ethiopia. What's really cool about Ethiopia and Africa back then? Africa at that point is an island continent. It's actually called Afro-Arabia because the Arabian Peninsula is part of that. That point is sort of a little bit isolated. It's rafting and about to collide with Eurasia, mm-hmm. And that is about to happen. And what will happen at that point is you have a big shift of the fauna that was on the continent of Afro-Arabia will meet the fauna that is in Eurasia. The continent of Afro-Arabia will meet the fauna that is in Eurasia. When you think about today, when you think about Africa, what?
Speaker 1:do you think about what kind of animals do?
Speaker 2:you think would happen here.
Speaker 1:I mean zebras and giraffes and lions and those kinds of things, Yep.
Speaker 2:Everything you just named is of Eurasian origin.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gazelles, gazelles. Yeah, you know antelopes, you know hippos, all the big cats.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know mer-cats, you know all of these things. Yeah, giraffes, all of those are Eurasian in order. Huh, so what you had back.
Speaker 2:Then you have weird stuff that belongs to a group called Apotheria, so things like hyraxes, elephant shrews, things like golden moles and proboscideans, so elephants and then you also have probably coming from Eurasia as well, although they came much earlier than whenever these two continent, these two big, large masses, crash together, things like primates, and so you have and because they fly, bats are also known from the Sure and actually they're known from hanging. But what does that mean in terms of you have these big faunal transitions? What does that mean in terms of the changes in herbivores or plant dispersal things and stuff like that?
Speaker 2:And so it's really cool to sort of see what does a forest look like in Africa right before this big transition. And what's cool is this place is called Chilga, which you said. It's these overbanked deposits of the Red River, so it's a. It's probably forested around there as well, but we're basically sampling this forest that's along this river and it has those beans I mentioned earlier. There's several species. There's several genuine species of that. There is the, a plant called Cola, which actually Coca-Cola got a name from. Oh, so Cola is, yeah, cola from Cola nuts. Cola is an endemic genus that is in the uh, related to hibiscus and uh um and the chocolate family, and you know chocolate.
Speaker 2:That's interesting, okay and and so it, it's there, it's a rainforest, it's a rainforest genus mainly found in forests, so it's it's there. They don't occur in ethiopia today, which is also cool. But what we really found, which is really fascinating, is we found lots and lots of palms, okay, which you're like okay, okay, well, duh.
Speaker 1:It's a tropical. It's such a new home. What is a?
Speaker 2:quintessential thing you think of when you think of, you know, tropics, if you're thinking of vegetation, yeah, like coconuts or coconut palms, palm trees and date palms. Sitting on a beautiful beach with palm trees swinging, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, what's weird though, africa today is not known for palms there are palms there?
Speaker 1:There's less than 70 species. Okay, if you go to, which sounds like a lot 70 species, that's a lot right, yeah, but you know we're talking about the second largest continent in the world Sure, so Singapore has more species of palms than the whole entire continent of.
Speaker 2:Africa. There are a thousand species that occur in Southeast Asia and you have over 500 species probably in the New World tropics.
Speaker 1:So, why?
Speaker 2:Why is Africa weird? And we actually come back to this a lot. Africa is sort of known as the odd man out, because it always seems to be different than these other regions, and so it's fascinating that we found these. We found lots of palms, we found things called African rattan, so basically these climbing palms that have spines on them and they climb into the canopy and things like that. We have a genus called Hyphene, which is a fan palm. It's really cool because they often bifurcate.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting Most palms.
Speaker 2:You think of just one single trunk right. Yeah, but this one bifurcates, so they can often bifurcate and then bifurcate again. Weird, okay, so it's weird.
Speaker 1:Okay, they're often weird.
Speaker 2:And then there is, uh, later on there's a splerosperma, which is this weird palm, that is a that is a specialist in swampy environments, and so they sort of grow, and you know, they grow and they sort of form these little columns and stuff like that in swampy soils. So we found, and they're all together, which is really weird because you don't have that really much today in Africa, and so do we know exactly why? No, but there are some ideas that maybe this transition, because what happens in later, legacy to the Miocene, you basically move from the paleogene to the neogene and right around that time you have this collision of Eurasia with Afro-Arabia, and so a lot of these palms did a lot of these palms did the endemic fauna back then were they the main plant dispersers and stuff like that. And then, when it's new and when the new kids arrive, you know they saw these weird palms yeah yeah, and they just, and that dispersal may not have been as well, and so like that.
Speaker 2:Or was it climate change, or is it both? It the nice, the interesting thing about biological systems, as you know yeah, is that? It's often one explanation. There might be one primary explanation but it doesn't necessarily mean that's the only explanation, but it's really weird that we find this forest that has a lot of palms in it way back then and what's interesting mush, the one that I told you about earlier. I think there's one palm there, solaris vermus, still exists, but we don't see things like these climbing rattan, you don't see high feeding.
