Are there any plants from our universe that would be able to live in this crazy alternate universe where ice is denser than water?
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5$\begingroup$ Related: How would the world be different if ice was denser than water? Also covers some reasons why, perhaps, no plants would have survived. $\endgroup$– Lio ElbammalfCommented Nov 26, 2017 at 16:40
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1$\begingroup$ Probably not as to make this happen you would need to prevent hydrogen bonding which plants rely on to lift water from the roots to the leaves. Maybe some aquatic plants would be o.k but I doubt it. Unless you say that hydrogen bonds exist but don't affect ice for some reason. In that case some plants should be fine. $\endgroup$– BellerophonCommented Nov 26, 2017 at 16:40
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1$\begingroup$ I'm voting to close this question because you do not provide sufficient information to answer the question. However, if they did evolve in the environment they definitely do not die. consider putting more information on those types of questions. $\endgroup$– MolbOrgCommented Nov 27, 2017 at 3:15
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2 Answers
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When water freezes in the winter the ice on top protects the layers of water underneath. If the ice sinks then we get freezing from the bottom upwards. This means that, if the planet you're on has ever had an ice age it will be way harder to get out of it. So any plants that survive would probably have to be ones that survive in very cold climates.
Here is a list of a few properties of plants that help them survive in extreme cold on earth. Your new planet would probably be a snowball with extreme versions of these plants on them.
Note: I'm ignoring the changes in physics you need to get this to happen...because thats a whole new ball game and life probably would develop at all.
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Plants would mostly be fine.
Plants already do not like ice. Ice will break cell walls, shatter membranes, and block all metabolic functions. For this reason, plants generally choose not to deal with ice at all, preferring to use biological antifreezes to prevent ice from forming at all (see winter wheat). Thus, most plants would be fine even if they were in your crazy world.
Of course, the above answer assumes that everything else is essentially the same and that you’ve handwaved how exactly this might happen. As pointed out in a comment, disruption of hydrogen bonding patterns would be catastrophic for plants and their ability to transpire, but if it’s ice alone that responds differently then you wouldn’t really have a problem.
As a final note, there are indeed some versions of ice that exist on Earth which are denser than water and plants seem to still do fine. Ice VII, for example, or Ice X. These might form on a world where pressure is much higher and the temperature would shift between liquid water and Ice VII.
