3 ms·

OK, let's see. You're a plant, so you have photosynthesis. It allows you to tap around 5W (averaged out) per square meter of foliage by just AFK-ing. Your major

OK, let's see. You're a plant, so you have photosynthesis. It allows you to tap around 5W (averaged out) per square meter of foliage by just AFK-ing. Your major need: water, you have to evaporate it for the photosynthesis to work. But it's not a problem in your habitat, there's plenty of water available. You also need nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients, but comparatively little of them. Nitrogen is the toughest one. This is the one that you can easily get from animals, though. So you can evolve a complicated mechanism to trap small animals and digest them for nutrients. It also provides you with a bit of energy, but it's completely immaterial compared to photosynthesis, so you don't even bother evolving all the complicated protein-to-glucose pathways. Now, you want to grow bigger. How would you do it? Energy is not an issue, the photosynthesis provides plenty of it. But you need to trap more or bigger animals, and that's an issue. There just aren't that many of them, and you can't just get away with simple traps anymore.

jijijijij 1y ago
Is nitrogen really the bounty, not phosphor? I imagine nitrogen fixation is basically the same problem everywhere, equally distributed through air, but phosphor depends on geological processes, depends on the mineral make of the soil. If phosphor gets depleted, you have two options: Wait for mountains to grow and shed some, or indulge in someone else’s DNA and ATP. Maybe the acidic soil makes uptake harder, or aids wind and water erosion? Looking at my spotted windowsill, if I was a plant on an evolutionary adventure, I‘d befriend some spiders and turn my crown into a cotton candy guano cloud. I‘d rather have the animal predators do the work and then have them shit in my yard for the nitrogen and phosphor. You only need twigs and then some bioluminescence or stink to help those spiders fill their nets. Have a fungus rot my legacy core wood so an owl can defecate a hectare of mice and squirrels right into my tummy. Or you look all mighty and judgmental so these funny naked apes drench your soil in the blood of goats and their youths. Is that still a thing?! What about instagramable forest cemeteries? Heard about the tree toilet TikTok challenge? So fun! Super healthy and natural too. Now thinking of it, I wonder how many plants encourage animals shitting and dying in their yards. Maybe it’s not deterrent, but enterotoxic payment options? I guess, unless your objective is to grow impractically large fruits, because your human creator couldn’t keep it in their pants, for most plants in most places, neither phosphor nor nitrogen side hustles are really worth the effort.
- cyberax 1y ago
  Yep, nitrogen is the limiting nutrient in swamps. It can be fixated only through biological means, while phosphorus is produced by weathering rocks. Nitrogen fixation is suppressed in swamps, while phosphorus is typically still available from the inflowing streams.
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    Thank you. TIL.
  - jijijijij 1y ago
    Wikipedia says it's both nitrogen and phosphorus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant > It can be fixated only through biological means I don't think this is very correct, but why do these biological means fail in bogs/swamps? Kinda my point: Other plants and ecosystems figured out the nitrogen problem all over the world. It's more or less the same everywhere, since nitrogen naturally comes from the atmosphere. AFAIK, there are more or less three ways to have nitrogen input into an ecosystem: Lightning, biological fixation in plants/microbes and artificial synthesis/fertilization. I suspect the swamp ecosystem has something going which makes nitrogen fixation difficult. All other plants in the swamp need nitrogen to grow, too, how are they doing? Maybe it is the (often) low pH, maybe it's a lack of trace metals for certain enzymes. Maybe the anaerobic conditions favor inaccessible conversion of nitrogen in decay. Nitrogen can't be completely exhausted, because you have (low) constant influx from the atmosphere everywhere on Earth's surface, even without biological fixation. Phosphorus, on the other hand, can be effectively depleted. The "cycling" of phosphorus happens on geological timescales. A low soil pH may leech out the phosphorus from minerals and have it carried away by wind and water. I still don't think plants would go the carnivorous route just for the nitrogen. If anything, I suspect they recycle the "nitrogen" as amino acids to save on synthesis. Some carnivorous plants apparently secrete phosphatase into their prey. That's a lot of evolutionary effort...
    - cyberax 1y ago
      Carnivorous plants certainly don't mind extra phosphorus, but it's usually not limiting. > I don't think this is very correct, but why do these biological means fail in bogs/swamps? They don't. Moreover, the anoxic environment of swamps actually promotes the nitrogenase activity. However, the constant presence of water also diffuses the nutrients, and denitrifying bacteria use ammonia as an energy source. In oxygenated environments, they are typically outcompeted by regular air-breathing bacteria. This happens in regular soil, but it's normally not saturated with water, so nutrients are not constantly washed out. > All other plants in the swamp need nitrogen to grow, too, how are they doing? Not very well. Swamps are not very productive biologically. There is _some_ nitrogen available, it's just that its equilibrium concentration is much lower.

