In Defense of Plants Podcast

Orchids are the botanical poster children for plant-fungi interactions. Every orchid has a close relationship with at least one species of orchid. Understanding how these relationships play out from orchid roots and...

The genus Prunus gives us apricots, plums, cherries, and almonds, but also a ton of under appreciated plant diversity. Prunus around the world have managed to adapt to a surprising variety of environmental conditions...

Habitats face pressures from all sorts of threats. Illegal logging, mining, and poaching are driving extinctions, accelerating climate change, and hurting communities everywhere. How can we use laws to change this? That...

Puerto Rico may not be a very large island but its forests certainly are complex. Historically, Puerto Rico lost nearly 95% of its forest cover due to human activities but humans are also playing an important role in...

Epiphytes of one kind or another are ubiquitous components of ecosystems around the globe, but we still know little about what they are doing up in the forest canopy. For instance, how do epiphytes influence the water...

Rare plants aren't rare for the same reasons. They aren't even rare at different points in time. Figuring out the causes and consequences of plant rarity on a species by species basis is both very hard and very...

Cloning may seem like a futuristic topic largely reserved for science fiction but plants are doing it all the time. Clonality is one of the many aspects that can make plant species successful across the landscape. It...

Daisy trees, petrels, and pink iguanas... The Galápagos Islands are home to unique endemic species found nowhere else in the world. Sadly, the ecosystems that support them are under threat from invasive species and...

Dragonflies and damselflies are voracious aerial predators that help keep populations of other insects like mosquitoes in check. These amazing insects also require aquatic habitats to complete their life cycles. Simply...

Disturbances from fire and wind to insects and humans play a huge role in forest dynamics through time. Throw in the impacts of climate change, and these dynamics only get more complicated. Understanding how...

How common or rare are species in an ecosystem? The answer to this might seem simple, but as with everything in nature, it is not. This question can even complicate how we think of habitat conservation and restoration...

When you start studying a group of plants, you never know what you are going to find. Sometimes it's important insights into pollination and seed dispersal. Other times it's how the uplift of mountain chains shapes...

Plants are habitat. Heck, even a single leaf is habitat. Same goes for plant roots. This is especially true when we consider insects and fungi. But how do these organisms interact? How do they change over gradients of...

What could be better than a tiny plant with an outsized impact on the world around it? Hornleaf riverweed AKA Podostemum ceratophyllum is one such plant. This tiny aquatic plant has so many mysterious surrounding it but...

Seed storage is one of the most important tools in plant conservation, but did you know you can also store pollen? We still have a lot to learn about storing both pollen and seeds for most species, and people like Dr...