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Allocation of nutrients in plants...
Roger Miller wrote:
I think one reason our tanks succeed with high nutrient levels is that we
are playing this energy balancing act. Most of our tanks have relatively
low light compared to the plants' natural setting. That means that algae
that are specifically adapted to high light conditions won't grow in our
tanks. It also limits the amount of energy that our plants can allocate
to solve their nutrient problems. We offset the limited energy supply by
providing nutrients in such high concentrations that the plants need
relatively little energy to get what they need.
Hmm, that gets me thinking... What if we took several bright light species
of plant, and gradually increased the lighting and fertilizer as time went
on, into the realm of the ridiculous? Maybe a well-fertilized tank run with
EXTREME amounts of light (10 times full sunlight or more) run over a long
amount of time (a couple million years) would encourage the plants to evolve
to the situation. Over time, the plants would be able to utilize the vast
resources given them, and develop new and better ways to out-compete each
other. Maybe that radican sword, in it's evolved form, might allocate an
amount of it's energy to the production of chemical weapons to kill the
other plants and secure it's own evolutionary line. Maybe the crystal val
utilizing trace elemental plutonium might emit bursts of radiation or
tachion fields. And the dreaded anubias might dedicate part of it's
resources to the production of tactical nuclear torpedoes to overcome the
alloy bunkers of the beard algae... LOL!!! :)
Matt