Explain how humans and plants rely on each other?

Question

Explain how humans and plants rely on each other?

Answer 1

I love Eds answer below. It is truly amazing how one could assemble of rough human body from plants. Plants are my life and I can tell you how we relate unscientifically. I talk to them and hand pollinate them when the biotic agents are not around. I nurture them and they nurture me. They carress my senses and give me pleasure or reward me with a wonderful seedling that is a product of our relationship. The Jasmine is wafting through the door as I write this, taking me away. I need plants,,,they need me.

Answer 2

I don't really know how plants might would rely on humans since plants have been around so much longer than humans but definatley plants have been a food staple from the beginning of humans.

Answer 3

We breath in what they make and breath out what they take. If the honey bees are out of the picture, what's going to happen to the plants? What's going to happen to us? =/

Answer 4

The vast majority of plants (granted: dandelions and Kentucky blue grass simply "love" us) do not rely on humans in the least and, frankly, are typically better off without us. All we do is cut them down and clear them to make space for our other needs. As one poster already hinted at, plants were around for millions of years before humans evolved, photosynthesizing, dispersing, growing and reproducing just fine without us. Conversely, we would not be alive without plants; as the lowest trophic level of most food webs, it is their ability to convert sunlight into usable energy that sustains the vast majority of life forms on the planet.

Added: It's true that we've dispersed numerous plant species around the planet, but that's often come at the cost of the success of the native flora. Again, those species did not "need" us and all we've done is disrupt the native ecosystem. Also, those dispersal mechanisms that have been mentioned are almost never the result of coevolution with humans -- we just happen to have the same features (e.g., hair) as other mammals that interact with these plants. By and large, plants truly are better off without humans.

Answer 5

Many plants have been distributed deliberately and accidentally by people immigrating to new areas.  By eating the fruit of plants and discarding the seeds in our f***s or by dropping the seeds, we scatter the seeds.  Plants have modifications of their fruits and seeds to attach to the clothing or hair to spread to new areas.  And we release carbon dioxide as a by-product of our cellular respiration which plants use in photosynthesis.

We use plants for food, fiber to make clothes, string, rope, dyes, drugs, insecticides, soap, glue, lumber, and more!  We grow them for their beauty, fragrance and flavor.  In growing specific plants we protect those plants from disease, pests, and encroaching plants.