Q29.3-5ITD. - Campbell Biology

Question

“Life has profoundly changed the Earth.” Explain whether or not these experimental results support this statement.

 

Step-by-Step Solution

Answer

The findings suggest that early nonvascular plants may have produced enough chemical weathering of rock to lower CO₂ levels in the atmosphere. The perfect storm of climate change and biodiversity loss, along with the unpredictable nature of disease emergence, has dramatically altered lives.

Step 1: Chemical weathering of rock

The molecular structure of rocks and soil is changed by chemical weathering. Carbon dioxide from the air or the soil, for example, can occasionally interact with water in a procedure called carbonation.

Step 2: Non-vascular plants cause weathering of rocks

Mosses, liverworts, and hornworts are non-vascular plants that developed about 450 million years ago during the Ordovician period. Mosses and lichens can degrade the rock they develop on by producing various acids.

Step 3: Effect of non-vascular plants and weathering of rocks on life on Earth

Plant roots grow into rocks and shatter them when they produce mechanical deterioration. Around 800 million years ago, the first complex animals evolved, and they may have taken so much CO2 from the atmosphere that the entire planet froze over in a snowball Earth.

Ice sheets momentarily blanketed much of the earth 35 million years later, resulting in a global extinction. Carbon dioxide levels likely dropped dramatically right before the ice arrived.

Thus, according to the findings, the early nonvascular plants have produced chemical weathering of rocks that lead to a profound change in the life present on Earth.