When Trees Took Over the World
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- čas přidán 11. 05. 2021
- 420 million years ago, the forest floor of what's now New York was covered with a plant that didn’t look like a tree at all, except its roots were made of wood. Instead of looking up to learn about the evolution of trees, it turns out paleobotanists should’ve been looking down all along.
A big thank you to Franz Anthony (franzanth.com), Julio Lacerda (https: JulioTheArtist), and Fabrizio de Rossi ( / artoffabricious ) for their excellent paleoart featured in this episode.
Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: / pbsdigitalstudios
Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible:
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References: docs.google.com/document/d/1m... - Věda a technologie
The tyranny of trees went unchallenged until beavers evolved.
Termites: 'Am I a joke to you?'
@@malleableconcrete very true, so far they are they only thing that can digest lignin properly into its component and make proteins out of it. To beavers it’s furniture to termites it’s food.
I enjoyed the joke. :) But I wanted to remind my fellow science enthusiasts that mushrooms came along later to help break down tree and or tree-like matter. My apologies if I speak in error.
The Tyranny of Trees needs to be a D&D module.
@@SpyridonTheWonderWkr mostly right, but you don’t have a forest with the fungi based wood wide web
I can't believe I've never thought about how I could use all the random scientific terms I know in Scrabble before.
That’s the real lesson we learned here.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thats how you win. No one sees Carboniferous coming when you play Carbon in an early round.
Oh yes.
The problem with scrable, is when you play, you forget half the words you know 😅
he's wearing that jacket so we'll talk about the video instead of how proud we are that he's committed to his workout routine
It's not a jacket,,, it's a gun safe. ;-)
No, he obviously had a job interview following the video spot. That’s how it usually works around my workplace.
That might work if we couldn't equally appreciate the way his gestures pull the buttons as he introduces the layers that make up solid wood.
His evolved wood kept me hydrated
Well, that devolved quickly...
What Blake said: Archaeopteris
What I heard: Archaeopteryx
What Blake said: Archaeopteris
What I heard: Archaeopteryx
What Blake said: Archaeopteris
What I heard: "Wait, hold up, that's not the old bird thingie he's talking about, it's a tree..."
What Blake said: Archaeopteryx
What I heard: "What? Why is the tree an early bird?"
ah ah! Exactly.. thought the same!
Πτέρις and πτέρυξ are related: ferns are sort of feather-shaped, and wings (on birds) have feathers.
@@pierreabbat6157 That's cool! Are they the same root with different genders or another derivational suffix added on?
Sound so much alike
Yeah, I kept hearing that, too, and imagining a weird bird-thing with half-wooden feathers.
My concept of the earth isn’t easily formed without an image of plants or trees-imagining eras just at the beginning of plant life is very exciting
What I find funny is that I can't imagine a world without grass (mowing lawns, a chore I wish to not do, but that's besides the point) yet grass is actually a pretty young species of plant. Which means that I agree!
I think prior trees it was a rocky world with fungi that could grow to massive sizes which allowed for soil that future plants used based on what I’ve googled and seen from this CZcams page. So instead of dense rainforest you probably had a much more empty spacious landscape punctuated by the odd super sized fungal formation including everything else like the precursors to modern plants such as early mosses and lichens.
I am fascinated with that the first animals to borrow caused a mass extinction as they tipped over everything on the ocean floor. At that point nothing was really anchored down.
It's weird to think that flowers are only 130 million years old, and most of the Mesozoic had tree ferns unlike the trees today. Even weirder is GRASS did not evolve until 55 mya. The non-avian dinosaurs NEVER SAW GRASS. And yet it's a critical component of the world today.
@@23skiddsy6 No grass? So there weren't any savanna-like landscapes?
Five different kinds of wood which evolved convergently? I'd be interesting in a video on those kinds & how they differ.
I would totaly watch that! Convergent evaluation is fascinating.
An arborist will probably tell you now!
There's some evident ones still extant. The wood of bamboo and palms is radically different from softwood trees, because they are monocots, not dicots, with scattered vascular bundles. Tree ferns are also radically different. I don't even know if gymnosperms and angiosperms developed wood separately. I sort of assume so, despite the similarities. But just as frogs didn't get the amniotic egg, mosses still are wood-less and reliant on water more than other plants.
