Comment on Grass is Greener
adj16@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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!
oxideseven@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
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 debate 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.
Shou@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s dope! I can become compost! I hope my leftovers get used by a tree. Trees are cool.