Sleeping beauties: the evolutionary innovations that wait millions of years to come good

Some organisms truck along slowly for aeons before suddenly surging into dominance – and something similar often happens with human inventions, too. But why?What are the most successful organisms on the planet? Some people might think of apex predators like lions and great white sharks. For others, insects or bacteria might come to mind. But few would mention a family of plants that we see around us every day: grasses.Grasses meet at least two criteria for spectacular success. The first is abundance. Grasses cover the North American prairies, the African savannahs and the Eurasian steppes, which span 5,000 miles from the Caucasus to the Pacific Ocean. A second criterion is the number and diversity of species. Since the time grasses originated, they have evolved into more than 10,000 species with an astonishing variety of forms, from centimetre-high tufts of hair grass adapted to the freezing cold of Antarctica to the towering grasses of northern India that can hide entire elephant herds, and to Asian bamboo forests, with “trees” that grow up to 30 metres tall.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Evolution Science Wildlife Insects Plants Biology Source Type: news