Speaker 1:Some of these other stuff.
Speaker 2:And that's only a in Geolodic time. That's a short period. Six million years of difference. I was in 20 years between my friends, so you know what's going on. So that's it's kind of weird, but at that point, 21 million years ago, that land of bridges would form. It's kind of weird, but at that point, 21 million years ago, that land of bridges would form, yeah, the Arabian Peninsula is connected to Eurasia and things are going through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's really interesting. And you just think about that makes me think one of the explanations or potential explanations you gave, of you introduce a new species and they don't know what to do with it. They're like what's this big, weird fruit? Like you know, what do I do with this? And you know, I guess we see that in modern species too. I think about cane toads a lot, where they're like we're going to introduce these to eat the cane moth and you put them there and they're like cane moths are terrible, I'm gonna eat everything else. And and so, like you know, that is a human intervention in species spread and species diversity change. But it's really interesting to think about this being, in a lot of ways, historically a natural process to write two continents that slam into each other and that's going to, you know stuff's going to happen, stuff's going to happen, yeah, yeah, and it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to be.
Speaker 2:It'll be fascinating for one, right? But again, there will be winners, there will be losers, and then there will be interesting things where there's sort of a mixture between things. So this world of biodiversity is amazing and basically the biological process is happening very, very fast.
Speaker 1:It's really really incredible and I think actually that is. That is another good segue into the museum world and the preservation of species and the education about it. So talk a little bit about the tech museum Like this is and if for those of y'all out there I know we've got listeners all over the world, but you know if you've never been here, this is a beautiful museum, like I really enjoy this space. So tell us a little bit about it. What kind of stuff do you all do here? What kinds of collections, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the Museum of Texas Tech University is a large museum. It's a little over 200,000 square feet and not including the Olympic Lake Landmark, which is also part of it. It includes the Natural Science Research Laboratory. It has six main collection research divisions, that is, anthropology, art, clothing and textiles, history, natural sciences and paleontology.
Speaker 1:Okay, so those are the main areas.
Speaker 2:And within that, we have 9.5 million specimens and pieces of artwork and collection items. So that's large For Texas itself. We are the largest natural history museum in collection size and, all due respect to our wonderful friends at Panhandle Plains Museum, I think we actually have the largest museum footprint-wise as well, and so that's really incredible. We have an amazing staff. That again because of that many questions, because you have both the sciences and the humanities- there's sort of something for every, for every visitor there's there should be something for everybody yeah, you know again, even if and I don't know why it would be the case, but even if dinos weren't your thing.
Speaker 2:You can see some of our amazing art collection and be taken away. If the Ice Age Gallery is not necessarily a thing, you will be fascinated by the amazing you know textile collection we have and you know things like that. And the amazing thing too is that again, our curators and the collections team, they are doing fascinating work in research, they're doing fascinating work in their programming. You know, besides those six collecting divisions, we also have an exhibits division, we have an education division, and so there's a planetarium so again, it's really an amazing museum.
Speaker 2:It's free to the public, by the way, so I should also mention that too, so that's also something to say as well. And again, while our focus is often because it is a museum of Texas Tech University, it's not a museum about Texas Tech University, right, texas Tech, so I mean. What it is, though, is there is a heavy emphasis, obviously, because of where we're geographically located. Again, we often do have a high presence of question items that are focused on the greater southwest, so that includes, you know, western North America, including Mexico, and even extending into Central America, okay, the Natural Science Research Laboratory, though actually is a global perspective and, so that you know, includes bats from Nigeria.
Speaker 2:That includes material from Indonesia. That includes radioactive specimens Indonesia. That includes radioactive specimens from Chernobyl we have the other piece of out of you is that we have items that are from similar climates for other collections as well. So, besides just Greater Southwest sort of being our focus and Lubbock area, semi-arid and arid environments, have material from Central Asia, things like that, yeah, and so, um, no, we are a resource for the community.
Speaker 2:We're a resource for researchers, you know, here and around the world. Uh, we are always one, you know, here and around the world, we are always one. You know. People come in and see our amazing things and then also, you know, we have some really great programming that's without reaching engagement. So we do a lot of things that we're excited about it. Right now, if you walk through the museum, you will see an exhibit on quilts from the 1700s to the early 1900s. You will see a temporary exhibit on two-stroke Yamaha motorcycles from the 1960s through the 1980s. See, that's so cool. Yamaha cycles from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Speaker 1:See, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:We have an exhibit right now celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Sokka Juwia dollar Interesting. And then I love its place in it because Glenna Goodacre, who was the artist for the image of Sokka, the author's image of Sokka Juwia and her son John Baptiste on the back of it.