@@23skiddsy6
On one of Hank Green's videos he said that on Twitter a scientist of some type said trees aren't a genera, they're a strategy like crabs!
Apparently wood evolved considerably before anything that could digest it so for ages the dead trees just piled up, and are a significant portion of our fossil fuels.
I get so hyped when science channels make videos about plants. They're still like 80% of all the biomass in the planet! I can't do the math but I'm pretty sure they still reign supreme over us even when humans are doing their best to cut them down.
More videos about plants and trees please!
Plants can live without us but we cant live without them, plants win
@@conservativeriot5939 Yes in the U.S. and Europe NOT in the world
It's so interesting how everyone thinks of plants and trees as different. This is something I noticed many years ago. "Let's go look at trees, plants, and flowers!"
@@conservativeriot5939 WRONG!
@@scottabc72 MACHINES that make oxegen BRUH
"How our planet went from the reign of algae to the rule of trees."
Laughs in phytoplankton
@@conservativeriot5939 sure buddy. Sure.
@@conservativeriot5939 lmao prove it
@@conservativeriot5939
Save the fantasies for the next fart lighting video you watch.
i wish that i saw what conservativeriot5939 said
"We've had one Xylem yes, how about second xylem?"
-2:28
Hear me out: What if we add a third layer of xylem and make super trees!!!!
Is second xylem anything like second breakfast?
"I don't think he knows about second xylem, Pippin."
@@shrimpisdelicious "What about phloem? Cambium? Bark? Heartwood? He knows about them? Doesn't he?"
@@lonjohnson5161 “I wouldn’t count on it”
Bless eons for never click baiting us in the titles
It's absolutely amazing in a way. The titles always seem like the most clickbait-y things imaginable.
"Why do things keep evolving into crabs?" "That time it rained for two million years" "The Pandemic that lasted 15 million years"
But every single one of their videos actually delivers, just exploring in depth the literal insanity that is the history of our planet.
It's just fantastic.
OMG PLEASE give us a jingle for “Convergent Evolution” that we can sing in our heads every time you say it.
Co-ver-gent (G F G)
Ev-o-lu-tion (A G B G)
@@fuxan I actually came here to say this exactly... uncanny
CONVERGENT EVOLUTION: the powerhouse of the Cell!!! No, that's not right.
Just say “it’s convergent evolution” to the teenage mutant ninja turtles theme
@@Aimdog Or maybe ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’
Now all we need to round out the evolution of plants is "How Grass Conquered the World", because I think that would be a great video.
Ando how C4 conquered the World....
Totally agree
That actually makes more sense. Woody roots could break rock and allow soil formation.
and... they still do!
1. roots and 2. winter ice = bye bye stones
0:15
My brain: "Wait, what? Did he just say archaeopteryx was a plant????"
* A few moments later*
My brain, finally managing to decode the teenie word in the corner: "Ooooh okay, that makes so much more sense!!!"
which is why I like that all the PBS channels incorporated subtitles for their videos.
It seems that paleontologists are at a loss to find a suitable name for the fossil.
'Xylem up and phloem down' may be the only thing I remember from high school biology. LOL!
what about mitochondria as the powerhouse of the cell?
phloem actually goes both ways
Blake, you look very nice in that sport coat/pant combo and I appreciate the heads up on the word 'xylem'. Thanks for this episode, it was mind bending to think how much trees have done for us.
Imagine the land before the Devonian. One giant desert, basically. It would have felt a bit like being on Mars.
Yeah, I remember this one show I watched long ago where they went through each period (more or less), at the beginning the presenter had a scuba tank on land to show that the air was toxic, but that it'll soon change as he walked towards some of the earliest plants we knew at the time. I believe it was from the early 2000s, but I can't remember the name of the show.
or more generally, imagine if one day we are able to travel to a planet that *could* be habitable but just isn't. like it has enough oxygen and carbon and shielding from cosmic rays and water but life just never happened. it would be a really surreal place to go to.
