flora_explora

@flora_explora@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ya yeet!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Funnily enough, I just watched this very informative video on why the lactase-producing gene is actually not necessary at all for you to eat and digest dairy. If your gur biome can digest lactose, you are completely fine ;)

  Also, it feels intuitive to think that there are these genetic differences between Europeans and Asians etc. But this is much more complex than you would think. Humans are much more diverse genetically, especially people from Africa. If you test whole populations of people you can maybe see some generic trends, but this does not help predict anything on an individual level. There is way too much variation possible for you to reliably predict a person’s genome. And as hinted above, the genetic variation is much higher on the African continent, where populations are genetically more similar to populations outside of Africa then to other populations in Africa. That’s why there is zero biological basis to racism btw, it is a social construct in its entirety!

  Analogous to this is the difference between sexes. The variation within one sex is much higher than between sexes. And also, there is so much fuzziness in how we classify sexes with a plethora of edge cases. That’s why sexism and gender stereotypes are also just social constructs and don’t rely on biological reality.

  So saying anything about the bloodline of your child really is meaningless. Unless we’re speaking of individual genetic differences passed down from your ancestors. Then you could calculate certain probabilities based on larger population data how likely it is that your child may have some genetic diseases etc. But even then you wouldn’t know if it first actually had a certain genetic mutation and secondly if this mutation will be expressed throughout your child’s life. So this is also not really predictive…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ya yeet!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, that one is really weird!

  As a biologist, my first thought would maybe be what physiological needs my child has and how it will interact with the natural environment. And what strange foods it could potentially eat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honestly wtf?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh wow, didn’t know that! :O

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨zingiberales⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Glad you could get something out of it :)

  I’m not a teacher, just very passionate about biology and pretty active on iNaturalist. That’s where the vast majority of my knowledge of taxonomy comes from. Definitely a recommendation for everyone who is curious about their environment (no prior knowledge needed)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨zingiberales⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  These are different branches on the tree of life, specifically within the plants. If you imagine this tree of life, species would be the tips of the smallest branches. And the branches itself would be different units (=taxa) that lead to various branches. So in taxonomy we use special words for these different units/taxa dependent on how far back they are removed from the species. Like, you may have heard of a genus. For example we as humans are the species Homo sapiens and our genus is the first part of that: Homo. There were also other species in that genus, like the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) or the Denisovans (Homo denisova). This works the same in plants. For example ginger is actually the species Zingiber officinale. There are also other gingers, like Zingiber spectabile. If we go one level up the branch, we reach the family ginger is in: Zingiberaceae. In this “ginger family” we have other plants of different genera like turmeric (Curcuma longa) or cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum). Notice how the first word of these species isn’t Zingiberales, because they are in other genera. So, Zingiber is more closely related to any other Zingiber than it is to the other plants in Zingiberaceae. And one level above, Zingiber is more closely related to any plant in the Zingiberaceae than to any other plant. Taxonomy is based on who evolved from whom, that’s why it is important what are the closest relatives to a given species.

  This is fundamentally what taxonomy is about. From there on we can go up the branches of the tree of life and explore the branches that connect to even more species. If we go up one major level from the family we reach the “order” (I’m simplifying here, taxonomy is much more intricate than that). An order of plants contains various families and the OP spoke of the order Zingiberales (ending in -ales). The “words” I’ve used are families (ending in -aceae) as you might have expected from Zingiberaceae above. And the families I’ve listed in the first half are all within the same order of Zingiberales. These are all very common ornamental or otherwise cultivated plants. You may know Marantaceae as calantheas/goeppertias/prayer plants, Heliconiaceae as lobster-claws. Other important members of this order are also bananas (Musaceae).

  In the second half of my comment I talk about Poales and seaweeds not being Spermatophyta. So, Poales as you might have guessed from the ending is a separate order of plants. In it are most prominently the grasses (Poaceae) OP spoke about in their post. And seaweeds not even being Spermatophyta means they aren’t even seed plants.

  I hope this explains it :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨zingiberales⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Woah, what? Even Marantaceae, Costaceae and Heliconiaceae??

  As others have pointed out, the second to last panel doesn’t make much sense. There are officially only 8 families in the Zingiberales. Poaceae are obviously in the Poales and seaweeds are not even Spermatophyta… If you meant seagrasses then those are in the Alismatales, so in a different monocot order.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*confused flatfish noises*⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hm, in small animals my previous point of a 2D vs 3D space is also valid. Large land prey animals “only” have to look from side to side to spot predators. Small animals have to look in all 3 dimensions, like sharks

