#it does more but i remember it with cave animals specifically

[tethered-heartstrings]

Ghost pipe anon back

Yeah I also really wanna know why they became parasitic. What's also interesting is it rlly only grow in dark places like if it's a spot that gets a ton of light I typically won't see any. And dw I was able to understand what you were saying. And about the atp conversion that's also gonna be different bc for chloroplasts to function it needs light. Theres a second cycle in the chloroplasts tho,, I think it's called the Calvin cycle? I think it's something along those lines. But even tho that one doesn't require light it still requires adp (I think it's adp at least) from the cycle that requires light so that is an interesting thought. Kinda makes me wonder if there's any else that's modified in their cells.

And Mammalia is a very broad topic and honestly good on you for that being your more area of bio. Just generally I feel like the animalia kingdom is more complicated. There's all these different structures which I cannot remember the names of any of them except vestibular structures. Kinda makes me wonder if plants have vestibular structures

parasitism is super interesting because it often comes from a place of biological stress and desperation but also if a parasite is too effective it just kills all available hosts and then the parasite has nothing to thrive off of. its such a delicate balance and so interesting! all symbiotic relationships are so unique and specific and they have to evolve together.

yeah! I bet it still uses something very close to Calvin cycle if not the exact same because the light dependent part came before it. so maybe the chloroplast is still similar but processes beforehand is modified. as long as there are some digestive processes to breakdown glucose into carbon dioxide, then the reaction within the cycle should remain pretty similar. which if it has figured out parasitic hetereotophy, it should be able to do or it could rely on the host fungi to break it down. though I am not as familiar with fungi metabolism but its similar to animal so I imagine they don't use straight carbon dioxide but use other carbon sources, so the ghost pipe still needs to either convert it to CO2 or find another input thus modifying the cycle. hmmm this has me really thinking. the light is needed to make the CO2 for Calvin cycle but if it gets CO2 another way or modifies its cycle to use another source it'd be fine.

that is interesting! it could lack antioxidants so damage from the sun is unbearable. i took an environmental physio class in undergrad that went over adaptations based on environment and many cave animals lack pigment and eyes development! I wonder if its similar for ghost pipe because pigment development requires protein synthesis and energy it doesn't want to waste. it won't need pigment to absorb light so why put energy towards that. fascinating! also wonder if they have less efficient energy capture as well.

mammalia is super broad and I am not even that knowledgeable but it's my stronger area. tbh not sure it is any more complicated than plants. plants are hella weird and complex. I found plant bio super hard, especially reproduction. anatomy and physiology is super fun! kidneys are so so sexy when you know how they work! such neat specific organs. just fantastic. but I always had more emphasis on animal biology than plant or fungi, so I had a fair amount of repetition and solidification.

vestibular system is super neat! idk if plants have it though. I know they have some sense of direction via the sun but I don't know how much it relates to electrical signals from movement of osoliths over haircells. my instinct says it is not that at all and that is a very animal approach but maybe they have something similar? like obviously plants don't have osoliths exactly but they could have something similar to a fluid moving and producing a signal. again plants are not my strength.