Listen to Episode 155 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
For many millions of years, cone-bearing plants and their relatives were among the most successful and important plants on Earth. In some places, they still are, such as the coniferous forests of the Northern Hemisphere. This episode, Aly joins us again to discuss the diversity and history of Gymnosperms.
Listen to Episode 145 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!
We live in a solar-powered world. This episode, we discuss the process that provides the energy that every organism on the planet relies on, as well as the oxygen that characterizes the atmosphere that allows life as we know it to thrive: Photosynthesis.
Listen to Episode 135 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or any other way you’d like!
Every plant starts somewhere, and often that somewhere is a small, secure, sturdy container capable of protecting, nourishing, and carrying a plant embryo until it’s time to sprout. This episode, we discuss the biology, evolution, and incredible paleontological importance of Seeds.
Listen to Episode 132 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or your podcast-player of choice!
They are two of the biggest names in the history of paleoanthropology and human evolution, and they’re one of history’s most impressive scientific duos. This episode, we discuss the science and stories of Mary and Louis Leakey.
Our guest this episode is Meredith Johnson, Communications Director at the Leakey Foundation and host of Origin Stories! Learn more here!
Listen to Episode 125 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or anywhere you can find it!
This one family of plants can be found in nearly every environment on Earth, and yet their deep history is nearly entirely unknown to us. This episode, we discuss the diversity, evolution, and strangeness of Orchids.
Listen to Episode 115 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or pick your favorite place for podcasts!
The Earth is covered in ecosystems, but what lives where is dependent on the local climate and landscape. This variation creates vast patterns in the distribution of life, patterns that scientists can use to understand ecology, and patterns that have changed over time as the Earth’s surface has transformed. This episode, we discuss the modern state and ancient history of Biomes.
Listen to Episode 113 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or pick your favorite place for podcasts!
Life on Earth is directly impacted by the climate, and the climate changes over time in response to the activities of tectonic plates, ocean currents, biological communities, and of course, even humans. The geologic record of our planet is an archive of data on the causes and effects of changing climates. This episode, we discuss Paleoclimate.
Listen to Episode 105 on PodBean, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever podcasts are provided!
Most plants are content to sit still and take in sunlight and soil nutrients, but when conditions are tough, some plants get hungry! The habit of devouring animal prey has evolved in plants numerous times. In this episode, we discuss the varied strategies and evolutionary history of Carnivorous Plants.
Listen to Episode 95 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or just search for it in your podcast app!
Most famous extinction events are very animal-focused, but the end of the Carboniferous saw one of the worst plant mass extinctions in Earth history. In this episode, we discuss the specifics, the background, the causes, and the impacts of the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse.
Listen to Episode 84 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast place!
Life ain’t easy. For animals, plants, and organisms of all kinds, there exists a constant threat of injury and disease. Fortunately, these unfortunate occurrences sometimes leave evidence in fossils that can inform us of the lives – and even deaths – of species from long ago. The study of this evidence is called Paleopathology.
Listen to Episode 80 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or that other podcast place you like!
Happy Darwin Day! In keeping with tradition, we’re joined by special guest Brittney Stoneburg this episode to discuss one of the most influential figures of early paleontology, a person who helped set the stage for the ways we uncover and understand ancient life today, and who was famously not famous in her own time. This episode, we’re discussing Mary Anning.
Listen to Episode 73 on PodBean, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!
As our friend Aly is fond of saying, plants aren’t just a colorful background to Earth history, they’re dynamic and influential drivers of environmental change. In this episode, she joins us to discuss one of the most famous and important innovations in all of plant evolution: Trees.
The Common Descent Podcast 