Plants are not only alive, they require no other life. All other life forms have to consume other life. The only true explorer is a plant.
Well, they don't eat other life forms. At least most don't. But they do need fertilizer which is dead stuff. They must consume carbon which is the stuff all organic stuff is made of.
I am not an expert on plants or fertilizer. Although I have been told to qualify the fertilizer statement. Isn't fertilizer, chemical compounds that deliver elements to plants? Plants don't need proteins, right?
Plants make food with sunlight and carbon dioxide. Plants use oxygen to burn that food. They have the same sugar based metabolic system animals have.
AFAIK All plants require the products/remains of other organisms (in part) for nourishment -- But, hey I've an open mind! If anyone knows of a plant (or, for that matter, any macroscopic organism) that is naturally and wholly sustained by inorganic (or inorganic carbon) compounds I'd be sincerely delighted to learn of it Best regards HP
Sounds reasonable --- I can but assume their requirement of nitrogen compounds owes to protein/polypeptide synthesis...
What about the organisms that live on the deep sea thermal vents? They live in high pressures, high heat, no sun light, and eat the minerals coming out of the vents.
Not really. You can grow perfectly happy plants with nothing else but what you can buy from a chemical supply house. The plants don't require anything that came from another organism. No fancy molecules or vitamins like we require. As a practical matter it is true that much of the nitrogen used by plants comes from fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by microorganisms, or from the decay of other living things. But it can be entirely replaced by manmade nitrogen sources such as ammonia or urea. Of course their carbon comes from photosynthesis of CO2. Phosphorous and potassium come from the soil, often with the help of microorganisms as well. But again these can be replaced with simple chemicals. All the micronutrients needed by plants are also known and can be supplied from manmade sources. Think hydroponics.
Thanks! -- I find it intriguing that 'green plants' synthesize organic compounds from inorganic compounds (including inorganic carbon compounds {e.g. CO2}) - Quite literally assembling 'the stuff of life' as it were... -- Perhaps the truly amazing discovery is that I should have ignored said fact lo these long years I've learned something today! - Always a good thing! Very best regards HP
Interesting point! I'm guessing their nutrition derives from plankton or aqueous microbes 'strained' from the water? -- Considering the absence of light they're not photosynthesizing the requisite organic molecules -- that said, all bets are off where marine life is concerned (dare I say 'chemosynthesis'?) --- There be far stranger creatures in 'the depths' than ever imagined in the heavens! Very best regards HP
Nope, they live on the chemical energy derived from metabolizing what comes out of the smoker vents. I forget the exact chemistry but just as we oxidize sugar, they oxidize something like hydrogen sulfide and extract the thermodynamic difference. What makes this amazing is that these vents are far apart and I'm not sure anyone knows how they can travel from one to another.
Whatever the plants are is what it needs to consume. cells do not grow out of nothing or just air and water. It absorbs nutrients from the soil. Dead tissue from other plants and animals.
Of course, all general statements have exceptions. The exceptions do not negate the general statement.
There is a sulfur based metabolism at the deep water vents. Lots of information on the Interwebs. https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Deep_sea_vent
Thus it seems my scrabbling (i.e. 'chemosynthesis') wasn't too far off the mark? Interesting! FWIW There are other examples of organisms seeming to have evolved identically in isolation -- While, of course, we know better - it is indeed mysterious (to say the least)!!! Many thanks! Best regards HP
---Emphasis added--- No indeed! -- However I daresay that once 'established', the cells' sole theoretical requirement for synthesis of 'higher energy' compounds (and, hence, reproduction) are 'raw materials' (i.e. bioavailable atoms/ions of the requisite elements) and energy (CIP light)... As to how they initially came to be 'established'? -- Well... That's a bit like the 'chicken or egg' paradox (which is kinda lame inasmuch as the 'first chicken' clearly emerged from an egg deposited by a bird being a single generation's evolution shy of 'chickenhood') -- but I think you see my point? Very best regards HP
ju Why would the rules of evolution be that different in different parts of the world or even on different planets?
Just to knock down the I.Q. rating of this conversation about 50 points...The ancient (possibly genetic), farmer in my head says, "Anywhere there is a nutrition budget, there will be something which converts it." I suppose it took a few billion years to get that way, but that's what I found.
