Hi Deep Look and KQED Science Fans, Ferns might be relegated to being the filler in your holiday bouquet or centerpiece, but these humble plants have a surprisingly complex reproductive strategy. In fact, since before the dinosaurs roamed and plants grew flashy flowers, ferns have been reproducing without the help of pollinators. Ferns mate when it rains or the environment is moist. That’s when microscopic fern sperm swim on the forest floor in search of a fern egg to fertilize. You’ll see the swimmers in close-up in our video. In the course of reporting to produce that video, I interviewed UC Berkeley botanist Susan Fawcett, a fern expert. She told me that once she had seen how fern sex actually happens, she couldn’t walk in the forest anymore “without thinking of fern sperm.” So, enjoy your next after-the-rains hike and our video and newsletter!
Turn a fern leaf over and you’ll see rows of orange clusters. Those aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away.
The undersides of ferns have many “looks.” Some have rows of dots; others, long lines. All these structures do the same thing: They hold and launch the fern’s spores. Once a fern spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. How this all happens will surprise you!
THE BAY PODCAST What Would a Tsunami in the Bay Area Actually Look Like? People across the Bay Area were rattled by a tsunami warning alert on Thursday morning, after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the coast of Humboldt County. The warning triggered evacuation orders before it was eventually canceled at approximately noon.
🌿Each of the clusters on the underside of a fern is called a sorus. Within each sorus are wormlike structures called sporangia, which are filled with spores. 💧If you look at a sporangium under the microscope, you see it has an outer ring filled with water. When the spores mature and it’s warm outside, that water starts to evaporate. 💍The ring shrinks and bends back, making the sporangium crack open. Then the ring jerks forward, hurling out the spores. 💚A single fern launches millions of spores. Each one grows into a tiny heart-shaped plant about as big as a pea, known as a gametophyte. But gametophytes aren’t baby ferns. 🎊A gametophyte’s job is to make eggs and sperm in specialized organs. 💦When it rains or the environment is moist, that’s when ferns mate: Fern sperm swim away on a film of water to find eggs to fertilize. The fertilized eggs then grow into ferns.
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Name That Plant (Part)!
Just like ferns, the pictured plant structure has been around for hundreds of millions of years. This reproductive organ produces pollen, which the wind spreads around. What is it? Find the answer at the bottom of this newsletter.
EVENTS
Science Is A Piece of Cake: Forest Ecology
Join us on December 18 at 7 PM at KQED Headquarters for Science Is A Piece of Cake: Forest Ecology, co-presented by the California Academy of Sciences. Experience the beauty of California’s forests through cake! Hosted by KQED Check, Please! producer Cecilia Phillips, this event features a cake bake-off where bakers will create cakes inspired by trees and their ecosystems, showcasing the rich biodiversity of our forests.
KQED Climate Book Club: Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Ministry for the Future"
Join us on December 18 at 5:30 PM at KQED Headquarters for an engaging discussion with acclaimed author Kim Stanley Robinson and KQED journalist Danielle Venton about his novel The Ministry for the Future. The novel examines the economic system that has contributed to the ongoing environmental crisis and explores potential solutions. This event is open to everyone, whether you’ve read the book or just want to listen and learn.
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We hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Thank you for your support! Until next week! - KQED’s Deep Look and Science Teams Deep Look is KQED’s award-winning wildlife video series that reveals the tiny dramas playing out in the natural world. We’re a member-supported YouTube series from KQED and PBS Digital Studios. Learn more. KQED’s award-winning science coverage brings you the latest climate, environment and health news from the Bay Area and beyond. KQED Science is supported in part by the members of KQED. Learn more.
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Pine cone! (We pictured a male pine cone.) The humble pine cone is more than a holiday decoration. It’s an ancient form of tree sex. Flowers may be faster and showier, but the largest and oldest living things in the world? They all reproduce with cones. Find out more in our video: The Sex Lives of Christmas Trees
