How Plants Drove First Animals Onto Land

[n2doc]

By Brandon Keim September 29, 2010

About 350 million years ago, evolution took one small step for fish, and a giant leap for every terrestrial animal since. According to a new study, it was all made possible by plants.

Prehistoric oxygen levels extrapolated from ancient mineral sediments suggest aquatic life went into overdrive after plants boosted atmospheric oxygen levels. Oceans became so fiercely competitive that some fish sought safe haven outside them.

Some scientists have proposed as much, but the new research, published Sept. 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides the first solid evidence.

“Before this paper, there was essentially no experimental evidence for how oxygen accumulated through animal history. It was only predicted by theory,” said Tais Dahl, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Southern Denmark’s Nordic Center for Earth Evolution.



Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/oxygen-and-evolution/

[Botany]

1. But what about monkeys turning into humans @ the zoo?

[Igel]

2. Given my observations,

I'm more concerned about humans turning into monkeys at the zoo.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The invertebrates beat the vertebrates onto land, 428 million years ago

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3427499.stm

so this is not about 'the first land animals'. It's about the first vertebrates, which were about 50 million years later.