How did plants become forests during the Carboniferous?

[@FrankBoston]

I love my fossils. I have a thousand or so fossils of ferns and lycopsids I've found over the past decade in a single creek NE, Oklahoma. I have stigmaria larger than my upper arm. Thanks for the video.

[@bleikrsound6127]

Awesome presentation . . . living in West Virginia - I have many fossils of Lycopod (straw-like roots) and Calamite stems. I also have a 'pocket' of debris from a mass of Lycopod roots.

[@BenjaminBurgerScience]

+Bleikr Sound awesome!

[@bleikrsound6127]

Here is the link to the best of my collection. I've attempted to tag the 34 photos with my limited knowledge. Hope everyone enjoys viewing them. www.flickr.com/photos/150502323@N06/

[@AlohaMilton]

I am starting to wonder how the particulate material from pollen and smoke from wildfires might have changed cloud formation, increasing it a lot and then increasing the amount of lightning strikes, which also increase in a warmer atmosphere. Also intrigued by the condition to combust more easily through atmospheric modification by species so vulnerable to fire and how that drove evolution of early plants. I recently found some information online that I have not been able to verify yet that indicated higher O2 levels allow greener and greener plants to catch fire like dry plants do in our present O2 levels. Not sure about that one given the phase change the water in them has to do before the plant can really burn, but looking into it. Interested in any leads to conversations and lectures about the evolution of wildfire in early plants. It seems to me as soon as plants changed the atmosphere enough to combust very easily with really high O2 levels there might have been evolutionary reactions and further environmental changes. How far afield did the early plants spread offspring? No animals or even insects to help? Was it a matter of feet or meters/yards at most that early plants could send a new generation? If so then possibly fire propagation would be an issue? Less or no ability to provide enough distance between themselves to prevent fire propagation and variable O2 levels at times making even very green plants burn easily? One thing I am fairly sure of is clouds need smoke and pollen to form in today's atmosphere, dust and microbial life do this as well but a lot of cloud formation is smoke and pollen as the nuclei that water vapor initially condenses around to form clouds, and the early earth didn't have that 'cloud condensation nuclei' from plants breeding and burning, and then when it did it made clouds and lightning more of an issue and that is a fire source. Fire that can be a very large contaminating source for things like mercury. A recent study has the north america 2017 fire season equaling a moderate volcanic event for atmospheric contaminants like mercury. I wonder about how the first wildfires modified plant evolution. Lot of ifs and hmms, just wondering, if you can point me in the right direction to look into these things further it is much appreciated :)

[@wonderplanet343]

AlohaMilton Early Ediacaran ‘plants’ could maybe move to avoid fires, but they went extinct. Precambrian fires were only from dead material and had no major effect compared to the vicious volcanoes!

[@grandrequin111]

très intéressant et instructif. merci Dr. Burger

[@dwightehowell6062]

I think some spiders & scorpions have book lungs. Maybe some of their relatives do as well. I don't know. Insects have spiracles leading to trachea. They don't have book lungs. Take care and may God bless and keep you and yours.

[@Langkowski]

All scorpions have book lungs today (four pairs). Most spiders also have at least a pair of book lungs, but never more than two pairs.

[@benpayne3281]

hay dr burger i love your lectures i am a bit ofpealio nerd but live in NSW and there are no curses here keep being awesome

[@Freekniggers]

What if say there was someone , we'll say he's a friend, who was about to be traveling back to the carboniferous period. Which type of vegetation would he most likely need to look to as a healthy food source?

[@BenjaminBurgerScience]

Check out fiddleheads recipes on Google, you could also eat Gingko Seeds, but poisonous in large amounts.

[@joeyshofner639]

james great question

[@rursus8354]

@@BenjaminBurgerScience That is no valid on the European (sub)continent, where all ferns are considered more or less poisonous. Just saying.

[@primaryendo]

Benjamin, is there a phylogeny showing relations between extant and extinct orders of lycopsids?

[@benpayne3281]

that wasawesome