• Question: Why is there grass on earth??

    Asked by eviej26 to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hey evie,

      The short answer would be why not? or why is there anything on earth? Grass is amazing because it traps sunlight and uses it to produce energy by photosynthesis. There are many different varieties of grass and lots of herbivores depend on it as their main food source! So grass is pretty cool and pretty majorly important! 🙂

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hello evie! Great question! Life has an amazing ability to adapt and evolve. This means that life changes with its environment and in response to its environment. This change can be extremely gradual – evolution has been going on on Earth for over 3 billion years! So why, of the “endless forms most beautiful”, did nature invent grass? Well once photosynthesis appeared it provided a great way to harness the Sun’s energy. A lot of microbes photosynthesize and the appearance of photosynthesis in the ancestors of modern plants is likely to have at first been a symbiosis (cooperation) between a photosynthetic microbe and a multicellular organism (at least last time I checked it was!). So, you can imagine that with this new way to harvest all this energy from the Sun you would want to use it right? Grass is a great way for living systems to cover large flatlands and harness the energy of the Sun for growth. Likely grass first arose to fill this niche – because it can grow easily and thrive with just a little input from the Sun and some nice soil and water =)

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