Speaker 2:So there's already a piece of that too, and we have our permanent galleries, again with our amazing art, and then our galleries on paleontology, because we actually go back from right around when we're really lucky in this area. We actually are from a time period where we actually do collect stuff that's from the age of dinosaurs. A lot of what we're doing, though, environmentally. There's more wetlands and there's not as much of the dinosaur. We have really cool members that are related to crocodilians, to basically giant amphibians.
Speaker 1:That would have been the most terrifying salamander-looking thing you would have been like the most terrifying salamander looking thing you would have ever seen in the world.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, um, we have a post-sucas, which was a uh large terrestrial predator that was, uh, that actually ate little dinosaurs during time. It's one of those ones that they actually show on. I think that very that when walking with dinosaurs, that were proven.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah yeah and so, uh, no, it's a really great museum and so cool, so your your big exhibit that's right out here um the the three dinosaurs.
Speaker 2:There's what a pterosaur yeah, there's, yeah, quetzalcoatlus quetzalcoatlus, okay, and there is, uh, uh, triceratops, and then there's a Tyrannosaurus. Okay, so that one. Again, that's much more a Texas type of thing, uh-huh, and that material is known from Texas, although it's from far west Texas and it's sort of the Big Bend area. The stuff that's more locally known is from the Triassic period, okay, and that's the start of the age of dinosaurs and age of man and actually started the mammals to. Both sort of dinosaurs and mammals were sort of show up around the same time, okay, yeah that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:So I have to ask there recently, and I don't know if y'all are involved in this at all, but they, you know they're digging a highway south of town and they had to stop a dig because they found bones from, yeah, a sloth or a giant brown sloth.
Speaker 2:And so they're yeah, so yeah, no, our anthropology division is doing some amazing work with Tegstot and so they're working with them and actually that material's here, oh cool, yeah, so it's pretty impressive. As I said, I think you know, in terms of natural history collections I think I ran the numbers, because you know I try to run the numbers I think we're number 19 in the country for the size of the collection.
Speaker 2:Oh very cool For natural history and so that is you know and that's with. You know the Smithsonian number one Right Museum of Natural History, number two, right Bishop. You know these other museums. So we are quite large and we always welcome people to come see what we do here and enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So what's on the? You know this may be sort of just speculative, but like what's on the horizon for the museum, like what new things are coming up.
Speaker 2:Well, so a big thing we're doing is we are under the Office of the Provost and we're under an area called Outreach and Engagement. It also includes the National Ranching Heritage Center. That includes Junction down in central Texas. That includes the Texas Tech Press. It includes the Osher Lifelong Learning Center.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But yeah, a big, heavy piece is we're growing our programming and so that'll be big, and so in terms of community engagement and those type of programs, so that's a big heavy emphasis that we'll be doing. We are again still pursuing research in these areas.
Speaker 1:And so we're excited about that.
Speaker 2:And then we have some really great exhibits coming up. Well, not that we have, we already have some really great exhibits coming up. Not that we haven't we already have some really great exhibits Right, right, right. Everybody. Please come see our exhibits now, including the new Yamaha one.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:We never had a motorcycle one which is kind of cool, but we have one on guitars. In the fall, we will be having the exhibit Dressing the Abbey, which will actually be bringing in uh, over 30, uh wardrobe pieces from the Downton Avenue.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting, a series will actually will be here, and so that, and actually those were actually ones that were in the series, so not yet, and so that, so we're talking about that will be here in late January through April of 26. And so, uh, there's always good stuff. Uh, we have art on, uh, and I don't know when this will will run. Art on the honor will be, I think, uh, next week, and stuff like that. Oh, okay, yeah so um no, there's always something here at the museum and so very cool.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Well, I appreciate it. That half I mean like, and I've learned a lot. I'm always interested, interested and I get nerdy about this stuff and like again, I probably have 100 more questions and I'd love to have you back on sometime to maybe pick one of the topics and do a little bit more of a deep dive. But a couple of things I always ask my guests, just in general. You know you've had a diverse career but you've kind of done a lot of cool things. If you had a piece of advice for our listeners, do? We have a lot of students that listen? We have people in the sciences, across the sciences, like, whether it's career wise or just life wise, like what would you want someone to take home with them? That's hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I know I didn't warn you either.
Speaker 2:I think I'm gonna say three things.
Speaker 2:Oh sure Cause, uh, I think I'm gonna say three things, oh sure Cause I, cause I can't, which may be saying something too.
