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TIL in the Carboniferous Period, no fungus existed to decompose trees. They just grew on top of each other up and up. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 3 months ago by NataliePortland@lemmy.ca to c/til@lemmy.world
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The weight of the trees was so great that the ones on the bottom got squished and became coal. That’s where coal is from. Bonus fact: the whole time this was happening, sharks were hunting in the oceans. Sharks are older than trees and fungus!

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[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 142 points 3 months ago

Fungi in general are about twice as old as sharks. Roughly a billion years vs ~450 million years.

The point is there just weren't any which had bacteria to decompose trees, as no bacteria had evolved the ability yet. Until there were. Took millions of years though.

Fun fact, now we have mushrooms which can deal with plastic.

Pestalotiopsis microspora is a type of endophytic fungus discovered in the Amazon rainforest in 2011 which contains bacteria that can biodegrade and break down synthetic plastic polymers.

[-] itsAsin@lemmy.world 35 points 3 months ago

that's what i was thinkin... surely single-cell eukaryote (fungi) is earlier than complex eukaryote (shark)?

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 3 months ago

you'd think so, but sharks were in fact the first lifeform to be summoned from the astral planes, everything else evolved from a single shark cell that had the right mutations to survive (all sharks simply died within minutes until plants had created enough oxygen for them to breathe, at which point they died within days until the evolution of other animals)

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 14 points 3 months ago

Awesome, now they'll just dump all the plastic in the Amazon and congratulate themselves for doing the right thing

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[-] dumples@kbin.social 3 points 3 months ago

Thank God for fungi. They do so much for us and now eating plastics. We really need something to eat it all

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

There's also fungi which can use radiation as a source of energy, radiotrophic fungi, and we've been thinking about using them as radiation shields in spacecraft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus#Use_in_human_spaceflight

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago

The reputation cordyceps gave fungi is really unfair IMO, they mostly chill shroomy buddies that poop food and eat poop

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 months ago

cordyceps are to fungi what barnacles are to arthropods, horrifying twisted versions of the clade

[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 3 months ago

TIL that barnacles are crustaceans. Had thought that were mollusks. Yeah. I'm going to have to agree with them bring a horrifying twisted version of the clade.

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[-] howrar@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago

Is this a good thing? Consuming plastic means releasing all the carbon that they're made of.

[-] model_tar_gz@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Fungi are pretty awesome. We can decompose plastic with them. Engage in inter dimensional astral travel with them. And have a nice trip by a campfire without ever leaving the chair.

[-] Dasus@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

...

[-] gloriousspearfish@feddit.dk 65 points 3 months ago

At some point this will happen with plastics too. Soo much plastic is ending up in nature, with soo much energy ready for the taking. When one fungus or bacteria mutates just right to munch on that feast of plastic, that vast energy source will ensure that organism multiplies rapidly.

And that is when plastic stops beeing useful for many of the tasks we humans use it for. If your plastic container decomposes as rapidly as a cardboard box, it will quickly become much less usefull.

[-] zout@fedia.io 46 points 3 months ago

There are already organisms which can digest certain plastics. The problem (AFAIK) is they can digest other stuff more easily. So maybe in landfills ill work, not so much in nature were there's other organic matter for the taking.

[-] teft@lemmy.world 28 points 3 months ago

If your plastic container decomposes as rapidly as a cardboard box, it will quickly become much less usefull.

How so? Plastic would retain its current properties, just something may break it down over time. Wood is still useful after all.

[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 42 points 3 months ago

Cardboard boxes last almost indefinitely in a cool dry warehouse. It's not just a matter of time, but the environment that matters.

[-] nednobbins@lemm.ee 9 points 3 months ago

It would depend on how well we can control it.

Ideally the material would be completely nonreactive for as long as you're using it and then instantly degrade into component elements.

The faster things degrade, the higher the chance that they'll degrade when you don't want it to.

