Did you know that 4000 metres bellow the ocean there are chemosynthetic bacteria that are specifically evolved to digest the wood of trees that have grown on land?
The wood on the sea floor can come from trees that fall into lakes and end up in the ocean, or wooden ships that have sunken. (Called ‘Wood-falls’)
The reason why deep marine organisms are able to digest wood despite never seeing the light of day, let alone a plant – since plants are unable to grow in the deep ocean because of a lack of sunlight – is because the ocean is so isolated and scarce of food that when a new food source is suddenly available, organisms rapidly evolve to be able to eat it.
This is called ‘Adaptive Radiation’, and can also occur on isolated islands.
