Know what’s wild? For millions of years nothing around ate trees, so when a tree grew and died and fell it was permanently there because there was no rot. Which is how we got petrified forests.
From my readings, I don’t think this is the case. Lignin degradation evolved rapidly with terrestrial plants. Coal and petrified wood is more due to geological events and swamps for example. Evolving ligninases is trivial for bacteria and fungi.
Animals are something plants invented to help spread their seeds around.
Know what’s wild? For millions of years nothing around ate trees, so when a tree grew and died and fell it was permanently there because there was no rot. Which is how we got petrified forests.
From my readings, I don’t think this is the case. Lignin degradation evolved rapidly with terrestrial plants. Coal and petrified wood is more due to geological events and swamps for example. Evolving ligninases is trivial for bacteria and fungi.
Isn’t that more because of the lack of fungi that could break down wood?
Life in general is most likely something the universe invented to speed up entropy.
Life is a natural part of entropy for sure.
There’s a nice theory about how it looks like the goal is actually to produce photons more efficiently.
Edit: my source is French astrophysicists and science popularizer David Elbaz https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:53012702