Life on Earth without the Moon

[Petike]

Found this interesting excerpt from The Universe documentary series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j43GCAHAHo

While it is only 8 or 9 minutes long, it raises a lot of good points on the conditions that would rule on an alternate, moonless Earth. They even give some pretty neat ideas on what the possible lifeforms would have to endure on a daily basis and how it would drastically affect their evolution.

Another good docu concerning ASB geological POD is this one, where the Earth stops rotating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFAuX4PpRZM

[Lost the game]

Well, the axis of rotation would be more irregular, and winds would be higher. So perhaps in order to spread during times of rapid axial change more plants would spread seeds via the wind, like dandelions?

[SpazzReflex]

It would probably favour very tolerant species.

Low to the ground, armoured, dessication-proof, and low-energy using. Think Pillbug-analogues, crab-analogues, or small worms on land, and jellyfish and bivalve-analogues, with smaller fish-like animals in the shallows.

[Petike]

Nice ideas.

[SpazzReflex]

Also, I might imagine, stromatalites or an analogue would do better, as there is less energy to go around for *plants, and they're already in a position to exploit the niche of photosynthesizing organism. There would certainly be *plants and algae, but stromatalites may be more prominent.

By consequence of more frequent storms and higher battering winds, there will be higher erosion. This erosion, initially, will bring more nutrients to sea-life, but soon chokes estuaries with dust and detritus, preventing photo-synthesizers from living in shallower waters. Eutrophication may also happen. Eventually, the rock mass will be transferred from the land to the ocean, leaving vast continent-sized undersea plateaus.
The largest landforms outside of the waterworld will be Hawai'i sized archipeligoes, formed of hotspots and occasionally mountain ridges formed by plates colliding which melt into the sea on a later date.

Ironically this lack of mountains causes higher wind speed, and stronger storms to persist longer.

The ecosystems in the shallows would definitely not be coral reef like in nature due to the chaotic nature of the climate. Imagine The Gulf of Mexico, except with more acidic water, less overall oxygen in the water and the atmosphere, and no big animals/plants of any sort.

[Analytical Engine]

Ive heard that, actually, the lack of a moon might not mean a wobbly axial tilt as has previously been suggested - the planet might be gyroscopically stable enough as it is.

Of course, I'm not sure if this would work or not.

[B_Munro]

Originally Posted by Analytical Engine

Ive heard that, actually, the lack of a moon might not mean a wobbly axial tilt as has previously been suggested - the planet might be gyroscopically stable enough as it is.

Of course, I'm not sure if this would work or not.

Yes, there is some debate on this. It's funny, it would seem that figuring it out would be simple physics, but the math turns out to be pretty darn involved.

Bruce