ProGRAM FEATURES ⊕ Evolution in bloom → 4 ⊕ Adaptation drives life → 8 ⊕ From the Big Bang to Planet Earth → 14 ⊕ Family ties → 18 ⊕ Witnesses to evolution → 22 ⊕ Nature under the influence → 28 OPINION ⊕ Cosmogony → 20 DON’T MISS ⊕ Head outdoors to learn about the Earth’s past → 27 ⊕ Reading suggestions → 30 PHoto Triff/Shutterstock.com EDITOR IN CHIEF RESEARCH AND VALIDATION Charles Prémont Espace pour la vie JOURNALISTS AND CONTRIBUTORS GRAPHIC DESIGN Charles Prémont orangetango Anne-Marie Luca PROOFREADING Guillaume Roy Charles Coocoo Catherine Baudin Marc Jobin TRANSLATION André Grandchamps Jean-Pierre Parent Terry Knowles and Pamela Ireland ILLUSTRATOR GRAPHIC ARTIST Simon Janelle Stéphanie Rivet (Pulsation graphique) BY © Espace pour la vie 2018 Charles-Mathieu Brunelle Espace pour la vie Director IN THIS EDITION The concept of evolution, as explained by Darwin, is a bit difficult to grasp. EVOLUTION IN BLOOM → 4 The time scale involved is rather intimidating, you have to admit! Yet it’s essential that we understand it, for it explains who we are and where we come from. THE BIODÔME IS EVOLVING! → 7 It also lets us comprehend just how much influence we have on other species and ourselves. On our planet’s future. It’s all a bit daunting. ADAPTATION DRIVES LIFE → 8 But things become easier to understand if we reduce them to the scale of CONTEST → 13 our own lives. Take a moment to reflect on your own past, the traces you’ve left behind, your choices and ambitions. Think about the experiences you’ve had FROM THE BIG BANG TO PLANET EARTH → 14 and the people you’ve met. It’s easy to see how your past has shaped who you are. FAMILY TIES → 18 Over the years, through your relationships, good and bad, through your successes and failures, the sunny days and the storms you’ve come through, you’ve adapted FOUNDING MYTHS → 20 and evolved. WITNESSES TO EVOLUTION → 22 Looking at life in this way makes it all much clearer. Our ability to change is key to our survival. And that is true for the entire living world. PLACES TO DISCOVER → 27 But there’s more. NATURE UNDER THE INFLUENCE → 28 While many different forms of intelligence have developed in nature, human intelligence is the only one with a keen awareness of its own existence. We’re able READING SUGGESTIONS → 30 to understand the impact of our actions. That gives us a huge responsibility in the way we treat other species. It obliges us to show the utmost respect, empathy and humility. We have to take care of Nature, love and cherish it. We must seek a proper balance, so that Nature can work as it should, instead of focusing on growth at any cost. Otherwise, no matter how intelligent we think we are, Nature will turn against us. This year, the Espace pour la vie museums will be exploring the theory of evolution from different angles, and especially the sophisticated interactions that define it. It’s all fascinating. We hope you will join us in looking at our origins and putting our minds together to figure out what we must do to guarantee our planet a bright future. Legal deposit - Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, 2019 ⊗ ISBN 978-2-924977-00-2 Evolution IN bloom 4 EVOLUTION IN BLooM • By Charles Prémont One of the great revolutions in the plant kingdom was the appearance of flowers. They didn’t actually arrive until late in the evolutionary process, about 130 million years ago, but when they did they radically transformed the face of the world. Let’s take a look at a successful seduction technique! THE PLANT ODYSSEY Jardin botaniQue June 22 — October 31 Plants have evolved in fascinating ways. To illustrate this journey, the Jardin botanique has created a route for visitors to explore and see for themselves how the main plant structures emerged. It’s a true epic! Gilles Murray Gilles hoto P Evolution IN bloom 5 Over their billions of years on Earth, plants have evolved tremendously. From algae to trees, they have constantly “innovated” to survive in a changing environment. Revolution- ary structures like stems, leaves, wood and seeds allowed them spread to every continent and refine their means of reproduction while achieving amazing diversity. Flowers, however, were probably one of their greatest successes. Before flowers, the Earth was covered mainly with gymnosperms (conifers and closely related modern plants), mosses and ferns. They relied mostly on wind and water to reproduce. While gymnosperms were the first to use animals (insects) to help with reproduction, it was angiosperms (flowering plants) that really were able to make the most of this strategy. By combining male and female organs in a single structure, flowers are better adapted to pollination by insects and small animals. As these creatures move from one flower to ano- ther, they transfer the pollen and leave it in