Evolution curiousity concerning plants

reply to post by jvl1985


Good for you.

A nice clean reply, direct and to the point.

Way to go.

reply to post by drivers1492


"You are more interested in the developement of those seeds." O.K. it goes like this, The seeds fall straight
down, and none survive. Except for the one that had a random mutation. In this case, it was a small protuberence
on the seed coat. That random mutation is stored in the "DNA Memory." So when this original seed grows into
a tree, and produces seeds, there will be a certain % that contain the DNA Mutation of the parent.
It would be safe to say 25% or less. If these 25% or less new seeds hold a dominant survivablity rate, they
will not only survive to maturity, but spread their DNA through windborn and Insect transferred Pollen,etc.
And so it is, The Cycle continues.

At which point, the newer generations of seed have (over time) a 75% rate of that random mutation of the seed coat. In this instance, the small winged protuberance. However, some of the offspring have a further adaptation.
Again, 25% or less, but producing an even larger wing. The success rate for germination is even higher.
So this group germinates and pollinates creating a vast new gene pool to spread and cross pollinate.
Sorry if this is confusing, but I can't seem to explain it any other way without props.

Anyway, the cutoff occurs when seeds that produce winged adaptations that are so large, that they
don't germinate to reproduce. In this manner a stable level of genetically adapted strains, or "Stable Gene Pool" become the majority of the percentage of surviving offspring to survive and reproduce in Earths current climate.
Even so, there will always be that less than 25% constantly trying to adapt to new enviromental circumstances.

I hope this helps clarify and not confuse , Best, Wildmanimal

Originally posted by drivers1492
Plants react to the environment but lack a mind, or consciousness which is one thing I have always thought would be necessary for the drive to make changes. So, either the mind is not necessary or awareness is not what I perceive it to be. So what would drive a plant to make a wing to its seed? How does it know this is the best way to distribute itself?

I'm sorry dude, but you can't have read much about evolution, if you think the mind/consciousness drive evolution..

Yes I understand how the seed seems to benefit dispersion. My questioning is why or how would these changes take place to make said seed. It may actually come down to the driving force of evolution and how exactly these changes are spawned or the reasoning behind them. That would be what I am looking to understand.

Random mutations and survival of the fittest. Wildmanimal explained it quite well.

Originally posted by kalamatas
Hiking a few months back, I marveled at the ability of poison oak to mimic leaf patters and all over structure of it's surrounding plants in order to camouflage itself. How in the heck does it know what the other plant next to it looks like? This has made me wonder as well about the "consciousness" of plants and how they "know".

They don't know anything. It is a simple matter of being more suited to survive and produce offspring in a harsh world. Plants need light, and to get that they need to spread over a large area, and the 'wings' of this seeds helps them do exactly that.

Originally posted by drivers1492
reply to post by JiggyPotamus

 

Take that for example. A flower by chance has a mutation that makes them look like a bee. Thats the kind of thing that makes me think that it may be more driven than we realize.

You have to remember that this bee-like structure didn't pop into existance at the blink of an eye. It was a slow development from an early structure that didn't resemble a bee at all. At some point it slightly resembled something that attracted 0.001% more bees, and thus over time there was a selection for offspring that had a structure that looked more and more like a bee. You have to remember that, if the plant could think, it would of course produce a structure that looked *exactly* like a female bee, and not something that only has a mild resemblance to it.

Originally posted by ShortMemory

The sheer overwhelming diversity of plant and animal life throughout the history of earth makes me lean toward something were not understanding yet. Although I could be very wrong.

I think you forget the gazillions of not-perfect species that have become extinct over time. I don't think they died because they wanted to.

well i think in a lot of cases yes, of course some animals would probably be able to influence mutation with thought.

Only to the level of "Nom nom, this uranium looks tasty!". You have absolutely no way to affect the outcome of mutations in your body.

edit on 15/10/11 by Thain Esh Kelch because: (no reason given)

To say consciousness does not play a part in evolution to me is not completely correct. Sexual attraction plays a part and although it may not be a conscious decision it does factor in.

