Read the second in my fifteen part anatomy of planet Earth. Plants underpin the entire food chainA single thread in a food web illustrating the chain of animals that eat each other. At the base of the food chain are small high-energy (fast metabolism) animals and at the other end large low metabolism animals. An example would be whales eating krill that eat plankton that eat algae. Or lions that eat gazelles that eat grass. More but where did they come from and how do they fit into the structure of life on Earth?
#2/15 What is a plant?
How does planet Earth work?
Life began in the sea and the first plant-like organisms were single-celled bacteria. Their ancestors can still be found around deep-sea volcanic vents. They ‘breathe’ chemicals like sulphur rather than carbon dioxide and instead of the Sun, they use the faint radiation from molten rock as an energyEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More source.
Land plants we’re familiar with today need a carbon-rich atmosphere. They originated in a similar way to animals, after bacteria married together. One enabled the plant to breathe carbon dioxide while the other could build cellulose.
Cellulose was really strong, meaning multiple cells could start working together and building. Eventually they created grasses, then trees that could grow 100 m tall.
When plants breathe, they remove carbon (C) from CO2, which leaves O2 (oxygen). Plants have a very different origin to animals and serve a different function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More.
Plants are at the front line of turning the Sun’s energy into sugars, feeding ecosystems, as well as giving us oxygen to breath.
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