precisely the right Gilles Murray Gilles spot for fertilization. hoto Then, once a flower has been fertilized, the ovary is P transformed to produce a fruit, a protective envelope for the seeds or pit. And when animals eat the fruit, the seeds are spread even more efficiently. Did you Know? This strategy has proved phenomenally successful. Angiosperms have become the most widespread group of plants on Earth. Today there are about 369,000 species EVOLUTION: SURVIVAL of them, as compared with barely 1,100 species of conifers OF THE STRONGEST? and their close relatives. Sometimes, but not always. In fact, natural selection In fact, a huge number of insects and animals, as well as us favours characteristics that improve the chances of survival humans, wouldn’t be able to survive without flowers! and reproduction of individual members of a species. So if strength is the advantage that improves an individual’s They feed us, shelter us and brighten our days. Flowering chances of procreating, then evolution will side with the plants are the dominant plant form now, but will they in turn strongest for that species. But for another species it may be be pushed aside one day by other forms and strategies better the fastest, cleverest or most colourful members that win. adapted to our changing environment? Only time (and our descendants) will tell. ⊗ André SarrazinAndré hoto P Evolution IN bloom 6 SECRETS OF AttRACTING poLLINAtoRS RESEARCHERS' NIGHT Planétarium rio tinto alCan • By Charles Prémont November 15 Marie-Odile Noël Many plant species rely on pollinators for reproduction. hoto These pollinators are often insects, but also small mammals P or birds that browse from one flower to another, transferring the pollen that plants need to reproduce. Plants have adapted one generation to the next. Over time, this leads to a particular in some surprising ways to attract them. type of flower.” Simon Joly is a researcher at the Jardin botanique de Montréal For instance, flowers that “specialize” in hummingbirds have and an Adjunct Professor with the Biology Department at the a tubular, brightly coloured corolla (petals) and produce nectar Université de Montréal. He studies the evolution of flowers during the day. Plants pollinated by bats, on the other hand, in Caribbean plants in the African violet (Gesneriaceae) family. produce nectar at night and are white or greenish, since bats They have developed different reproduction strategies and prefer these colours. are pollinated by hummingbirds, bats or insects. Some are generalists and even manage to attract all three. Dr. Joly is working to identify the genes responsible for these changes in flowers and to understand how pollinators’ choices What he finds fascinating is that the different strategies are influence flower shapes in nature, especially for generalist flowers. each associated with a specific flower shape. “Every reproduc- tion strategy has appeared numerous times during the plants’ His findings help us understand how species can adapt to evolution and, each time, the flowers have evolved to essentially environmental changes like the loss of pollinators, and more the same shape! It’s an excellent example of natural selection. accurately predict the impact of our actions on the environment. By visiting the flowers it finds most attractive, a pollinator ⊗ encourages certain characteristics to be handed down from Did you Know? Photo Miles Kelly/Fotolibra.com DARWIN PREDICTED CO-EVOLUTION • By Guillaume roy When Charles Darwin was shown an orchid with a 30-cm spur in 1862, the famous biologist predicted that there must be a butterfly or moth with a proboscis long enough to reach the nectar produced deep inside it. People laughed at his hypothesis at first, but some 40 years later the Xanthopan morganii praedicta sphinx was discovered: a moth whose 22-cm proboscis allows it to sip the nectar from the orchid. Co-evolution occurs when two species are so closely related that they influence each other’s evolution. This example shows how these two species developed common strategies to maximize pollination, for the flowers, and food, for the moths. News from the Biodôme 7 THE BIODÔME IS EVOLVING! • By Charles Prémont The Biodôme has been closed since spring 2018 for major renova- On this level of the building, visitors will also get an idea of what tions, but it will be back with a splash in fall 2019. By opening up goes on behind the scenes at the Biodôme. “We want to do the interior to reveal the Velodrome’s original architecture and bring a better job of explaining the ‘bio-machine’ of our house of life in more natural light, the transformation will enchant visitors with and everything it takes to maintain our ecosystems,” he says. a more immersive and hands-on experience. Some of the habitats will also be upgraded.