How does plants depend on animals?

Answer 1

Plants require their seeds to be spread around in order to flourish. When animals eat the plant's fruit, which contains its seeds, the animals will then spread the seed when they excrete waste. This allows plants to continue to survive.

The above is only one way. Plants cannot survive without animals because of the nutrients they get from the wastes animals deposit and when animals themselves eventually die. Nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus are important to plant growth in different levels, and often cannot be obtained by themselves.

Animals can also facilitate growth and productivity by herbivory, such as what occurs in grasslands. Animals create a disturbance regime that plants such as grasses take advantage of to grow and to be able to compete with other plants growing in their vicinity. Animals also control the growth and/or encroachment of plant species that should not exist in a certain environment and the invasion of certain species that, if left untouched, will eventually push out other species and reduce biodiversity of the landscape.

Answer 2

Plants need animals to transfer there seeds to different places. Thats why some seeds have burs so they can stick to an animals fur. If animals didn't eat plants there would be too many plants and they would over run the earth.