Flowers were not created to allow man to see beauty or bath in their scent they have evolved to attract pollinators.

My explanation then means that flowers that are shaped to mimic a certain insect are selected by evolution and the relationship between plant and insect.

Seeds are selected for by ability to germinate and grow to maturity.

So again we see an organism selected by its environment and everything in that environment not just hot, cold, wet and dry.

What really boggles my mind is, helicopter leaves spin when they fall to allow them to travel a distance from the tree which in turn allows them to grow more easily. So this means the tree itself must be aware of the wind and its surroundings.

reply to post by TheMindWar


I'm not going to tell you that you are wrong just point out that the seeds that fall the furthest away from the parent and each other have a greater chance to survive and pass on their genes and so is selected for.

Those that do not fall far from the tree are likely to fail to reach maturity and not pass on its genes. To me it is simple evolution even though it looks like awareness at first glance.

Great food for thought. im tired of all the conspiracies. thoughts like these help us think in positive manners. I've never really thought about plants evolving nor have i heard of any doing so. seems like you here more of man playing god splicing and graftingCheck it out if never seen grafting before.. you know you can buy a tree that grows oranges, apples, pears, and whatever else you can think of that grows on trees? check it out. great non end of the world post also.

As a horticultural major and enthusiast, This is a question that indeed fascinates me as well but here are my thoughts on the matter.

Besides algae and moss, i feel that grass is probably the most successful plant evolutionary speaking. And what i mean by that is, if i were to visit an exo-planet, i would not be surprised to see the surface covered with grass. I often postulate that perhaps some time ago, Mars had grassy fields. My point is though, to begin evolution, and sexual selection, one must survive first and foremost. So, producing a singular blade of grass with a singular root system would seem to me as the easiest method of begining to expand out of the primordial waters of life that were probably plentiful with algae, perhaps to a point where it would crowded in places, thus creating an evolutionary nedd for advancement and survival. And as far as breathing CO2, because of early earth's abundant volcanoes, the air would probably be little more than CO2.

So as life begin to crawl out the primordial soup, the most abundant food source would be grasses. So these plants were potentially eaten to near extinction. So plants had to become tougher or find ways of surviving being eaten. Thus plants became tall and tough skinned and have evolved into the trees we know today, or the began to encase their seeds in a hard shell, some with or without a sugary, and colorful fruit. The color was developed to help distinguish the seed from a bland grassy environment, to ensure being eaten, and thus being deposited into a nutritious substrate that ensures viability. Some plants also split in their sexuality, fruits being the most common, as an additional method of survival, the most successful probably being plants that pollinate by spreading it to the wind instead of requiring a host. Plants that received less wind such as tree dwelling orchids and the ancient like, thus finding more success becoming colorful, and patterned, and deeply aromatic to certain creatures, such as bee's and other sub-primary pollinating bugs and animals, examples being humming birds and hummingbird moths. Additionally, some plants elect to disguise their seeds, or create them so small, that they cannot be eaten but by ants. I would say that the maple seed you displayed probably evolved in an environment that had strong late summer, early fall winds, like Colorado for example. And it evolved to disguise it's seed with the other falling leaves, and by the next summer having a nice mulch of last season's decomposed leaves to begin life in.

What i feel i'm trying to get at is that throughout the eons, the initial blade of grass become increasingly complex to satisfy environmental changes, and sexual selection. So like animalistic evolution, all evolution was done because the plants that did not change, would eventually fail, by not being able to repopulate after being eaten, couldn't survive increasingly hot or cold climates, or changes in rain fall. The list could go on forever for every unique environment on this planet.

I should correct myself, moss is not a plant, but rather a fungus, which in my opinion are more fascinating than the evolution of plants. Have you ever seen a black morel? What was the Darwinian purposes to that?

