Original air date: 16 January 2022
Selected material
Life for plants can be hard where there are strong currents
The red Macarenia plant clings to the riverbed by gluing its stems (not the roots) to the rock surface
The river Caño Cristales
The river is by many considered very beautiful, mainly due to its colours (caused the that particular plant)
The river Claro, a tributary at the heart of the Amazon
The water is particularly clear so with the right conditions rare spectacles can be witnessed. When the sun climbs the evidence of photosynthesis (bubbles rising) can be seen rising to the surface.
The image on the left shows the inner working of the plant cell where the little green dots (an arrow points at one of them) are packs of chlorophyll which are the plant cells packages of tools to photosynthesise. On the right is a leaf with air bubbles streaming to its tip and then floating to the surface.
In some cases buoyancy is taken a bit further
A bed rock gets unstuck due to too much oxygen release
Bonito river, Brazil
When plants need to get rid of their seeds downriver they simply release them into the next stream. If they need to go UP river it is harder, but being smart enough and having monkeys and fish eat them helps, the fish migrate up-river and release the seeds there. Monkeys drop a lot of the fruits they may not care about but the fish want more than left overs. They can help themselves to the fruits.