this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
859 points (99.0% liked)
Science Memes
11408 readers
2089 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !reptiles and [email protected]
Physical Sciences
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and [email protected]
- [email protected]
- !self [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I actually have serious doubts that plants grow better in the complex soup of fats and proteins that a body turns into. In fact I’m pretty sure I remember reading that the romanticized idea of turning your body into a tree after you die basically doesn’t work for this reason!
Biologist here, the body itself isn't what grows the "greener grass". It's just the start of a long biological process that will lead to ecological growth.
A tree isn't going to feed directly off of the body. But the decay process will provide nutrients to the tree. We're talking about insects and fungus at various levels of the process here. You can look up things like the Trophic Levels and Nutrient Cycles for more details on this whole process.
TLDR would be that the corpse floods the area with nutrients and maybe even kills off the plants with over abundance of nitrogen, but then fungus and bugs move in, then bigger bugs and small animals, and so on and then better plant systems. It's kind of neat.
That's dope! I can become compost! I hope my leftovers get used by a tree. Trees are cool.