jijijijij 1y ago

Is nitrogen really the bounty, not phosphor? I imagine nitrogen fixation is basically the same problem everywhere, equally distributed through air, but phosphor depends on geological processes, depends on the mineral make of the soil. If phosphor gets depleted, you have two options: Wait for mountains to grow and shed some, or indulge in someone else’s DNA and ATP. Maybe the acidic soil makes uptake harder, or aids wind and water erosion? Looking at my spotted windowsill, if I was a plant on an evolutionary adventure, I‘d befriend some spiders and turn my crown into a cotton candy guano cloud. I‘d rather have the animal predators do the work and then have them shit in my yard for the nitrogen and phosphor. You only need twigs and then some bioluminescence or stink to help those spiders fill their nets. Have a fungus rot my legacy core wood so an owl can defecate a hectare of mice and squirrels right into my tummy. Or you look all mighty and judgmental so these funny naked apes drench your soil in the blood of goats and their youths. Is that still a thing?! What about instagramable forest cemeteries? Heard about the tree toilet TikTok challenge? So fun! Super healthy and natural too. Now thinking of it, I wonder how many plants encourage animals shitting and dying in their yards. Maybe it’s not deterrent, but enterotoxic payment options? I guess, unless your objective is to grow impractically large fruits, because your human creator couldn’t keep it in their pants, for most plants in most places, neither phosphor nor nitrogen side hustles are really worth the effort.

cyberax 1y ago
Yep, nitrogen is the limiting nutrient in swamps. It can be fixated only through biological means, while phosphorus is produced by weathering rocks. Nitrogen fixation is suppressed in swamps, while phosphorus is typically still available from the inflowing streams.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Thank you. TIL.
- jijijijij 1y ago
  Wikipedia says it's both nitrogen and phosphorus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivorous_plant > It can be fixated only through biological means I don't think this is very correct, but why do these biological means fail in bogs/swamps? Kinda my point: Other plants and ecosystems figured out the nitrogen problem all over the world. It's more or less the same everywhere, since nitrogen naturally comes from the atmosphere. AFAIK, there are more or less three ways to have nitrogen input into an ecosystem: Lightning, biological fixation in plants/microbes and artificial synthesis/fertilization. I suspect the swamp ecosystem has something going which makes nitrogen fixation difficult. All other plants in the swamp need nitrogen to grow, too, how are they doing? Maybe it is the (often) low pH, maybe it's a lack of trace metals for certain enzymes. Maybe the anaerobic conditions favor inaccessible conversion of nitrogen in decay. Nitrogen can't be completely exhausted, because you have (low) constant influx from the atmosphere everywhere on Earth's surface, even without biological fixation. Phosphorus, on the other hand, can be effectively depleted. The "cycling" of phosphorus happens on geological timescales. A low soil pH may leech out the phosphorus from minerals and have it carried away by wind and water. I still don't think plants would go the carnivorous route just for the nitrogen. If anything, I suspect they recycle the "nitrogen" as amino acids to save on synthesis. Some carnivorous plants apparently secrete phosphatase into their prey. That's a lot of evolutionary effort...
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Carnivorous plants certainly don't mind extra phosphorus, but it's usually not limiting. > I don't think this is very correct, but why do these biological means fail in bogs/swamps? They don't. Moreover, the anoxic environment of swamps actually promotes the nitrogenase activity. However, the constant presence of water also diffuses the nutrients, and denitrifying bacteria use ammonia as an energy source. In oxygenated environments, they are typically outcompeted by regular air-breathing bacteria. This happens in regular soil, but it's normally not saturated with water, so nutrients are not constantly washed out. > All other plants in the swamp need nitrogen to grow, too, how are they doing? Not very well. Swamps are not very productive biologically. There is _some_ nitrogen available, it's just that its equilibrium concentration is much lower.