Another fascinating part of plant evoulution is how did certain plants develop certain pschotropic qualities in animals and humans. What was the purposes to that? Maybe the chemicals were designed to kill certain creatures while produces unpleasant or disorienting effects so as to prevent it being eaten in the future. Alhough, a leafy green plant is particularly interesting as it is the only plant on earth that produces certain chemical compounds that seem to have a universal effect on the animals or humans that ingest it. Although discovery of these traits in plants was probably fairly easy for proto-humans, how did the plant's chemicals become so unique in their effect on the human brain. Have we evolved to be more, or perhaps less, receptive of complex molecules interacting with the perception center of the brain? Or perhaps, have our brains evolved so rapidly that the introduction of chemical compounds never before digested from certain plants, lead to un-evolved reactions? i feel the latter is probably more likely.

One thing i love though is how we humans, have an infinite variety of uses for just as many plants.

Hops+Barley+Yeast+Water= True manufactured gold
Chicken+Legume+Tomato Salsa+Flour Torilla=easy meal
Tree+Human= The frames of your house
Decomposing Plant Matter+Underground Pressure+Time= A just as diversely useful Mineral (Coal), or Fluid (Crude Oil)

Again the list goes on. Just as Animals have no conscientious direction of the evolution of their own race or any power in decision of that direction, neither do plants. They are simply living to survive and reproduce, just like any other form of life.

Sex wouldn't be as awesome if there was a divine creator. :-)

Originally posted by drivers1492
reply to post by ShortMemory

 

Yes I understand how the seed seems to benefit dispersion. My questioning is why or how would these changes take place to make said seed. It may actually come down to the driving force of evolution and how exactly these changes are spawned or the reasoning behind them. That would be what I am looking to understand.

Evolutionary changes are not "driven" by anything, as you seem to imply. A change occurs in a plant's DNA, not because the plant knows that the change will help its offspring. It happens because of a random mutation in the plant's DNA, caused, perhaps, by a cosmic ray hiting the DNA, or maybe by some mutagenic toxin. Some of these mutations are harmful to the plant. But every one in a while, you have a mutation that is beneficial.Say, for instance a maple tree mutation causes a little furry spot on a seed covering. That fuzzy spot may cause the seed to be carried farther in a breeze that its brother seeds and it is carried away from the shade of the parent while all the others fall straight down into the ground which is shaded and sucked dry of nutrients. The fuzzy seed prospers and has more fuzzy seed babies because its DNA with the fuzzy spot mutation is passed along. Give it millions of years and million of generations and the fuzzy spot DNA may have other mutations on down the generations that end up in your front yard as a wing on a seed.

reply to post by drivers1492
A good place to start learning about this subject is Terence McKenna - he studied this very subject and came up with many interesting but unproven theories. Look into Food of The Gods which goes into his study of the magic mushroom and how it played a role in our own evolution. There are others out there but Terence is super entertaining and thought provoking. You can search you tube for some of his lectures as well.

Originally posted by colin42
To say consciousness does not play a part in evolution to me is not completely correct. Sexual attraction plays a part and although it may not be a conscious decision it does factor in.

True, but that sexual drive is in itself a function of evolution. Only humans have been shown to have a level of intelligence that may affect this outcome.

Originally posted by TheMindWar
What really boggles my mind is, helicopter leaves spin when they fall to allow them to travel a distance from the tree which in turn allows them to grow more easily. So this means the tree itself must be aware of the wind and its surroundings.

No. You apparently didn't read all posts in this thread, or read anything about on evolution?

Originally posted by Cilvanus
I should correct myself, moss is not a plant, but rather a fungus, which in my opinion are more fascinating than the evolution of plants. Have you ever seen a black morel? What was the Darwinian purposes to that?

Pigmentation does not necessarily have to be an outcome of an evolutionary selection in the visible spectrum. Anthocyanins in plants are in most cases purple, but only because they protect against high intensity light, not because plants prefered looking colorful. Same thing goes with flowers - They look totally different in UV light, which is what they were actually selected for.

And mosses are definitely plants, not fungi.

reply to post by Thain Esh Kelch


Your talking sexual drive. I was talking sexual preferance.

