Re: If all animal life on earth was gone
- From: Andrew Plotkin <erkyrath@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 03:32:52 +0000 (UTC)
Here, Howard Brazee <howard@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> If all animal life on earth was gone - how long would it take for the
> CO2/O2 ratio to stabilize? How much plant life would die out?
I don't think the ratio would change. There would still have to be
something metabolizing all that plant matter -- if no animals were
doing it, more fungus and bacteria would come along. Eating a dead
tree takes the same amount of oxygen no matter who's doing it.
(It's not plausible that *nobody* would be doing it. A dead tree
in an oxygen atmosphere represents a huge chemical-energy bonanza. If
you magically killed off all the fungi and non-photosynthetic
monocellular life, some green life form would adapt into that niche in
no time.)
Also, if some process increased the percentage of oxygen in the
atmosphere, then oxidation rates -- both biological decay and forest
fires -- would increase too. There's damping feedback there.
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
I'm still thinking about what to put in this space.
.
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