Can a plant evolve to give off CO2?

Animal bastards do not understand the organic chemistry and ban for exposing the misconception.

Can a plant evolve to give off CO2?

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In my alternate history (1800s), I have troop hiking through tropical sub-Saharan Africa. For plot reasons, I have man-killing mosquitos, but I also have a plant that exudes CO2 and other attractants. These flowering plants are placed in the room at night to attract the mosquitos away from people. Evolution-wise, however, 'consuming' CO2 and giving off O2 is so deeply ingrained in a plant's DNA, it is hardly believable to be the other way around. I'd easily hand-wave it away as some special scent, but the CO2 is critical to the plot. Can a plant evolve to give off CO2? Or rather, how difficult would that be to explain. creature-design flora shareedit edited Apr 7 '16 at 17:31 Michael Kjörling 13.8k555104 asked Apr 7 '16 at 14:52 Mikey 10.2k12371

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Can a plant evolve to give off CO2? Look at the definition of the plant. The plant is a creature that grows by H2O+CO2+light→CnHm+O2$H_{2}O+C{O}_2+light\to C_n{H}_m+O_2$. The CnHm$C_n{H}_m$ part, called biomass, hydrocarbons, glucose or oil in plain English, is what constituates the body of the plant. The only way you can produce CO2$C{O}_2$ is to turn the reaction backwards. But, it will destroy the plant since the opposite reaction, CnHm+O2→H2O+CO2+heat$C_n{H}_m+O_2\to H_{2}O+C{O}_2+heat$, is known as "burning" or "decay". This is what mushrooms and animals do: they decay the biomass and use the sun energy to move around. That is, white can become black but it won't be white after that "transformation". Ok? Plant, which produces CO2 denies its "plant feature". I also have a plant that exudes CO2 and other attractants. These flowering plants are placed in the room at night to attract the mosquitos away from people. The "plants" that exhale CO2 are called "mushrooms" or "animals". Mosquitoes hunt for the latter, I suppose. You can easily use such animals as such "plants" to attract mosquitoes away from people (I am not sure why animals would be more attractive than human though). Ok, diverting mascitos from human to animals may be a bad idea since maskitos will proliferate on the blood. You probably could have plants that grow up to certain size and then stop growing. They will accumulate CH during the day sunbath and release all the CO2+H2O they accumulated during the day at night. But you could just cut some plants and burn them at night by feeding to the animals and mushrooms, for instance. Hope that now my point that plant that releases CO2 is nonsense is clear. You would write about this and literate other people (I guess that majority are as illiterate not to understand this basic fact of life) because it is really important for sustainability we are talking about when build our worlds. Being illiterate, we move into the false direction. That is a problem. We build the better world by having false notion of beauty. shareedit edited Apr 8 '16 at 10:37 answered Apr 8 '16 at 4:01 Valentin Tihomirov 1

2 Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Valentin, I know that it can be frustrating when you get a lot of criticism, but please don't respond rudely. As Lightness Races in Orbit said, the Be Nice policy must be adhered to at all times. – HDE 226868♦ Apr 8 '16 at 22:06  2 If you gave some justification for why the responses to your answer were incorrect, as you claim they are, that's one thing. But you didn't. You only stated, time and time again, that those who disagreed with you were wrong. Your position would be taken more seriously if you actually supported it. The way to react to criticism - even if you think it's "nonsense" - is to explain why you're correct, not to simply get mad at the commenters and insult them. If you're right, then they'll realize that quickly once you give your rationale, and that will be that. – HDE 226868♦ Apr 9 '16 at 21:34