@@harrisonwest4032 Although that would be cool, a planet lots of oxygen randomly in the atmosphere probably wouldn't stay that way for too long, as oxygen has a habit of reacting with other materials and turning into various types of rust. The only reason Earth has excess oxygen in the atmosphere is because ancient microbes put it there.
@@jared_bowden
Put it and kept it there.
@@jared_bowden and if there were some cycle that allowed oxygen to be released
Those catalysts would destroy carbon life
I used to live near Gilboa as a kid, and it never occurred to me that it was the site of one of the oldest forests in the world.
It wasn't a forest of trees though. Just some fake poser wannabee trees.
@@OytheGreat , But they were still ancient plants and therefore important to be studied
Amazing
It’s crazy how plants and animals both came from those tiny little things millions of years ago
Billions of years even.
Religious freaks won't believe this
@@masterofpuppets5072 it's their choice to be ignorant...
@@hyouki8529 true dat
We still all start as tiny little things.
Oh gahd yes please don't stop
Lol 🤘🏼
Love your vids man!
phrasing
Thank you for that recent series on the cloud forests of DR! "Fern dungeon" (or any magnificent bstrd for that matter) is now an obligate part of my vocab while botanizing.
@@WanderTheNomad this is nothing, check out the dude's videos
I have been watching LITERALLY EVERY EPISODE of eons. Again. Pretty good timing.
me too! was just re-binging and i was like,,,, i don’t think i’ve seen this episode before and lo and behold! 9 hours ago :) apparently i only had personalized notifications on
All PBS staff is amazing. They tell these stories so well!
Complexly staff.
The evolution of trees and wood is one of my favorite topics! Its very sad that we lost so many wacky woody lineages, I would do anything to see the middle-late Devonian period forests.
Please do a video on the evolution of ELEPHANT TRUNKS! It would be awesome to see how that adaption came about!!!!
And maybe a showcase of other unusual forms of prehensility.
@@BonaparteBardithion YES!
@Asingamaanda Makhuvha That doesn't make it less interesting.. there are so many animals with four legs but only a handful with a trunk.
The man is super smart, funny, interesting, handsome, swole (I remember the tight T-shirt episode 💪) and a dapper dresser. Hats off to you my dude, you’re a total boss 💯
Mmmmm nerdy daddy hahahaha
S!MP
and he has HUMILITY! something that should define a strong person always but or culture renounces humility as weak. True security with one's self right there.
@@malouverganio9799 yeah baby
Very handsome. And he has evolved - he talks a little slower and has better enunciation than his early videos from years ago. Great Job as always!
looking quite dapper today my guy gotta rate it
Oh man, I swear I was thinking of PBS Eons minutes before you uploaded. I was actually looking at dinosaurs pics on an imageboard.
I was watching other eons videos.
Blake with that suit tho. He looks so charismatic!
Early stats:
Published: 38 seconds ago
Views: 3
Likes: 38
Dislikes: 0
Comments: 5
nobody cares dude
Heck yeah glad to see a new eons vid as soon as I get off. Gotta love it!
These videos about prehistoric plant life are my absolute favourites.
My training as a paleobotanist taught me a little differently than this. I don't think I ever heard the term "true tree" in use in paleo or neobotany. Though there is a botanical definition specifying a woody stem that is perennial. But no specified height that I can seem to find agreed upon (13ft, 15ft, 20ft, etc.). There isn't really a scientific definition distinguishing trees from shrubs, either. It's a bit foggy. From what I understand, the fern relative preserved at Gilboa and elsewhere is still considered a tree. Tree is more of a growth habit than anything. The word "tree" doesn't describe just one taxon; modern trees include seed plants and flowering plants like what people classically consider as a tree, palms, cycads, and tree ferns. This encompasses a variety of plants families that are flowering (angiosperms), as well as multiple seed plant (gymnosperm) families. Tree ferns, are, as their name indicates, members of the Pteridophyta: all ferns and their close relatives, which are mostly spore-bearing. Not to mention the extinct Pteridosperms, or "seed ferns" (though not really ferns, and a bit of a wastebasket taxon, I think) includes a number of shrub to tree-like members. "Tree" is a broadly encompassing word for a growth form, without taxonomic significance but including many extinct members and living ones.
