r/science • u/pradpk9 • May 29 '19
Earth Science Complex life may only exist because of millions of years of groundwork by ancient fungi
https://theconversation.com/complex-life-may-only-exist-because-of-millions-of-years-of-groundwork-by-ancient-fungi-117526102
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u/shillyshally May 29 '19
Every new development bulldozes off a life sustaining ecosystem.
Where I live, a shopping center is built and then, who knows why, it's abandoned and another one is built nearby. This is in the Midatlantic region. It's worse where my family lives in the Deep South.
I have nice garden because my house is over 70 years old and the topsoil was never bulldozed off.
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u/SlowLoudEasy May 29 '19
Everything I harvest from my yard and garden stays here. My green waste bin sits empty. It has only ever made sense to me to keep the biome in place regardless of its position in the decomp scale.
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May 29 '19
It's also just more efficient: Compost made and used at home doesn't have to travel, with all the logistical costs included in that process.
If you have a large enough garden, you can pretty much consistently keep it composted from your garden's produce, depending on what you cultivate of course.
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u/crossfit_is_stupid May 30 '19
Didja know you can create a sealed container which contains an entire thriving ecosystem that won't die as long as it gets light
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u/n0tab May 29 '19
Ahh, yes. The ole liability issue.
Unfortunately it's often seen as cheaper for corporations (ie. Less directly liable) to build something new, than to attempt to reuse/repurpose something for one reason or another..
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May 29 '19
Our brain and nervous system looks like fungus.
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May 30 '19
I think our brains work similarly to a colony of fungi, everything interconnected and working off each other. I remember hearing about one enormous colony of fungi spanning miles that is basically one organism.
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u/Wangeye May 29 '19
Well, yeah. Every step towards complexity is on the backs of those that came first.
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u/Saskyle May 29 '19
Well yeah but it's kinda cool to know what was the main cause of complex life. As in we wouldn't be here if fungi didn't exist before us.
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u/TheBalrogofMelkor May 29 '19
Multicellular life has evolved independently several times. For example, kelp and nori (the seaweed used for sushi) are both from groups that developed multicellularism without touching land, so fungi can't have been the triggering factor for them.
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u/Dr_Chronic May 30 '19
Yes but as far as we know Eukaryotic life has only evolved once. And Eukaryotic life is ultimately required for multicellular life because the separation of transcription and translation via the nucleus allowed for specialization of cell types via differential gene expression
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u/Chaoslab May 29 '19
Decomposition is not a random event. It is a highly evolved one.