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| Plant world; A world without animals | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 5 2009, 04:07 PM (2,580 Views) | |
| SSJRaptog | Aug 5 2009, 04:07 PM Post #1 |
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Adolescent
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I came with another speculative world. What if plants became the dominant group of organisms because animals would have somehow never evolved or have gotten extinct in a very early stage of evolution. Would it in this case be possible for plants to evolve a nervous system and even evolve animal-like forms? |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 13 2009, 05:36 PM Post #31 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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Don't know. But it would still be interesting to see a world of sessile animals, growing at rapid rates and competing for light. Maybe plants could evolve needle-like bark they could shoot at other trees to prevent them from photosynthesizing? Or maybe, in response to plants spreading roots all over the ground, some plants evolve mobile larva (like what has been proposed with Snaiad) to directly move into unoccupied ground. Maybe that could evolve into something mobile. Come to think of it: Slithersuckers. That could work, only if they digested plants instead of flish that would never evolve. |
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| Carlos | Sep 13 2009, 05:37 PM Post #32 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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The thing about cladistics is that there's no ranks; everything is classified in clades. Based on this system, for example, tetrapods are just land dweeling fish, and fish in turn are derived lamprey like things. There is no distinction point, and that is quite usefull; for example, you don't need to debate to what point does a feathered dinosaur stop being a reptile and becomes a bird, because on cladistics birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are in turn sauropsids |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro ![]() | |
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| colddigger | Sep 13 2009, 05:45 PM Post #33 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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trees that develop spines that shoot out and puncture other trees, inject them with hormones or poisons that cause them to lose their leaves or even kill their branches so that the poison tree can get sunlight would be interesting... |
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| Iowanic | Sep 13 2009, 05:53 PM Post #34 |
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Adult
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Black walnut trees(I believe) release a chemical that's a bit rough on nearby plants. |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 13 2009, 05:57 PM Post #35 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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So it could work. |
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| sam999 | Sep 13 2009, 07:28 PM Post #36 |
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Adult
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In other wourds an eacosystom of plants that eat fungus and fungus that eat plants. However as I said before the plants would take all the carbon dioxide in the air, turn it into oxagen and die. |
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.![]() ![]() ![]() Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 13 2009, 08:01 PM Post #37 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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And as colddigger said before: plants use oxygen! As do fungi. |
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| Iowanic | Sep 13 2009, 08:07 PM Post #38 |
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Adult
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Well; I don't know if it would take all the CO2: but the oxigen level could climb. Couple thoughts: As mentioned before, forest fires would have to be dealt with. this isn't in itself a show-stopper: grass generally deals with fire rather well. The other thing to think of would be how a decline in CO2 will effect climate. I recall reading somewhere that one of the early ice-ages might have be caused by the CO2 dropping so sudden(Gelogically speaking, anyway) Plant-world have to find someway to stabzlise the temp. Perhaps by changing the amount of reflected light from the sun? The plants could be dark and if they pretty much cover near all the land(and ocean?) Plants that drift in the air might assist by coloring clouds, as well. |
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| Canis Lupis | Sep 13 2009, 08:44 PM Post #39 |
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.
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Hmmm. Well, I'm sure that if fungi became numerous (they would), then the oxygen problem would largely be dealt with. |
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| Iowanic | Sep 13 2009, 09:55 PM Post #40 |
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Adult
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That's a lot of fungus! (Or fungus that's very effective at what it does) As a 'oversight'; what kept fungus from preforming this role on earth in the past? Why couldn't fungus take over that niche? |
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| sam999 | Sep 15 2009, 02:36 PM Post #41 |
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Adult
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How does it poison tree shoot it spines? |
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.![]() ![]() ![]() Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| colddigger | Sep 15 2009, 06:29 PM Post #42 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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it can make a biological bow-and-arrow or sling, it doesn't have to go deep, just under the bark... |
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| Iowanic | Sep 15 2009, 06:55 PM Post #43 |
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Adult
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Perhaps a symbiotic relation with another species; that does the defence work? |
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| ATEK Azul | Sep 15 2009, 07:03 PM Post #44 |
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Transhuman
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Other major groups would be Bacteria and other microbe based growths along with maybe Ediacarans which are not true animals some even looked like Plants. Though moving slime molds would be the top predators of plants at least at first any way. |
| I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's! | |
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| colddigger | Sep 15 2009, 07:05 PM Post #45 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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or possibly even true molds? i would imagine being infected with a true mold would be devastating to a clump of green slime |
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