[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 13 points 3 months ago

Well the carboniferous period lasted 60 million years. If life takes even a fraction of that to figure out plastics, humans will be long, long dead by the time they do. But I'm sure it'll be something interesting for future non-human civilizations to ponder over.

[-] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago

Speak for yourself there, buddy. I plan on being around for at least another 82 million years. I'm uploading my brain into a terrible android as we speak.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 3 points 3 months ago

Why terrible?

[-] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

It was the only one available. I'll upgrade in a few years, probably.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 2 points 3 months ago

Can you just buy a new one in a few years and have two?

[-] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I guess it depends on how much money I can make as Texas, the Drunk Android.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 2 points 3 months ago

Probably a lot. But also more than double if you duplicate your consciousness into a second android.

Shit, you sold me. Where can I get a cheap android to upload my consciousness into, so I can make them slave 80 hours per week for me $$

[-] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Unfortunately due to capitalism I can't tell you or it'll cut into my money and thus ability to live for millions of years. Once I've made my money I'll DM you so that you're second in line.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 9 points 3 months ago

Fortunately we've always had a solution: just fucking use glass

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[-] Worx@lemmynsfw.com 21 points 3 months ago

Bonus fact bonus fact: Shakes are older than the rings of Saturn.

You did a great job in the Star Waes prequals, btw

[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 26 points 3 months ago

I would've guessed milkshakes were invented in like the 1940s

[-] Allonzee@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I use this regularly use this as an example/precedent of a previous macro-cancer of the natural world that was detrimental to Earth's ecosystem from a mistake of evolution.

The trees removed too much carbon from the atmosphere, leading to an Ice age.

We homo-sapiens are just doing the opposite. 🔥

Don't worry though, our mother eventually found a solution to the tree's carbon capture problem, and I have every confidence she will find a solution to us and in a few million years, nothing to her 3.8 billion year old story of life, she'll finish cleaning up our mess. Problem solved, life will flourish, and new ecosystems in homeostasis with the Earth will develop... until the next macro-tumor of the natural world, at least.

[-] aBundleOfFerrets@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

if trees survived their self-inflected apocalypse, why can’t we?

[-] venoft@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

Oh humans will survive, no problem. I mean, not a lot of them and not happily, and there will probably be a nuclear war at the end there, but humans won't go extinct. We're too smart to not find a nice hole to hide in.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 3 points 3 months ago

Millions is fine. Its a lot. Billions is just crazy and never should have happened.

[-] oo1@kbin.social 4 points 3 months ago

Trees breed by putting their babies into extremely resilient, heat and cold protected stasis pods that can go centuries without care and attention in the right conditions - like suviving an ice age or forest fire.

Human babies are wimps by comparison - most of them would die after only a few days left outside at 0 degrees C.

Humans probably will survive too - but how many?
Elon + all this 3 mates.

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[-] ricdeh@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Nah we can just blow up the planet, take that mother nature

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 4 points 3 months ago

The moon did that a long time ago. And here we are today.

[-] yesman@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

The trees clogged the land, the water, and when one inevitably got struck by lightning, continent wide forest fires were common.

IIRC, it's these trees, not dinosaur bones that became most of the oil/gas deposits.

It's worth noting that when it comes to a species wrecking the environment, causing mass extinction, changing the climate, or spoiling the atmosphere, humans are not the first and we're not the worst.

[-] Noodle07@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

And we definetly won't be the last either

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[-] scott@lem.free.as 7 points 3 months ago

Maybe not.

https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/lack-fungi-did-not-lead-copious-carboniferous-coal

[-] ndru@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Oh noooo, the coal existing because of evolutionary lag theory is one of my favourites. Continents colliding and creating wet topical basins is cool too, but it’s not such a good story to tell.

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[-] MissJinx@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

No shrooms?! Shitty year

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[-] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

Whoa, good fact! Thanks

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this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
319 points (96.2% liked)

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