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*confused flatfish noises*⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Haha, I’m not a bird person and didn’t bother to look it up. Thanks for the correction!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DISORDERED SUPERORDER⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Cuuuute!!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨True and real.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s basically correct, yes! The baby parts are the gametophytes and they then use their male and female parts to produce a new zygote, which will grow into a sporophyte. This sporophyte is what we know as a fern. It will produce and finally release many many spores, which are the “airdrop baby parts”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨*confused flatfish noises*⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They also have to orient themselves in a truely 3D landscape, unlike terrestrial predators who hunt on basically a 2D plane. Birds of prey (with the exception of owls) also don’t have front-facing eyes, probably for similar reasons (and they’re stereoscopic vision also works a bit different I think with very different points of focus).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Polypodolf!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow! What is the lower plant? Are the upper two both Selaginella or only the right one?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gotta dissect them all!!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If anyone else wonders:

  • Talpa is an actual genus of moles: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpa_(mammal)
  • defossus is latin and according to Wiktionary it means “excavated, planted or hidden”: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/defossus (fossus coming from Latin fodiō meaning “to dig; to pierce; to goad”, en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fossus)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨✨️carboniferous trees✨️⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are a lot of fossilized records. You can see various examples of whole trunks or roots here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigillaria?wprov=sfla1

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mustaaaaaaaaaard⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Alliaria petiolata is a pretty common herb in Europe (at least here in Germany) and it is related to mustard, cabbage plants and rapeseed. Garlic plants are not related to it at all and are very different.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Name your favourite prehistoric tree.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To me the coolest ones are certainly any prehistoric Lycopodiopsida, like the Sigillaria shown here!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Labcoat!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Good point that there is a distinction between the quantity of cuteness (finding most of a population cute vs only a few individuals). Although part of it might be a cultural bias because cute dogs and hot people are given much more presentation in our society. Like watching a movie and nearly everyone is conventionally attractive. There are many dogs out there that aren’t cute at all, but they aren’t usually shown in posts/videos about cute dogs.

  Regarding the evolutionary adaptation you were hinting at, I think the domestication syndrome makes it so that we see animals like dogs as partly infant-like. That is, bigger eyes, round features, etc. So maybe there is some trained response in us that reacts to those infant-like features? There is definitely some positive association because otherwise the domestication syndrome wouldn’t be such an universal thing.

  I’m not even trying to suggest any judgement, if anything I’m just lamenting something that for my entire lifetime I have not been able to relate to or understand in my peers, which makes me feel somehow lacking, I guess.

  I get that. Like I said, I feel somewhat similar towards human babies. Although since I’m an aunt and more in contact with infants/small children, I now understand it a bit better. I think you would probably find dogs much cuter once you get to develop a relationship with one. A friend of mine has been sitting a dog for some months now (only once a week) and his behavior towards dogs has completely shifted. Before he thought they were annoying or unimportant, now he always points out cute dogs in his environment. And I think building a connection is really the magic of it all. I grew up with a dog and she was really like my sister. I felt much sadder about her death than about my grandparents’ deaths, because I was closer to her than to them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Labcoat!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So you don’t understand how it feels to find something cute? Or how people see other people as cute? Or as beautiful? Or as attractive? It’s just another human like everyone else, what’s the big deal? kind of?

  (Not mad about you not relating to the love for dogs, just curious)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Research shows research is the leading cause of research⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We’ve had research on research for decades. I don’t get the meme :|

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨this gift stinks⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Indeed, their fruits stink a lot!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨same, honestly⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not only that, but probably a lot more animals are stressed out by them. They just reported on the bears because they studied their response. But we should generally come up with guidelines or rules when or if people are allowed to fly drones in nature.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Critical Support⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Cute!!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Edible Wood⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s an extremely fast-growing monocot though without the ability of secondary growth and therefore with a much lower lignin content.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Edible Wood⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The next paragraph adds the explanation, why its wood is edible:

  Although most wood is indigestible to humans due to the high lignin content, the yacaratiá tree is only around 10% cellulose while the rest is mostly water with very little lignin content. Unlike most plants, cells of this tree contain large spaces within their walls which store water.

  It is in the Caricaceae (Papaya family) and apparently a pioneer species just like Papaya. No wonder it is mostly water and hardly any lignin!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Treat⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So it’s making fun of the Lombards??

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mom they're fighting again⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes and it is very important to constantly remind ourselves that all our abstractions and classifications are just that. Helpful tools for us to view and understand the world. People tend to forget that and over time see their categorization as essential and natural. For example, sex and gender are both socially constructed but people forget that and then create a whole set of rules around it to reinforce that categorization including social stigmatization and infant mutilation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mom they're fighting again⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This isn’t generally true for eukaryotes either. In plants, hybridization is a huge thing and also polyploidy. So for some groups of plants we struggle to put them in neat boxes as well.

  And zooming out to a larger view on taxonomy, plant taxonomy has seen some huge changes in the last decades with the various APG (angiosperm phylogeny group) publishings rearranging many if not most orders, families and genera of angiosperm plants.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mom they're fighting again⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Even for anything else, it actually is. Taxonomy is our construct that we came up with as a society to classify life. We cannot ever be “right” about it, it can just be more or less useful for us to understand life.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mom they're fighting again⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  How is this the temperate zone?? You know how the internet works?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Honestly Bizarre⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  You mean, we apply plant language to them so they are also like plants? They are closer related to us though…