Could plant life turn into animals if all animals were killed/made extinct

[fang3412]

so here's what i want to know

if every animal species was killed off in under something like 1 minute (haha yes i know i sound like a kid) could plants evolve into animals as we know them

like all the characteristics like reproducing with egg and sperm, motion (i mean the ablity to actually get up and move away from where they were planted, not like carnivorous plants), flesh like muscles

that sort of stuff

i mean sure carnivorous plants eat and can move to an extent but i mean without insects (which i consider animals of course) they probably wouldnt survive.

I was just wondering whether plants would evolve into things like insects, herbivores (cannibalism right there), carnivores (nothing to say to that), fish, cold blooded and warm blooded, would they even have blood or would it just be sap, photosynthesis

 

yeah anyways thanks to whoever (if any one) answers here

[andrewcellini]

not all animals move in the adult stage of their life cycle, for example barnacles and coral are sessile.

 

most* plants go through sexual reproduction with male and female gametes.

 

*dandelion's are an example that i can think of which actually reproduce asexually. there may be others.

 

i'm not sure how to answer you main question.

[michel123456]

I think it has more to do with central nervous system than with motion.

[Phi for All]

You would be freeing up so many niches in the environment by killing off all the animals and most of the plants (the ones that rely on insects to pollinate). While I think the mechanisms to evolve movement exists, I think plants might find easier ways to react to the new selective pressures in an environment without animals. Movement is pretty costly for plants, I would imagine.

 

I think this would become a question of whether plant life would be able to use this head-start to gain supremacy before the single cell organisms stumble on the key to multicellular complexity. Would having plants around already in such complex forms shorten the time bacteria could form animal life again? Or would plants have a billion years to take over?

[MonDie]

Bryophytes, ferns, and perhaps others have motile sperm, which of course are unicellular, but apparently the prothalli of ferns, which release the sperm, can move as well!

 

http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/1008/are-there-any-motile-plants

The prothallus (i.e. the gametophyte) has rhizoids on the underside and uses them to slide around and find some space in which to start the next generation.

 

Both gamteophyte locomotion and the gametophyte phase might become more emphasized through natural seleciton. It seems that the trend of plants has been toward sporophyte dominance and distribution of gametes by sporophytic structures, but I don't know whether plants originally gametophyte dominant or it was acquired by the bryophyta.

Edited May 11, 2015 by MonDie

[mickeytea]

Aren't the majority of detritivores animals? Killing them off would severely slow decomposition. Maybe a lot of plants would die after using up soil nutrients.

[MonDie]

Aren't the majority of detritivores animals? Killing them off would severely slow decomposition. Maybe a lot of plants would die after using up soil nutrients.

 

Wow, what an oversight on our part! Everything is interconnect.