Speaker 2:So one, I think, is you need to try and find a little joy every day, no matter what, even if it's a hard day, something like that. You need to find some joy, you know, and, and whether that is, you know, getting a good snack or meal or something like that during the day, if it is taking a little time at the end of the day to you know, to read a favorite novel or book or something like that, or, you know, even, you know, call up a friend, or something like that, I think that's important, okay, because I think that's the thing where, you know, I think everybody's so stressed now. You've got to really do something like that to sort of yeah, yeah, you've got to really do something like that, to sort of yeah, yeah, to sort of help that. I would say that. And you know, I think we're both biased in this because we're, you know, we both, like you know biology and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I think you know going outside and observing and just walking in nature, and it doesn't necessarily have to be like, you know, an unadulterated forest or a stream or something like that. It can just be, you know, walking outside and walking to a park or something like that and just observing stuff like that. I think that's a key piece as well, because it moves you to observe things and you know things that you wouldn't expect before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, there's these little micro activities that are occurring all over the place, which is fascinating. I think that's good for people to know. And third I would say is lifelong learning. Key is lifelong learning Because, again, it is just like the muscles If you're not using them, it atrophies.
Speaker 1:If you're not using your brain, it atrophies.
Speaker 2:So learn something new. Every you know. You know often and persistently, and so, um, I'm hoping that, no matter what I'm always going to, you know, try and learn new stuff and again, and then you know learning is is easy when it's like it's something you really like or something like that. Yeah, you know learning other stuff, you know when it's something you really like or something like that. Yeah, you know learning other stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, because of the challenges and stuff like that, you know what I mean. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think that those are all sort of key pieces. Um, I don't know. It works for me yeah. You know, others will have other, you know someone who are probably more, who have better advice than that.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's great advice. I really do, and you know I we have better advice than that. No, I think that's great advice, I really do, and you know I think that those are things that I find valuable as well, you know. And so, no, that's great. Where can we find you? And or the museum, Like if people want to learn more about what's going on?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely so we have. So there's a website, obviously for the museum that they can go to. You know there is we're on 4th street in Lubbock, texas, and on the website it actually has our contact information so you can get a hold of me by email or phone if necessary, things like that. And so yeah, and we're always, you know, we're always open for you know, to help. Again, the other thing too is we've got a lot of experts on staff. So, again, things like if people find plants or bugs, or you know rocks or fossils, or you know, or they have you know, amazing, obviously they want to kind of find out about. You know we're there to help. If we can't provide it, we do know. If we can't necessarily provide directly, we will. We know that. We know who you may be able to contact.
Speaker 2:Ok so that's always a thing too.
Speaker 1:But yeah, very cool, very cool. Well, thanks for having me out Again. I was, I like any excuse to come over here. I don't get over here as much as I should. I need to bring my son out here soon again. It's been. It's been a couple of years. Yeah, absolutely. I think we need to get him out of the house this summer, so it'll be good to bring him up here.
Speaker 1:But thanks again for your time. We'll have to have you back on sometime and talk a little bit more about some of the paleobotany stuff, but I really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Thanks, man. Can I just say at the end of this that I love the phrase and the concept of deep time and the long time scale of our planet and of our world and of our nature and all the things we can learn from deep time and learn from people like Aaron. So, aaron, thanks so much for being on. I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed that conversation, how much fun it was, and we're going to have to have you back on soon. And thanks to you, the listener, for putting this in your ears for 120 plus episodes and nearly six years for some of you. There are a lot of you that have been with me from the very beginning and I cannot tell you how crazy that is to me and how much it means to me. I love you all dearly and I'm just so grateful that you're here.
Speaker 1:So Planthropology is written, produced, directed whatever other things go into a podcast by yours truly, vikram Baliga. The intro music and outro music is by the award-winning composer, nick Scout. Our mid-roll music is Yarrow by my buddy, rui and his lo-fi dad beats, which you should definitely go check both of them out. They're fantastic people. I didn't mention this at the top of the episode, but this is actually the last episode for the first half of this season. I think I mentioned earlier in the year that I'm starting to go with a seasonal sort of approach to the show and I'm just taking a planned summer break and this episode came out a little bit later than I wanted, but I'm going to take most of July off and probably at least half of August. So look for a new episode around August 21st 2025. If you're listening to this as it comes out, if you're listening to this in the distant future, you can probably just push next and listen to that, but I may release some bonus content. Follow on the socials for more stuff, but new episodes will be out in August and I hope to see you then.
Speaker 1:So thanks for everything. Be kind to one another. If you have not, to date, been kind to one another, give that a try. My goodness, do we need that right now? Just just some basic human kindness. So give that a shot. Keep being kind, keep being safe and keep being very cool. Plant people and I will talk to you real soon. Thank you.
