why did plants survive the mass extinctions more so than animals??
2007-02-13 10:49:33 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
okay thanks for the help
to sciencenut: this is not my assumption...this is my teacher's question.
2007-02-13 11:14:14 · update #1
The thing that plants would have in their favor over animals would be seeds. Some seeds can be really durable and still sprout after a century or so. So, if there was some disaster like an asteroid, chances are the animals couldn't wait 10 years for the air to clear, but plants' seeds could....
2007-02-13 11:02:17 · answer #1 · answered by Ellie S 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I personally believe that you are incorrect in your impression that plants survived better than animals. During the last K/T mass extinction, it is clear that cold adapted plants survived better than the tropical forms. I read that the entire plant biomass of both North and South America was completely eradicated, mostly due to being flattened by the blast, flooded by the tsunami, burned by the forest fire, and then frozen by the "nuclear winter" that followed. It is hard to imagine any plant life surviving such an ordeal. I also read that the first plants to recover were the ferns. Imagine that: two entire continents blanketed with nothing but ferns.....very beautiful. Remember that plants have had just as much time to expand and re-diversify after the holocaust as animals have. This is particularly true of angiosperms. Just as mammals were minor players before the K/T event but then rose to supremacy afterwards, the same could be said for angiosperms. It has been said that all of our modern angiosperms have descended from a single founding angiosperm species that survived the K/T event, and that would be the Magnolia. Of course no one really knows, but we can make some good guesses.
2007-02-13 19:11:24 · answer #2 · answered by Sciencenut 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Seeds , spores, underground roots
Plants adapotations to low light and cold conditions
If animals were more sucessful at surviving a global extinction than plants.
What did the animals snack on while waiting for the plant population to return??
Crackers, and cheese?
2007-02-13 18:53:28 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
plants can grow out of almost anything. Lava for example, when hardened will sprout life. Animals would have to reproduce to maintain population.
Mass extinction?
2007-02-13 18:54:36 · answer #4 · answered by EddieRasco 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
there were a lot more plants and they recover quicker
2007-02-13 18:51:59 · answer #5 · answered by Killercobra 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