Somewhere around 4.5 billion years ago a Mars sized planet struck the Earth causing the formation of Lunar, our moon.
It is likely that this event was crucial the evolution of multicellular life on the planet and that in the absence of our moon that life would have been limited to prokaryotes.
In what ways has the presence of Lunar influenced the evolution of life on Earth?
An interesting perspective! The development of our moon certainly had massive impact on the development of life because of the changing gravitational forces on our own planet (tides for example).
However, I do have doubts that the moon had direct influence on the evolution of eukaryotes, simply because of the extremely long time between the formation of the moon (c. 4.5 Ba) and the appearance of first eukaryotes. Their origin is still debated but might range somewhere between 1.7 and 2.1 Ba; some even speak of older origination times, but still far off the 4.5 Ba.
Best regards,
Thomas
The biggest influence of the Moon is that it carries a great deal of angular momentum which helps to stabilise the earth's axis of rotation. life would be very different if Earth's axial tilt was like that of Uranus.
I do agree that Moon contributes to environmental and physical conditions conducive to life such as circadian rhythm, behavioural patters (recognition of tides and full moon), nocturnal life, etc. But I am not convinced in saying that it has direct influence on the process of origin and evolution of life. The Sun is so central to life processes (including energy source, light for biological clock, even moonlight) that any effect from the moon would be indirectly from the Sun. So I conjecture theoretically that if the Moon had not been formed, life may be pretty much the same (other than specific behaviours).
The moon affects the climate of the Earth because it is within its framework
Some effects you will be able to read in this post:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_does_the_moon_influence_life_on_Earth