Example not human but certainly not exclusive:-

Within a herd the most powerful male owns the 'harem' and chases off all competitors.

While the bull is stamping his feet showing every one how big and strong he is some of the females allow the weaker males to breed with them.

This allows variation within the herd and also limits the size of the dominant bull which unchecked would put the herd at risk due to size, aggression etc.

So to me 'cheating' is part of evolution. Intellegence of sorts plays a part and we see this in so many species it is a shared trait and part of the process.

I've had a couple of pints so if above is unclear.

Evolution is simple but with all simple things the more you look the more complex the relationship between enviroments, individuals and choice becomes.

So intellegent design looks to have some legs until you factor in individuals, choice and opportunity within the bigger picture.

When did women start selecting a man for his brain rather than brawn as a mate? We are not the strongest, fastest, We survive because we are the smartest. To me the enviroment stopped being the overiding force that produced modern man when women took on the role.

As far as I am concerned when told why humans have not evolved further than we have I believe that to be a rediculous statement. When mankind developed choice (selected for by evolution) we are the species that have evolved faster than any other life form on the planet and in fact I could argue we have evolved too fast.

Plants show this. Anchored to the ground and being both male and female the relationship between plants and pollenators excludes choice on the part of the plant but not the insect. What do we see? insect drives evolution with many plants.

Argue as much as you like. Deny as much as you will. Hide the truth with scientific words, latin or hebrew evolution can be seen and the eye does not need a language to understand, just an inquiring and logical mind to evaluate what it see's.

Allow me to digress a moment.

Whatever makes any of you think that plants don't have minds and consciousness?

Have you ever compared the root system to the chains of neurons that compose the animal brain?

The root system does more than just anchor the plant and suck up water and nutrients, it allows the plant to think.

Not in the same way as us, and not using the same time scales, but they think and react to their environments. there have been numerous studies done that show they react to a threat, recognize people, and enjoy some kinds of music. Just do a little research.

Sheesh, perhaps if any of you actually spent time in a forest or grew a garden, or spent some real time with plants, it would be more obvious to you.

As far as evolution goes, they evolve in the same way we do: the mechanisms of evolution are pretty much identical for all living things.

reply to post by drivers1492

You’ve received a couple of replies that point in the correct direction, but I think the issue needs to be made explicit.

Consciousness... is one thing I have always thought would be necessary for the drive to make changes.

There is no drive to make changes. Plants and animals don’t mutate because they want to. Mutation is forced upon them – something, such as a toxin or a highly charged cosmic ray, alters their genetic material, causing them to ‘breed untrue’. It happens by accident. Such accidents are the source of the famous ‘randomness of evolution’ that creationists find so hard to swallow.

Plants and animals also change from generation to generation because of the mixing-up of genes caused by sexual reproduction. As far as we know, this mixing is also a random process.

What happens next is that the variation in form and function that results from mutation and mixing is acted upon by the environment in which the organism lives and functions. Some variations function better in the environment they find themselves in than others. They tend to live longer and procreate more, passing on to their offspring the traits that helped them survive. That’s how evolution happens.

So, either the mind is not necessary or awareness is not what I perceive it to be.

Mind is not necessary. For thousands of millions of years, the only life on Earth was mindless single-celled organisms. They evolved without intelligence or even consciousness.

Actually, consciousness has nothing to do with evolution. We are conscious, but we do not evolve consciously, do we? We sometimes consciously interfere in the evolution of other species, but that’s a different matter.

Originally posted by colin42
So to me 'cheating' is part of evolution. Intellegence of sorts plays a part and we see this in so many species it is a shared trait and part of the process.

That is still sexual drive from the lesser males.

Originally posted by apacheman
Have you ever compared the root system to the chains of neurons that compose the animal brain?

No I haven't, because it is stupid. If you had any idea of how action potentials work in neurons, you would know that they are significantly different from root cells. Last time I studied root structure was 2 days ago under a confocal microscope, a feat I don't assume you haven't had time to do, from all your time in the forest.

