The large plant eating dinosaurs consumed huge amounts of food daily and didn't it process very effeciently. How did they not manage to out eat their environment ? I mean long would a forest take to recover after a herd of dinosaurs just ravaged it ? The trail of destruction must have been incredible.
Thanks
2007-03-20 18:11:13 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
I understand the ability for plants to reproduce rapidly aspect. What I don't get is that there should be things like soil compaction, physical destruction of habit and erosional issues that would make re-forestation difficult. Some dinosaurs were 10 times the size of an elephant and elephants do a lot of damage to their environments.Imagine what a dinosaur would do ?
2007-03-20 18:35:48 · update #1
Soil compaction is dependant on a few factors: Not least of which are extreme variability of seasons and presence of burrowing worms. Elephants do not have a terribly efficient digestive system - only absorbing 40% of their food intake. Several species depend upon elephant dung for their continued existence. If Sauropods had an equally inefficient digestive system and the same metabolism then that leaves an awful lot of food for burrowing worms. Nature doesn't just become gargantuan in one area, it grows because its surroundings allow it to do so within the bounds of its environment.
If a Sauropod had a 60% efficient digestive system, then 1 Apatosaurus ajax 5 x larger than a Savannah elephant would have the same dietary impact of 2 to 3 elephants, not the full 5. Elephant females in their groups of 5 to 15 would have the same impact as a group of 3 to 8 Apatosaurs, or if you give the bigger animal a proportionately bigger foraging route, the difference is negligible - easily done given the nature of the continents at the time: an ambitious herd could in theory roam from Russia to Africa and on to South America in search of food if it needed to. What does a modern day elephant do? wander into the first human settlement it comes across, turn around and go back to re-stripping the same forest it just visited. An exaggeration, but you get my point - the environmental impact of the elephant today is not a natural one.
2007-03-22 07:45:11 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Globe was much Warmer in those days and there was a lot more food.
I have noticed in my yard that just one gopher is pretty good at combating soil compaction.
There must have been a lot of smaller animals (not to mention plants, fungi, bacteria, etc) that would profit from dinosaurs' fecal matter. There were a lot of insects in those days! I can imagine, in a warmer and damper climate, that plant growth would be even more rapid and tall and varied than in a modern rain forest.
2007-03-21 03:54:03 · answer #2 · answered by The First Dragon 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You'd think the Park Rangers would take care of that problem. -- Sorry it is getting late here.
The first thing that comes to mind is the possibility of some very prolific plant life. I am thinking of that water plant imported into Florida that produces at an ungodly rate.
Not only could the production have been much greater, but the nutrition value may have been much greater. One could also argue that given their poor processing they might have overgrazed their own leavings!!
Never thought about it, but it should be possible to work back from the projected weight, size and jaw structure and figure the actual consumption by volume.
That's all I can think of right now. .
2007-03-20 19:08:44 · answer #3 · answered by Tommy 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The dinosaurs 'ruled the earth' for 150 MILLION years . . . plants were much more plentiful during the time when the dinosaurs were around because there were no loggers and fire dogs cutting and burning down the forests.
The dinosaurs obviously had a much lusher vegetative world to live in than what we have now. Nothing survivies for 150 million years without having what it needs to survivie.
EARTH/SPACE TEACHER
2007-03-20 18:52:06 · answer #4 · answered by CAROL P 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
mmm sure but when you take into account the enviroment back them would have been hugely different it is by comparision like for like...
think of it this way- plants growing in a glass house compared to growing outdoors, because of the enviroment the ones in the glass house recover alot quicker and produce more plentiful foliage...
does this help?
2007-03-20 18:18:20 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
thats the reason that they are extinct now...their environment cant sustain them...an animal w/ higher the metabolic demand are more prone to extinction...
2007-03-20 18:43:15 · answer #6 · answered by Random Guy 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Please, please, ask a question about amusing dinosaurs.
2007-03-21 07:51:15 · answer #7 · answered by JIMBO 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