*+*
Pteridophyte is paraphyletic, excluding the spermatophytes (angiosperms + gymnosperms), so actually isn’t ferns and their closest relatives, but ferns and their second closest relatives, but not their first. I don’t think this means it is an invalid taxon though, just an invalid clade.
The tree-shrub distinction seems to be a thing only in landscaping
I want to see how seals evolved as this has been a head scratching question that I have always had.
Hank said he wanted to learn about that in an early video, I want to see that too.
*yes we need to know*
I don’t need sleep I need answers.
@@epauletshark3793 Moth Light Media has a video about seals
@@keru6925 Moth Light Media has a video about seals
It’s amazing how much biomass trees make up
Yes, people will burn this biomass to power eletric cars.
I found a 302 million year old tree trunk in Ames limestone in the Glenshaw formation down at Frick park in Pittsburgh. I enjoy stuff like this
Must of been a rush having something so ancient in your hand.
@@GROK99 after looking around western Pennsylvania, it’s been pretty easy to find fossils from land to sea that I still get excited but not as much. I have found hundreds of plant fossils since and in Ames limestone. Thousands of sea animal pieces from crinoids to coral 🪸 with sea shells 🐚 mixed in and sometimes ammonites. I have donated stuff to the Carnegie national history museum in Oakland part of Pittsburgh
A friend informed me about this channel 2 months ago and I really love all of your videos.
He has that sport coat to conceal his guns, but he can't hide that shirt button that's just one flex away from flying into low-Earth orbit.
What the heck is this person talking about???? Did he even bother to listen to this great video?
these ancient plant videos are my favorite, thank you so much and keep up the good work!
Thank you PBS Eon for the great video, so well explained, presented and hosted, you guys rock, I've learnt so much thanks to this channel
P: "Gee, Birch. What do you want to do tonight?"
B: "The same thing we do every night, Pine. Try to take over the world!"
I love Pinky and the Brain.
I’m a simple man, I see something that makes me smarter and I click on it
Who downvotes this stuff?! This was freaking awesome. I love these videos.
The downvotes are from the Fungi gang.
downvotes? What is this? Reddit?
Man, I wish trees would do that again right now.
The land acknowledgement at the end is really cool to see, thanks!
I tried, I really tried to pay attention...but he looks soo handsome 😳
"Today I learned about how forests started...and how thirsty some Eons viewers are."
So you did pay attention…. But to him
plus hes buffed AF
The presentation would have been so much more effective had he removed his jacket half way through.
down bad
Wow! I learned a lot about trees in the last 10 minutes. I always look forward to Eons videos - I get some jokes, pretty good puns, learn a lot about the evolution of a particular group of organisms (in this case mostly about woody plants and their reproduction), and some cool pro life tips (I will definitely start using scientific terms like xylem in scrabble games). Thanks team!
See Aron Ra's 50 part series 'Systematic Classification of Life'
You'll probably dig it, it's awesome. I wrote out all the clades on index cards to organize them for memorization and used Cohen's 'History of Life' and Michael Bentons Vertebrate Paleontology along with Aron Ra's 'Systematic Classification of Life' to learn all the clades. If you really want to go hardcore you can get Kardongs Vertebrate Comparitve Anatomy.
My favourite episode so far! Great stuff as usual 🤩
Your palaeobotany videos are my favourite. Thanks for this beauty!
Time to hug a tree and say "thanks"!
Nice video. Could you do another episode on trees and the evolution of wood? I am thinking of specifically discussing the differences between gymnosperms and angiosperms.
Amazing video, I'm starting to get more interested in how plants developed in the paleozoic, and this video was exactly what I needed, thank you
This might be one of my favourite educational videos ever! So interesting!
My mind wandered while watching Eons again, it's really fascinating. @5:36 that amazing illustration caught my attention and I was wondering if you guys would be interested in doing a video on the evolution of Human eyes? Why do we have more of an exposed sclera than other animals? When i look at other animals I see that their cornea is much wider than ours, why is that? Why did some animals develop different sized eyeball to body ratios? Thank you for this upload! I love watching Eons! ❤
Incredible. I love it when you guys do videos about the Earth slowly becoming what it is today. The evolution of animals is cool, but I like learning about all the times the planet terraformed itself lmao
I love this channel so much....Been watching and learning for years. Thank you
I've spent years reading about this yet everytime i see something about it i can't help but watch it.
