Podcast 286 - Dinosaurs, Sabertooths, and Mojitos; Oh My!
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that study ecological changes in the evolutionary history of some charismatic ancient animal groups. The first paper uses geographic data to infer the timing of the evolution of homeothermy in non-avian dinosaur groups, and the second paper looks at the mechanisms by which cats (and cat-like animals) developed saber teeth. Meanwhile, Curt makes some plans for Amanda, James muddles things over, and Amanda could use another. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at how where animals live can change how they look and also...
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Podcast 285 - All Things Big and Small
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look into long term trends in body size over time. The first paper looks at body size trends in corals, and the second looks at body size and ecology of terror birds. Meanwhile, James loses a bit of himself, Amanda is bad at transitions, and Curt goes places no one wants to go. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at how big things are and how that changes over time. The first paper looks at tiny animals that live together in a group and share their homes with even smaller living things that help give them food. It...
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Podcast 284 - How Complete Is Your Shark
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at the shark fossil record. The first paper looks into the completeness of the record, and the second paper discusses the ecological implications of an exceptionally preserved specimen. Meanwhile, James has ideas of what is normal, Curt has a hard out, and Amanda shows her specific history interests. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at animals with lots of soft parts that move through the water and have lots and lots of teeth. The first paper is looking at how well we know these animals in the past, since...
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Podcast 283 - Stolen Podcast
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers about an interesting locality in South America and the various body fossils and ichnofossils found in this locality. This podcast originally started as a patreon request to podcast about fossil procyonids… but it ended up like this… ooops! Meanwhile, James has a vocal doppelganger, Amanda deals with being human, Curt deals with scams, and everyone talks way too much about visuals on an audio podcast. Up-Goer Five: (Curt Edition) The friends talk about a place that has rocks from a long time ago that give us an idea of the types of animals that were...
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Podcast 282 - Early Fishies
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at the morphology and ecology of early fishes. The first paper investigates a hypothesis for how the pectoral girdle could have evolved, and the second paper looks at the functional morphology of a Paleozoic jawless fish. Meanwhile, Amanda missed some context, James throws some shade, and Curt is annoyed by AI. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends talk about two papers that look at animals from a long time ago that live in water. The first paper looks at how part of the shoulder in people may have first started as a part of another part of the...
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Podcast 281 - Climate and Extinction
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at the correlation between climate change and extinction risk in the fossil record. The first paper uses climate modeling to simulate extinction risk during past periods of climate change, and the second paper uses new radiometric age dates to infer diachronous extinction between marine and terrestrial environments during the Permian mass extinction. Meanwhile, James orders food, Curt stirs the pot, and Amanda lives with her choices. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at times when a lot of things died. The...
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Podcast 280 - Just a Weird Little Guy
Palaeo After Dark
The gang talks about two papers that look through existing museum collections to discover some fascinating new discoveries. Meanwhile, Curt may be haunted, James may be losing energy, and Amanda may not be real. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers about new things that found when going through the stuff stored in a big building where you keep things so that people can look at them later. The first paper finds some really cool new small things that live in water that had been found before and put in a big building to keep things, but no one saw that these small...
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Podcast 279 - Frogcast
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at the fossil frog record. The first paper identifies fossil frogs from Antarctica, and the second paper looks at some exceptional soft-tissue preservation. Meanwhile, James has ideas for expanding the brand, Amanda asks for clarification on an important topic, and Curt makes some executive decisions. Up-Goer Five (James Edition): The group looks at two papers that are interested in animals that are wrong and good at jumping and live in the water but some can walk on land and climb trees. The first paper is looking at one from the very cold land...
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Podcast 278 - The Wrong Shapes
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that investigate evidence of symbiosis in the fossil record. The first paper looks at wormy organisms living inside Cambrian vetulicolians, and the second paper shows potential evidence of hydroids growing in mollusc shells. Meanwhile, Amanda is haunted, James’s computer is totally cooperating, and Curt may or may not have had to stitch this podcast together from other sources. Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at animals that live inside of other animals. Sometimes these things live inside other things and both of the...
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Podcast 277 - Bird Tracks For Fun and Profit
Palaeo After Dark
The gang discusses two papers that look at Mesozoic tracks that may or may not have been made by an avian archosaur. Meanwhile, Curt becomes activated, Amanda has to deal with harsh truths, James gets creative with taxon names, and everyone get distracted very quickly. (Editor’s Note: If you want to just “get to the science” skip to 11 minutes in. We hadn’t talked in 2 months and it shows. I just didn’t have the heart to cut all of it) Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): The friends look at two papers that look at foot falls in the ground from a very very long time ago which may or...
info_outlineThe gang discusses two papers that look at patterns of niche conservatism or niche evolution in the fossil record. The first paper looks at the pollen records of trees in Portugal to test if changing climate can explain modern tree distributions, and the second paper looks at the impact of Late Devonian extinction pulses/invasions on brachiopod communities. Meanwhile, Curt summarizes the podcast, James has brachiopod facts, and Amanda cannot control her cats.
Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):
Our friends talk about two papers that look at where animals live and what they do in the world, and also if that stays the same or changes over time. The first paper looks at tall living things that make their own food and lose a part of themselves every fall. This looks at one place that has just a few of these types of living things but in the past there were different types there. Also, back then it was not as warm and the rain was different. This paper wants to see why the tall living things we have in this part of the world are where they are right now. What they saw was that, some of the changes in the tall things seem to be tall things following where they want to live; when things get warmer or colder they move to follow the change. But some things seem to be moving into places that are very different from where they started, so they are changing what types of places they like to live in.
The second paper looks at animals that live on the bottom of the big blue wet thing and take food out of the water and were found all over the world a long time ago. It looks at a time when a big change killed a lot of living things. This paper looks at how this changed the types of these animals over time. What they find is that, a lot of the animals that die because of the change have another animal from somewhere else doing the same thing move in and take that animal's place. The things that do not die just keep on doing their own thing. It does not look like there is much change in what the animals are doing either from the big change that happened, or from the new animals moving in.
References:
Vieira, Manuel, et al. "Niche evolution versus niche conservatism and habitat loss determine persistence and extirpation in late Neogene European Fagaceae." Quaternary Science Reviews 300 (2023): 107896.
Brisson, Sarah K., et al. "Niche conservatism and ecological change during the Late Devonian mass extinction." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290.1996 (2023): 20222524.