A World Without Plants

A WORLD WITHOUT PLANTS

by Antonio C. Antonio

August 12, 2014

“Without plants, Earth would be a planet without life…

Since its emergence 3.8 billion years ago with the first aquatic chlorophyllous organisms, photosynthesis has become a vital process making possible the spread of life across the planet.  For thousands of years, plants have colonized aquatic and terrestrial environments, continuously adapting to the natural dynamics of their environment.  They created the conditions that led to the emergence and maintenance of animal life, and form the very basis of terrestrial ecosystems.

Plants provide various ecosystemic services essential to humanity.  Plant science, long supported by medicine, because of the medicinal, even magical, properties of plants, began to grow in the fifteenth century.  Botany as a separate science was reinforced by the expeditions of the sixteenth century with its flourishing trade.  In the twentieth century, botany diversified into increasingly specialized disciplines ranging from physiology to plant ecology, genetics and phytosociology.  A multifaceted science, the practice of botany has been transformed in recent decades by technological advances and the expansion of disciplines.

The twentieth century has witnessed the disappearance of natural ecosystems, loss of biodiversity at the global level and loss of traditional knowledge, all of which threaten the very foundations of this science.  At the beginning of the twenty-first century botany is undergoing profound changes.  Botanists are facing a changing world.  They must apply their knowledge and expertise to meet the actual needs of societies; address new economic, social and environmental challenges; and contribute to the preservation of biodiversity.” (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/man-and-biosphere-programme/events-2014/botanists-of-the-21-century/)

It is inconceivable to even think that man will survive in a plant-less world.  Nature’s processes will simply not work and the presence of the sun and earth will account for nothing.  Flora and fauna is a symbiotic (defined as having interdependence) system that cannot exist without the other.  The output of one is the input of the other.  Mutualism, on the other hand, is the interdependence of individual species of plants to other plants or individual animals to other animals.  But symbiosis and mutualism, in the context of survivability, is a crazy and stupid proposition since man will simply not exist in a world without plants.

Just my little thoughts…

(Please visit, like and share Pro EARTH Crusaders and Landscape Ecology UPOU on Facebook or follow me at http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/)