The root system does more than just anchor the plant and suck up water and nutrients, it allows the plant to think.

Using that argument, then all living cells on earth can think. You often take a crap, and then discuss the latest political news with the bacteria in your poop?

Just do a little research.

I have. I'm currently undertaking my Phd in plant molecular biology - What did you do, read a few websites?

Sheesh, perhaps if any of you actually spent time in a forest or grew a garden, or spent some real time with plants, it would be more obvious to you.

I tend to my plants at university every single day, and my parents own their own small forest, thank you very much.

As far as evolution goes, they evolve in the same way we do: the mechanisms of evolution are pretty much identical for all living things.

Yes they are, but the outcomes are not. Deny ignorance dude.

I didn't read all of the answers after "god gave it a wing"... but here's my explanation.

Originally posted by drivers1492

Plants react to the environment but lack a mind, or consciousness which is one thing I have always thought would be necessary for the drive to make changes.

A mind or consciousness isn't required for evolution. Have you ever thought about how you would improve your offspring to better survive? You haven't because it isn't possible. You can't create certain genetic mutations just because you thought about it. Small organisms like bacteria don't have minds either. Sure there are situations where animals mate with other animals that possess specific traits, but that's a whole different case.

To explain the tree situation, here's an example that might help you picture it:
1. A certain species of tree starts to grow in some sort of valley, where there isn't much sunlight throughout the day.
2. The trees that were short died out, because they didn't get enough light. The taller trees survive and reproduce.
3. Since the trees are taller, their seeds have a longer fall to the bottom. Most of the trees die out, because their seeds break apart on impact with the ground. However, one tree contains a mutation where the seed don't just grow and fall off. They also grow part of a leaf out of the seed. When they fall off, they get some air resistance, lessening their impact with the ground.
4. Those mutated seeds have a better survival rate, therefore more of them reproduce. After that, the most aerodynamic mutations outlive the older ones, so on and so on.

Thanks for all the replies I have been away a couple days and am just catching up. It seems I need to clarify my thoughts on consciousness or awareness. I'm not asserting that an animal or plant can willfully cause a change for the future offspring but for lack of a better explanation a will of sorts. Basically the idea that a need for change to make life better or easier for an organism may happen because it is aware it is needed and the dna alters on the offspring due to the need. Its not exactly driving the change but the genetics respond to the awareness for that need for change.

I am not claiming consciousness on the level I think most are taking it for hence some of the replies implying a degree of ignorance on my part. But more an awareness of life that isn't being noticed or given proper due. It's a fascinating idea and I have no clue if I am way off base or not but I am enjoying the views of everyone.

reply to post by drivers1492

Basically the idea that a need for change to make life better or easier for an organism may happen because it is aware it is needed and the dna alters on the offspring due to the need.

No, such awareness is unnecessary, and the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection does not depend on it in any way. The whole point is that evolution is a spontaneous, automatic process, like the working of a thermostat or the growth of a crystal in a tank full of salt water.

the genetics respond to the awareness for that need for change.

That does not happen. The mutation and recombination of genes occur spontaneously and at random. The physical and behavioural changes resulting from them cause organisms to cope better or worse with the surrounding environment. The ones that cope better shall survive to have more offspring, thus leaving behind more copies of their genes – including the gene for coping better – than the ones that cope less well. Thus genes for coping better spread through the population, and genes for coping worse die out. That is how evolution works; consciousness doesn’t come into it at all.

I don’t think anyone really misunderstood you the first time; the point is that if you believe any kind of will or consciousness, however dim, is required for evolution to occur, you haven’t understood evolution.

reply to post by Astyanax

I like that analogy of the crystal in salt water. It does make some sense to think of it that way. Although I still feel the need to do some reading on the subject since I remain open to the possibility that there is more we havent discovered or are understanding.

Originally posted by ShortMemory

Originally posted by GmoS719
reply to post by ShortMemory

 

I do think for myself, No one forced me to believe this.
Quit harassing me.

god made me harass you

LOL!!! So, did God make me not believe in God?