Lauren Sallan: How to win at evolution and survive a mass extinction
Lauren Sallan: Como vencer na evolução e sobreviver à extinção em massa
TED Fellow Lauren Sallan is a paleobiologist using big data analytics to reveal how macroevolution, or evolution happens at the largest scales, happens. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
a escutar-me, vivos,
greatest winners --
vencedores da história,
four billion years in the making.
com quatro milhares de milhões de anos.
que viveram no planeta,
who have ever lived,
pelos asteroides,
pelo gelo, pelo calor
of golden opportunities
a oportunidades únicas
às extinções em massa.
of your co-winners and relatives.
covencedores e parentes,
who uses big data --
que usa os "big data"
and others lose.
espécies ganharam e outras perderam.
of beautiful fish fossils,
de lindos peixes fossilizados,
number of ugly, broken fossils,
e reduzidos a uns e zeros.
for evolutionary patterns.
500 milhões de anos de padrões evolutivos.
por coordenadas
major pathways of change
importantes traços de evolução
of the winners and losers
vencedores e vencidos
I discovered using fossil data.
que descobri com a informação dos fósseis.
no passado
as the last dinosaur --
último dinossauro —
with razor-edge jaws dominated
com dentes afiados como lâminas,
with arm bones in their fins.
com ossos de braços nas barbatanas.
across the sea floor.
percorriam o fundo do mar.
of salmon and tuna
e do atum, de barbatanas com "raios",
lived offshore in fear.
viviam longe da costa com medo.
the tetrapods,
de quatro patas, os tetrápodes,
dos rios tropicais.
as espécies de peixes
359 million years ago:
há 359 milhões de anos:
and swept away.
foi interrompido e dizimado.
that's the end of the story.
the meek inherited the earth,
os fracos herdaram a terra,
came from many groups --
pertenciam a vários grupos
para a situação de alimento,
to bottom-feeder,
over the next several million years
fizeram nos milhões de anos seguintes
should have had an advantage.
deveriam ter uma vantagem.
investindo nas suas crias,
and biding their time.
e apostaram no tempo.
durante algum tempo,
aos seus hábitos
sharks and four-legged tetrapods
e dos tetrápodes de quatro patas
dying young,
and reproducing rapidly.
e reproduzindo-se rapidamente.
and weird bodies.
e corpos estranhos.
proliferaram,
for their 60,000 living species,
as 60 000 espécies vivas,
com acontecimentos aleatórios
evolutionary pathways.
de alternativas evolucionárias.
bem sucedidos,
em peixes zombies.
repeat across time.
e para a derrota se repetem no tempo.
upon thousands of dead fishes,
muitos milhares de peixes mortos,
through mass extinction,
antepassados à extinção em massa,
espécies sobreviventes,
will not just replace what was lost,
irão apenas substituir o perdido,
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Lauren Sallan - PaleobiologistTED Fellow Lauren Sallan is a paleobiologist using big data analytics to reveal how macroevolution, or evolution happens at the largest scales, happens.
Why you should listen
Lauren Sallan uses the vast fossil record of fishes as a deep time database, mining to find out why some species persist and diversify while others die off. She has used these methods to discover the lost, largest, "sixth" mass extinction of vertebrates; the end-Devonian Hangenberg event (359 million years ago), reveal how fish heads changed first during their rise to dominance; test why some species thrive after global disruptions while others flounder; and show how invasions by new predators can shift prey diversity at global scales.
Sallan is the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, based in the Department Earth and Environmental Science, and became a TED Fellow in 2017. Her research has been published in Science, PNAS and Current Biology. It has also been featured in the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes, the New Scientist, the Discovery Channel and the recent popular science book, The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen.
Lauren Sallan | Speaker | TED.com