The gang discusses two papers that...

ok look. I'm going to level with you. No one in this podcast slept more than a few hours before we started recording. One of us was stuck on a plane and didn't get back home until 5 am the day of recording. Everyone was tired and stressed and so we all use this time to vent and drink. Sure, there are papers we talk about: growth rates of Triassic archosaurs and geographic gaps in our early tetrapod record. However, if what you want is focused discussion of the papers, this is not the podcast for you (it takes us 8 and a half minutes to get to the first paper). But if you like us at our most rambling, then do I have a podcast for you!

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition): Last edition?

Oh no the up-goer five word thing has gone down. I can not make an up-goer for this. That makes sense for this because also this time the friends are tired and talking about lots of things that are not the papers, which are about how animals get big and where animals are. But since the nice place that lets us do the word thing is gone, we might not be able to do this ever again. Sorry!

References:

Marsicano, Claudia A., et al. "Giant stem tetrapod was apex predator in Gondwanan late Palaeozoic ice age." Nature (2024): 1-6.

Klein, Nicole. "Diverse growth rates in Triassic archosaurs—insights from a small terrestrial Middle Triassic pseudosuchian." The Science of Nature 111.4 (2024): 1-5.

The gang discusses two papers that look at modern bird migration patterns. The first paper looks at breading and migration patterns of the American woodcock, and the second paper looks at how migration could function as a motor of island speciation. Meanwhile, James is cursed with consciousness, Amanda is on point, and Curt's jokes are consistently ignored.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends talk about two papers that look at how animals that move in the sky may move a long way to get to a new home every year. The first paper looks at one fun animal that moves up and down along the land where the friends live as everything gets warmer or colder. People have now been following these animals using big things in space that can show where something is, and this is what the paper uses to see how these animals move and how long they stay in one place. They also have people go to these places to make sure the animals are really there and that they are doing the things they think they are doing. This paper finds that these animals also make babies in many of the places that they go. Many animals that move a lot will only have babies once when they get to their new home, but these animals keep making babies in different places as they move. This paper shows that they are doing it and gives some ideas as to why they might be doing this.

The second papers looks to see if some of the animals that are stuck on small land with water on all sides. This paper wants to know if a lot of those animals come from animals moving a long way to a new home and getting lost and ending up on this small land. They run a lot of studies to see how many of these animals may have ended up on these small lands this way. And then, they look at other things that these animals have to see if there are big reasons why some animals get stuck. What they find is that a lot of the animals are there because they go stuck. They also find that animals that live in a lot of places and that move with a lot of other animals were the ones that were going to get stuck. This could be because having more of you in more places makes it so you can have at least one group of animals get stuck.

References:

Slezak, Colby R., et al. "Unconventional life history in a migratory shorebird: desegregating reproduction and migration." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 291.2021 (2024): 20240021.

Dufour, Paul, et al. "The importance of migratory drop-off for island colonization in birds." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 291.2021 (2024): 20232926.