This accepted and most upvoted answer to the question Does grass alone produce enough oxygen for life? claims that plants are oxygen neutral:
Plants are oxygen neutral The question wording is a bit misleading, as – surprise – plants do not produce oxygen. They produce oxygen only as long as they are growing, binding carbon in its mass. In long term all plants are oxygen neutral, as all oxygen which is created by them is again consumed when they dissolve, burn or are eaten, as carbon stored in them reacts with oxygen back to CO2. The more correct view how to describe this is not that plants produce oxygen, but that they store carbon.
I realize that a huge portion of our atmosphere's oxygen was produced by Phytoplankton, but the idea that plants produce zero net oxygen seems absurd to me. Is the information provided by that answer scientifically accurate? Please explain.
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