Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on how the dinosaurs going extinct led to the creation of wine

Is the reason we have great wine today thanks to the dinosaurs going extinct?

That’s what scientists conclude in a paper published in the journal Nature Plants.

Humans have loved grapes for thousands of years, whether eaten fresh, dried as raisins, or fermented into wine. However, during the time of the dinosaurs, their large bodies knocked down trees, resulting in less dense forests than we see today.

After the dinosaurs went extinct, forests became denser, forcing plants to compete more intensely for sunlight and resources. Vines, including grapevines, had a competitive edge because they could climb off the forest floor to access more sunlight. Additionally, the diversification of mammals and birds after the dinosaur extinction helped disperse grape seeds to new locations.

This theory is supported by the discovery of the world’s oldest known grape seed fossil, found in India and dating back 66 million years. Its age coincides with the mass extinction event caused by an asteroid impact. Ancient grape seed fossils had not been discovered in South America before, but scientists in this study suspected their presence and searched for them. They found nine new species of fossilized grape seeds across Colombia, Panama, and Peru, ranging from 19 million to 60 million years old.

Finding ancient fruit evidence is challenging due to the rapid decomposition of soft flesh. However, the hard seeds on which this study is based were preserved as fossils. One of these species, called ‘Susman’s stone grape’, is related to the subfamily Vitoideae, which gave rise to modern commercial grapes.

So, next time you savour a glass of wine, remember that the rich history of grapes, from ancient fossils to their global spread, owes much to the catastrophic events that wiped out the dinosaurs.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Joining me now, doctor Michelle Dickinson, Nano girl.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Who would have thought that there would be a connection
between dinosaurs going extinct and grape wine?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah, pretty crazy here, it might be some wine after
that a breaking news story. Its just got a little
bit crazy. But yeah. So this new research study its
open source, it's in the journal Nature Plants. Basically has
looked at the history of grape plants and grape vines.
And you know what I find interesting is I hadn't

(00:45):
thought about this. But when we think about dinosaurs and go, oh,
there's these fossils, you find their fossilized bones. What do
you do with plants that have soft flesh, soft skin,
you don't have that fossilization. Well, there are people who
go on hunts for grape seed fossils. Now, as if
you didn't think a grape seed was small enough. The
fossil of a grape seed is atrop.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
But it is really interesting. Seeds of have traveled around
the world over years. So these amazing scientists who have
more patients than I do. So the oldest grape seed
fossil we've ever found was found in India sixty six
million years ago, but they've never found any in South America,
where they thought they would be. So this group of
scientists went, what we're just going to go looking and
why not? Yeah, looking for what I think is the

(01:26):
tiniest fossil ever, and they found some. They found nine
new species of great seed fossil across Columbia and Peru
and Panama, and one of the ones that they found
was a special type of seed called the Sussmen's stone grape,
which is related to the grapevine that we now drink
our wine from today. And the seeds they found were

(01:48):
somewhere between nineteen and sixty million years old, coinciding with
when dinosaurs went extinct. So why is this all connecting? Well,
what they say is when dinosaurs were roaming the planet,
they had big, boisterous bodies, and the forests that we
know today were not as dense because dinosaurs would just
knock everything down and we had much less dense forests,

(02:09):
which meant that if you were a plant, it was
easy to grow. As soon as the dinosaurs went extinct,
all of the trees grew really really well, meaning that
the forest floor canopy was dark, and so all the
plants that are on the ground are struggling for sunlight
and nutrients, and the ones that had the advantage were
the vines, i e.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
The grape vines. So now that the vines succeeding because
they can climb up the trees and get the sunlight,
they actually thrived. And when the dinosaurs went extinct, some
of the other mammals and birds were able to survive
and they eat grapes and they take the seed somewhere
else poop them out, and now we've got grape vines.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
All over the place.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
So the only way that actually these grape vines were
able to succeed and move around the world was thanks
to the dinosaurs go in extinct, and then the grape
vines moving to places where they could thrive, and then
all of these different generations of grape vines giving us
what we need today, which is nice fresh grapes out
of the fridge, old raisins for your toddlers, and a

(03:08):
nice glass of white This is so next time you
raise a glass of wine, just a little cheers to
the end.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Of the It's always good to have a silver lining
that wasn't at Michelle. Where can people read about the
study in Nature plants.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's opha source. It's a lovely little study. And off
they went looking for the tiniest little fussle and they
found it.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Thank you so much, Michelle.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.