Very good work btw !
Even though these videos are super interesting and great, I still miss the super detailed dinosaur case studies PBS eons did. But still, their videos are still sooo great! I found it very interesting and the content is amazing!
Then you would be interested in Trey the explorers paleo profiles
Fantastic episode! And yes, please do an episode on the mass extinction at the end of the Devonian!
I'll second that request!
I think it’s been done just check some of the earlier videos.
Message at 7:14 is so undervalued to often
- thank you PBS
No wonder I love trees! Great video. 🙏😊💥
I dig the velvet blazer big time, Blake
Fresh fade, clean fit and quarantine gains? I also heard some things bout trees too.
How can ppl dislike this wonderful and informative video
I'm doing a horticulture course so it's actually really interesting seeing how plants evolved.
It's really interesting too how basic things like leaves and flowers are relatively new in the evolution.
I already knew ferns and conifers were more "primative" but it's crazy how they were once the only things around
I have avoided tiktok this long and now you go and do the thing... How dare you tempt me
SAME
You skipped the really cool reason coal exists! Nothing existed for millions of years that could consume them
Wow. I love plants.. and Blake too!
Great program. Thank you.
Ok I feel like they purposefully picked that joke for this episode. They knew a lot of us would have heard "Archaeopteryx" when he first said "Archaeopteris" lol
Nice jacket!
Always excited to see new episodes thank you
Loving these recent videos looking at the history of plants, I find it just as interesting as ancient animals.
Huh. Looks like seeds are to spores what amniote eggs are to amphibian ones. Interesting as always, great video!
Come on I don't want to download ticktock but I also don't want to miss nothing from you guys
I understand your pain :)
Blake you look great in that suit!!! Rocking that style
I absolutely love this channel
it be fun to study some the early bio plant on mars soon with how we made space farming will be able to grow many more plant with mars dirt rather then just some hardy plant
I've heard that while the martian mantal is richer in compounds such as Potassium and Phosphorus, Phosphorus is greatly aids in the growing of plants. The problem is the crust has a high concentration of perchlorate, which are toxic. So it seems unlikly that martain soil would be better then our current soil.
But perhaps an organism more resistant to Chlorine could fair better. Such as mushrooms as they can tolerate a wide Ph scale.
Would love one on the evolution of wood-eating bacteria...
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL SO MUCH!!!!
Exceptionally well told story of how early plant life developed and prepared the landscape for critters.
I find it oddly comforting that folks are still playing Scrabble and that their git gud strategy may well be to follow this channel.
It's quite sad estate but the world is in now. Because it would be a much more beautiful place literally!! If trees rule the world
@@conservativeriot5939 ............ I like you 🤗
Perfect. Always wondered about the origin of plants and trees.
i'd like to see more about trees, perhaps even modern/ancient trees, like sequoias, redwoods, ginkoes, and whatever else
You do be dripping in that suit
Please add a voice over to the recognition of tribal lands at the end of these episodes, for accessibility to blind and short vision people, who do enjoy youtube and science.
More episodes about plant evolution, please! 🤗
SHEEEEESH Blake is looking *fly* today
i don't have tik tok but Eons is really convincing me to make one just for them!
Thanks for the indigenous shout out at the end!
Development of life is so fascinating, unbelievable yet real and reasonable.
Very interesting and informative video. Thanks for the tip re Xylem!
Blake just looks so gorgeous
😋😍😘💜💚💛💙💓💕💞
¡Excelente video! Muchas gracias 🌱
Steph you absolute legend. Keep it up!
All I want in life is a video about the Devonian period! Beginning middle and end, I want it all 🤘🤓🥰
Dude rolled out the fanceeee coat today! Very slick!
Looking sharp. Nice suit.
Thank you so very much for another wonderful video and I hope you know how much I appreciate your knowledge and positive energy 🙏👍
Loved the video! 🌳🌳 Glad to see yall on TikTok, I was happy when I found Eons on my For You page :D 🦖✨