AI Summary
5 min readLeaves are one of nature’s most versatile creations, but they took their time arriving. For the first 50 million years of plant evolution on land, there were no leaves at all — just green stems with pores called stomata that managed photosynthesis without any laminar structure. As Professor Jonathan Silvertown, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Edinburgh, explains in this episode of Instant Genius, a leaf is defined as a flat, laminar structure that sticks out from a stem at an angle on a little stalk called a petiole. And once leaves evolved, they became display cases for chloroplasts — the photosynthetic machinery that plants inherited from ancient bacteria.
The 1% efficiency problem and why evolution doesn’t care
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What you'll learn
- 1 Evolutionary ecologist at the University of Edinburgh, author of *Nature's Magicians: How Leaves Conjure Up Our World*.
- 2 Host Jason Goodger sets up the topic: the versatility and evolutionary success of leaves.
- 3 Leaves as laminar structures on stems; they did not exist in the first 50 million years of land plant evolution.
- 4 Early plants used green stems with stomata before leaves evolved.
- 5 Leaves are packed with chloroplasts, which have an independent evolutionary history as captured cyanobacteria.
- 6 Leaves capture about 1% of sunlight energy; host and guest discuss why evolution does not aim for perfection.
- 7 Photosynthesis emerged 3.5 billion years ago, predating cyanobacteria and plants.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
From the neatly curated English country garden to the wild jungles of the Amazon, the Earth is host to a staggeringly diverse range of plant life. One of the key reasons for the great evolutionary success of plants is the wide-ranging versatility and utility of the leaves that grow on them.
In this episode we’re joined by Prof Jonathan Silvertown, an evolutionary ecologist based at the University of Edinburgh, to talk about his latest book, Nature’s Magicians – How Leaves Conjure Up Our World.
He tells us how plants act as one of the natural world’s master chemists, explains how they contain internal clocks that allow them to track the time of day and even the time of the year, and details how they detect and respond to light, sounds, and even predatory attacks.
Take your curiosity further with a subscription to BBC Science Focus magazine. Every issue is packed with fascinating insights into the science behind everyday life, the latest breakthroughs and expert analysis, delivered straight to your door. Receive an extra £5 when you subscribe using the code SF5OFF, (minimum spend £20, see full terms and conditions on our website).
https://www.ourmediashop.com/bbc-science-focus-magazine-pod30
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