• Swedneck
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    8 months ago

    plants and bacteria would struggle without animals and fungi as well, everything depends on like literally the entire earth’s ecosystems to survive to some degree.

    like fungi recycle dead things into an absurd amount of nutrients, without them trees especially would barely break down and just stick around until very very eventually they turn into coal.

    • TheKingBee@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      like fungi recycle dead things into an absurd amount of nutrients, without them trees especially would barely break down and just stick around until very very eventually they turn into coal.

      this is just such a cool thing to think about, there was a time when there were just dead trees everywhere in forests, like just laying there being logs or whatever, just piles and piles of dead trees and that’s where coal comes from.

      The people mining and dying and polluting the planet just digging out piles of dead trees.

      Just like what? I get it, but what?

      • Swedneck
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        8 months ago

        broke: digging up dead trees
        woke: growing new trees

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Yes they would struggle, but eventually they would adapt.

      If everything but plants disappeared tomorrow, many plants would die but some would survive and adapt.

      If everything but fungi disappeared tomorrow, they would all die out.

      Same with animals.

      Bacteria would survive like plants would, with most of them dying but many surviving and adapting.