Ep. 419 - Ant Dispersal Revisited

In Defense of Plants Podcast

In Defense of Plants

Botany, Natural Sciences, Ecology, Nature, Plants, Science

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What started as a question about some strange "seeds" in ant ant nest turned into an explosion of scientific investigations into the links between oaks, gall wasps, and ants. We revisit a conversation with Dr. Robert Warren in which we discuss the mind-blowing evolutionary insights that can come from natural history observations and what they could mean for seed dispersal in spring ephemerals. This episode was produced in part by Rick, Kazys, Dorothy, Katherine, Emily, Theo, Nichole, Paul, Karen, Randi, Caelan, Tom, Don, Susan, Corbin, Keena, Robin, Peter, Whitney, Kenned, Margaret, Daniel, Karen, David, Earl, Jocelyn, Gary, Krysta, Elizabeth, Southern California Carnivorous Plant Enthusiasts, Pattypollinators, Peter, Judson, Ella, Alex, Dan, Pamela, Peter, Andrea, Nathan, Karyn, Michelle, Jillian, Chellie, Linda, Laura, Miz Holly, Christie, Carlos, Paleo Fern, Levi, Sylvia, Lanny, Ben, Lily, Craig, Sarah, Lor, Monika, Brandon, Jeremy, Suzanne, Kristina, Christine, Silas, Michael, Aristia, Felicidad, Lauren, Danielle, Allie, Jeffrey, Amanda, Tommy, Marcel, C Leigh, Karma, Shelby, Christopher, Alvin, Arek, Chellie, Dani, Paul, Dani, Tara, Elly, Colleen, Natalie, Nathan, Ario, Laura, Cari, Margaret, Mary, Connor, Nathan, Jan, Jerome, Brian, Azomonas, Ellie, University Greens, Joseph, Melody, Patricia, Matthew, Garrett, John, Ashley, Cathrine, Melvin, OrangeJulian, Porter, Jules, Griff, Joan, Megan, Marabeth, Les, Ali, Southside Plants, Keiko, Robert, Bryce, Wilma, Amanda, Helen, Mikey, Michelle, German, Joerg, Cathy, Tate, Steve, Kae, Carole, Mr. Keith Santner, Lynn, Aaron, Sara, Kenned, Brett, Jocelyn, Ethan, Sheryl, Runaway Goldfish, Ryan, Chris, Alana, Rachel, Joanna, Lori, Paul, Griff, Matthew, Bobby, Vaibhav, Steven, Joseph, Brandon, Liam, Hall, Jared, Brandon, Christina, Carly, Kazys, Stephen, Katherine, Mohsin Kazmi Takes Pictures, Manny, doeg, Daniel, Tim, Philip, Tim, Lisa, Brodie, Bendix, Irene, holly, Sara, and Margie.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to the In Defense of Plants Podcast, the official podcast of Indefensive Plants.com. What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How is everyone doing this week? I think it's safe to say that in most places in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is getting underway. And spring always makes me think of the Spring Guild of Wildflowers. I'm not going to call them all ephemerals because they're not.
0:21.5	Many of them persist well into summer, but one thing that unites many of the Spring Wildflower
0:27.0	Guild is their seed dispersal mechanism and it involves ants. Yes, we are revisiting the
0:32.7	Mir McCockery episode or the ant dispersal episode. This is a interview I had back in 2018 with my friend and
0:39.6	mentor, Dr. Robert Warren, who has spent much of his career studying the interactions between
0:44.2	ants and plants, and they are just incredible. It is a reason to love ants, and it's also a reason
0:49.3	to pay attention to some potentially really bad invasive ants that have the potential to
0:53.6	severely impact the health of our forests. I'm going to let Dr. Warren do all of the talking, but before we get to that, I just want to say if you're enjoying the show and you want to support it to ensure that it has a future, please consider becoming a patron over at patreon.com slash indefensive plants. There's a lot of great kickbacks over there as a way of saying thank you for supporting the show, but I literally could not be producing the show each and every week without my
1:14.4	patrons. So thank you to all of them. But that is entirely enough for me. Let's get on with the
1:18.3	episode. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Robert Warren. I hope you enjoy. All right.
1:37.9	It has been a while since you've been on the podcast.
1:42.1	Years, I think.
1:43.1	Yeah, you were one of the first, actually.
1:45.0	And then again at the Queeta meeting when you were talking about your nest dispersal paper.
1:50.0	Oh, that's right, which is now published.
1:52.0	Yes, congratulations.
1:54.0	Thanks.
1:55.0	So today we're going to focus in on a certain specialty of yours that, I don't know,
2:00.0	how many years would you say you've been
2:01.7	looking at Mir McCockery in one form or another?
2:04.9	That's a good question, Matt. Probably, all to tolled a decade, but I sort of stumbled into it
2:12.7	and backed into it and fell, so, you know, it was a slow and inauspicious start.
	...

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