Green Aliens Among Us – Why Plants are the Most Alien Creatures You’ll Probably Ever Meet
with Mitch Cruzan, PhD, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Portland State University
MAY 17, 7-9PM | Doors @ 6PM | Advance tickets recommended; $5 suggested donation
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Early in the history of life on Earth, when only single-celled organisms called microbes were present, some organisms acquired the ability to convert light energy into chemical energy, a process we refer to as photosynthesis. This was a completely new way of life that allowed these microbes to just sit still, absorb light and make their own food. Over millions of years, these photosynthetic microbes gave rise to plants and enabled the evolution and diversification of all life on earth.
From their first appearance, plants have followed their own evolutionary pathway separate from animals. Not being able to move around may seem like a limitation to us, but plants have taken advantage of their sedentary lifestyles and unique biology to occupy every conceivable habitat, from arctic tundra to tropical rainforests to the driest deserts. They are capable of many things animals can’t do, including evolving and changing to adapt to new conditions as they grow, filtering genetic mutations to eliminate the bad ones and to favor the beneficial ones, and rejuvenating themselves every growing season so they are effectively immortal. Once we come to understand the subtle, complex nature of plants, we can appreciate them as the evolutionary marvels they are.
Mitch Cruzan is a professor of evolutionary biology at Portland State University. He teaches courses such as introductory Evolution, Plant Evolution, Evolutionary Genomics, and Plant Reproductive Biology. He has an active, federally-funded research program focused on plant ecology and evolutionary biology, and works with several master’s and doctoral students as well as undergraduates in his lab. He is an author on more than 75 scientific publications and an advanced textbook in plant evolutionary biology. He earned his BA and MA in biology at California State University, Fullerton, and his PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Prior to coming to Portland State in 2002, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and the University of Georgia, and an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. When he is not engaged in teaching and research, he enjoys taking his cats for walks, gardening with native plants, and taking birdwatching trips with his partner, Carol.