Given just how long it was before trees came about, are we sure early fungi didn’t bioengineer these tress specifically for this purpose?
Has anyone bothered asking the humongous fungus?
Trees were there before fungi I think, at least the kind that can digest tree. So perhaps not all, that’s why we have coal. Trees just died but didn’t rot. They were compacted by other trees falling on top ad infinitum(ish).
Not quite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
Correct. there was actually a period of time when trees had no predators or scavengers that could break down their body matter. They actually likely caused mass extinction events during that time.
Sources: Hank Green talking about it (just a fun video, I wouldn’t take it as gospel necessarily)
IFL Science article (I cross-referenced this with multiple other articles and it seems to talk about a cempletely different mechanism for mass extinction to occur)
