#plant evolution

[botanyshitposts]

[facts-i-just-made-up]

How long does it take to grow plants

If you’re Earth, about three billion years.

[joanjournal]

Reviews: Riley Black - When the Earth was Green

I've been fond of Riley Black's writing for many years now, ever since I picked up a copy of My Beloved Brontosaurus as I was starting college. I appreciate the sense of wonder she brings into her paleo-literature, especially when she is explaining scientific research or breaking down complex subjects. Not only that, her ability to remain as up-to-date as possible with the latest research and discourse had made her a go-to source of information for me for years.

So I was absolutely delighted when I heard that she was going to tackle plant evolution in her new book When the Earth was Green! Not long after its release I quickly snagged a copy.

When it comes to understanding plant life, one of the things you have to recognize is that they do not exist in a vacuum. They are intimately woven with all the other organisms in their environment, and that environment itself is more-or-less underpinned by the plants that live there. Right away Black makes this point known, and emphasizes that plants are living things. She then continues by investigating the curiosities of deep time in relation to plants, and the kinds of things people often neglect to think about when it comes to visualizing past ecosystems.

From then on the book devotes most of its pages to different snapshots of the Earth's past from 1.2 billion years ago onwards, telling the story of plant evolution in small narrative episodes. Each chapter highlights a key change or lineage in the story of plants and its relation to the story of animal evolution.

To be completely honest, I had struggled with this format during the first half of the book. I do not know what on earth was going on with my head, but I seem to have had a different vision for what this book would be like vs. what Black actually wrote. Like I wanted something more... academic and more nitty-gritty with details? But I took some time and sat with my thoughts, and then went back to her previous book The Last Days of the Dinosaurs (which I adored and read in less than a week). This style of "narrative nonfiction" - to quote Goodreads - was how Black formatted this last book, so what was my problem here? I had stopped following the Late Cretaceous chapter and decided to continue on with a more open mind. Sure enough, as I read through the Cenozoic chapters, I gained much more appreciate and love for the book.

I absolutely loved the Cenozoic chapters and Black's choices of subject material. I had relearned and felt sheer fascination with our understandings of, say, how modern tropical rainforests became a post-Mesozoic phenomena or how autumn foliage ensured the survival of microfauna in northern latitudes. I wonder if this actually means I'm more of a Cenozoic-slut than the other geologic eras, but can't say that's a fair assessment of my paleontological interests. Living in a world with rainforests and deciduous trees means that I'm curious about how these environments and ecological relations developed, so perhaps Black was tapping into my love of big history connections?

Anywho, I'm very glad I followed the book through to the end, because I was rewarded with some beautiful reflections to ponder about. True to her style, Black flips our stereotypes of paleontology on their head, and she ends the book giving some praise to the fact that the fossil record is so patchy and full of gaps. It's these gaps that have helped scientists easily study relations between taxa and understand the evolution of life, because otherwise the seemless blending of species and environments would literally break the foundations of biology and force us to rethink how we look at nature. Which... I mean, that sounds awesome and vibes with my anarchist thinking, but I do agree that we probably wouldn't have developed our understanding of big concepts in evolution and deep time as clearly as we have had things turned out that way. So I definitely appreciate those gaps and have shifted how I think about them.

Before I end this review, I just want to say that Riley Black's fusion of her gender-journey with her love of Earth's prehistory spoke to me in ways that I haven't truly recovered from. Her writing makes me want to be louder and prouder and more comfortable in my own skin than I've ever been.

Um... I don't really care about giving rankings or ratings on this blog, as I feel many people will only look at stars or numbers and not care about nuance. I'll say that, in the end, I ended up absolutely enjoying When the Earth was Green and encourage anyone with an interest in deep time to pick it up and share it with their friends. It's beautifully written and is sure to spark your imagination in some way or another. You'll certainly never look at plants the same way again...

Buy it here! And check out Riley Black's page here!

[delightfullyoddspec]

General overview of plant life

Compared to Earth, Abo vegetation (plants on Ged are often endemic) range from black to blue to purple-red in coloration.

This has to do specifically with the fact that both stars are red dwarfs. They are dim compared to the sun, thus plants need to gather either all possible specter of light available (black/dark violet) or from specific ranges or because they they simply never invented green chlorophyll or chlorophyll at all (blue, purple-red and red).

Bellow are the examples of earth plants of similar coloration:

Black/violet

Blue/violet

Blue/black

Blue

Purple/red

Red

Rule of thumb: The less light, the darker the plants are.

So, plants in Duskwastes are black and violet, Cycles lands have mainly red and purple, while Dayside have lots of blue with other colours here and there depending on biomes.

Blue colour comes from phycocyanin (it also has the side effect of being a good anti-venom). Red from - phycoerythrin.

Purple ones are more ancient type, relying on iolantophyll. On Earth chrolophyll-phototrophs evolved to take the part of spectrum not taken but more ancient retinol-phototrophs and thus are appear green (and use only certain and not the most beneficial part, not to mention that it's pretty narrow). On Marmakul the opposite thing happened. So lots of plants are purple or red.

Black plants are typically some variation of mentioned above with some adjustments, but there are true black plants that use iridiscentum. It's unique to Marmakul and basically allows plant to do photosynthesis on steroids, using all light possible for maximum effectiveness. This, however, has a side effect of being relatively costly energy-wise compared to all mentioned above. So given that they tend to grow in regions that are rather poor in resources, true black plats evolved to hunt, mostly in passive manner, akin to earthen jar plants or venus flytrap. But there are those who prefer active lifestyle, so to speak. Because if you want to survive on the edge of dusk, you must know how to spin.

But this is a story for another time.

Fair warning: evolution was drunk and high when she did some Marmakulian plants. Soon you will know why I'm saying that.

[marty-arty-cartoons]

Animation practice for an upcoming project for my class

[covenawhite66]

UV radiation pulse played a role in a mass extinction event, fossilized pollen reveals

250 million-year-old pollen suggests radiation played a role in mass extinction event

A lethal pulse of ultraviolet (UV) radiation may have played a role in the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, roughly 250 million years, fossilized pollen grains reveal.

Plants rely on photosynthesis to convert sunlight into energy, but they also need a mechanism to block out harmful UV-B radiation.

Dying in the Sun: Direct evidence for elevated UV-B radiation at the end-Permian mass extinction

[newtsnaturethings]

Humans: wow look at all these plants we can domesticate

Also humans, holding up cabbage: actually I’ll take 9 more of these little green bitches

[scishow]

Angiosperms, flowering plants with seeds enclosed in their fruit, account for more than 90% of plants on Earth but we’re not really sure how and when they came to be!