I thought I'd share one of my latest podcast episodes on here. I run a podcast called The Ground Shots Podcast which has been going for about 3 years or so. I focus a lot on herbalism and plants, and often the intersections of art and ecology and activism. I'm also a philosopher of sorts, so I tend to take a spider-webbed, what's the bigger picture approach to exploring ideas.
For one, the scientist we interviewed here is from Australia and many of ya'll are on that side of the world and could relate so some of what is talked about, and also, it relates to a topic I'm super passionate about, invasive plants.
I think the invasive plants conversation warrants many posts, shares inquires of its own. The podcast I host and curate has been exploring the topic for awhile, and my partner, Gabe, decided to reach out to a world renowned scientist who is an expert on the matter for this recent episode. *
Angela Moles specifically specializes in evolutionary biology, and how plants rapidly evolve to environmental pressures. Her research supports the idea that, basically, plants can evolve quickly as well as in deep time.
One of the arguments that adamantly defends the hate of invasive plants is the assumption that ecologies take thousands if not millions of years to evolve together, therefore a plant that is introduced is not adept to the situation and will be only harmful. But, this notion has not actually been proven. And, it is also assumed that plants only evolve in deep time, and that ecologies are alway the same forevermore.
Gabe has been conducting research on the history of anthropogenic landscapes, ecology, botany, and ethnobotany, and discovering bias and racism in those fields that have carried into our understanding of human relationship with the land today. This research also inevitably brings one to diving into the science and culture of invasion biology, a fairly new field of study. If you’re a regular listener of the podcast, you know that we have spoken a few times on anthropogenic landscapes and visit the often controversial topic of invasive plants.
**### We spoke about this with Nikki Hill on Episode #33 of the podcast, and on more recently on Episode #53 of the podcast. After diving into this controversial topic and realizing that it is complex and requires looking at a lot of different perspectives, Gabe decided to reach out to Dr. Angela Moles, whose articles he discovered in his research. Angela Moles in an Australian scientist doing research on plant morphology and rapid plant evolution and many of her findings are challenging previously held as true assumptions in the scientific community about the ways certain plants function under certain conditions.
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Professor Angela Moles is the director of the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at UNSW Sydney in Australia. Her research aims to improve understanding of plant responses to climate change, and to quantify the ways introduced species change when they are introduced to new ranges. Angela is also a mother, and a surf lifesaver.
In this episode of the podcast, Gabe and Angela talk about:
Angela’s research with the Global Herbivory Project and in evolutionary biology and ecology
how plants and animals can evolve and change faster than we previously though, and Angela’s quantifiable research on this
the change in cultural attitudes towards introduced species in the last hundred years
some history on the Acclimatization Society, which encouraged the introduction of non-native plants from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries to lands being colonized, as a way to bring familiarity to settlers and with the assumption that this practice enriched foreign ecologies
dogma present in the scientific community
how ecosystems are dynamic and don’t just stay in one place
how difficult it is for scientists to make paradigm shifts
some Australian anthropogenic landscape ecology, fire, colonization
whether it is the invading plants that are the issue or the change in disturbance regimes of landscapes
including native folks in ecology and urban ecology work
the gridlock between the need for assisted migration or ‘natural’ self-led plant migrations due to climate change, and the fear of invasive plants harming ecosystems