Could you re-add the alternate angle/diagram as a supplementary image? More visual information is always good.
of course
I have added back the supplemental image
Can you trim both images to remove excessive empty space? The little purple dot in the main image, as well as the paper border in the supplemental image, is particularly distracting.
You'll also have to separate the two images in your submission. The main image goes on top, while the supplemental image typically goes in between paragraphs, or at the bottom, below the description.
"derivative": You mean "descendant".
Why has it lost its relationship with the Cloudbubble Cryoutine? Maintaining a symbiosis can, in certain circumstances, cost more energy than it's worth. For example, when plants with relationships with phosphorus-mining soil fungi live in soil high in phosphorus, they give fewer resources to their fungual symbionts. It doesn't really make sense that it would, all at once, lose its relationship with a symbiont crucial to its lifestyle and drop to the forest floor.
It makes more sense that it would decrease symbiont investments to save energy, float in lower altitudes that usual, and end up settling on Lamarck Peak, perhaps spreading from there to Lamarck Alpine. (I would select someothing on Barlowe, but Barlowe no longer has high-altitude habitats.) Its flat, mosslike shape already makes it a plasuible candidate for such a harsh environment. Lamarck Highboreal is probably ecologically closest to what you were originally going for within some plausibility, so you could say it spread from Lamarck Peak to Lamarck Alpine to Lamarck Highboreal. However, Lamarck Alpine does have Blastrees, which are remarkably tall by alpine standards. (It's because they're glassflora, and glassflora have alien physiologies well-suited for cold conditions.) Many plants that can reproduce sexually retain the ability to reproduce asexually, and given the harsh conditions, retaining the capacity to reduce asexually seems useful.
If you extend it to Lamarck Highboreal, you may be able to keep the fire adaptations in its description, since it seems boreal forests do experience fires.
I can provide more information after a response to this feedback.
You'll also have to separate the two images in your submission. The main image goes on top, while the supplemental image typically goes in between paragraphs, or at the bottom, below the description.
"derivative": You mean "descendant".
Why has it lost its relationship with the Cloudbubble Cryoutine? Maintaining a symbiosis can, in certain circumstances, cost more energy than it's worth. For example, when plants with relationships with phosphorus-mining soil fungi live in soil high in phosphorus, they give fewer resources to their fungual symbionts. It doesn't really make sense that it would, all at once, lose its relationship with a symbiont crucial to its lifestyle and drop to the forest floor.
It makes more sense that it would decrease symbiont investments to save energy, float in lower altitudes that usual, and end up settling on Lamarck Peak, perhaps spreading from there to Lamarck Alpine. (I would select someothing on Barlowe, but Barlowe no longer has high-altitude habitats.) Its flat, mosslike shape already makes it a plasuible candidate for such a harsh environment. Lamarck Highboreal is probably ecologically closest to what you were originally going for within some plausibility, so you could say it spread from Lamarck Peak to Lamarck Alpine to Lamarck Highboreal. However, Lamarck Alpine does have Blastrees, which are remarkably tall by alpine standards. (It's because they're glassflora, and glassflora have alien physiologies well-suited for cold conditions.) Many plants that can reproduce sexually retain the ability to reproduce asexually, and given the harsh conditions, retaining the capacity to reduce asexually seems useful.
If you extend it to Lamarck Highboreal, you may be able to keep the fire adaptations in its description, since it seems boreal forests do experience fires.
I can provide more information after a response to this feedback.
| QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Sep 11 2022, 10:08 AM) |
| Can you trim both images to remove excessive empty space? The little purple dot in the main image, as well as the paper border in the supplemental image, is particularly distracting. You'll also have to separate the two images in your submission. The main image goes on top, while the supplemental image typically goes in between paragraphs, or at the bottom, below the description. "derivative": You mean "descendant". Why has it lost its relationship with the Cloudbubble Cryoutine? Maintaining a symbiosis can, in certain circumstances, cost more energy than it's worth. For example, when plants with relationships with phosphorus-mining soil fungi live in soil high in phosphorus, they give fewer resources to their fungual symbionts. It doesn't really make sense that it would, all at once, lose its relationship with a symbiont crucial to its lifestyle and drop to the forest floor. It makes more sense that it would decrease symbiont investments to save energy, float in lower altitudes that usual, and end up settling on Lamarck Peak, perhaps spreading from there to Lamarck Alpine. (I would select someothing on Barlowe, but Barlowe no longer has high-altitude habitats.) Its flat, mosslike shape already makes it a plasuible candidate for such a harsh environment. Lamarck Highboreal is probably ecologically closest to what you were originally going for within some plausibility, so you could say it spread from Lamarck Peak to Lamarck Alpine to Lamarck Highboreal. However, Lamarck Alpine does have Blastrees, which are remarkably tall by alpine standards. (It's because they're glassflora, and glassflora have alien physiologies well-suited for cold conditions.) Many plants that can reproduce sexually retain the ability to reproduce asexually, and given the harsh conditions, retaining the capacity to reduce asexually seems useful. If you extend it to Lamarck Highboreal, you may be able to keep the fire adaptations in its description, since it seems boreal forests do experience fires. I can provide more information after a response to this feedback. |
I have added many of the changes you suggested. I really like the suggestions you gave since it helped me make it more like the carpeting pioneer species I want it to be. I eagerly await to hear what you think of the changes
Since discarding a symbiont essential to its ancestor's lifestyle is so very rare on Sagan 4, it would help to elaborate on why it lost the symbiont. Sugar (from photosynthesis) is surely not in short supply in the troposphere, and its ancestor got moisture from clouds. If Cloudbubble Cryoutines required minerals from windborne dust to sustain strong flight, that could be a reason Cloudbubbles could reduce symbiont investment. This is especially true if the mineral needed is phosphorus, which is often a limiting nutrient in real-life plant ecology. Admittedly, Cloudbubbles do eat aeroplankton (presumably troposphere fauna dung, various spores, Hairy Sky Phlyer hairs, etc.) so they have more nutrients to work with than one might expect, but it's possible a subpopulation that used relatively-limited mineral resources for its reproduction rather than for Cloudbubble Cryoutines had enough survival fitness to eventually adapt to low-altitude flight around the peaks. With such a lengthy "evolutionary story", though, it might be worth having them retain just a little of their former relationship with the symbiont: say, ejecting their spores in tiny balloon structures held aloft by a bit of hydrogen during breezy days, like a sort of zeppelin/kite blend.
However, you could also note that, due to its abundant offspring, multiple reproductive methods and presumably very short generation times, significant mutations can both arise and spread rapidly, allowing relatively big jumps in just one Generation. It's like stalk-eyed flies: in Sagan 4 terms, one could get a stalk-eyed fly from a picture-winged fly in just one Generation, very plausibly, but an equivalent distance for a long-lived mammal with few offspring (say, Malayan tapir to Asian elephant) would take longer.
However, you could also note that, due to its abundant offspring, multiple reproductive methods and presumably very short generation times, significant mutations can both arise and spread rapidly, allowing relatively big jumps in just one Generation. It's like stalk-eyed flies: in Sagan 4 terms, one could get a stalk-eyed fly from a picture-winged fly in just one Generation, very plausibly, but an equivalent distance for a long-lived mammal with few offspring (say, Malayan tapir to Asian elephant) would take longer.
It could be as simple as floating lower and lower because there's more nutrients closer to the ground until it ceased floating at all.
| QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Sep 11 2022, 10:37 PM) |
| It could be as simple as floating lower and lower because there's more nutrients closer to the ground until it ceased floating at all. |
That's a good point. The amount of spore, seed, and pollen aeroplankton would probably be greater lower to the ground, and possibly minerals, too.
Primalpikachu, you should should also capitalize "Lamarck Peak" in the template.
| QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Sep 12 2022, 08:44 AM) | ||
That's a good point. The amount of spore, seed, and pollen aeroplankton would probably be greater lower to the ground, and possibly minerals, too. Primalpikachu, you should should also capitalize "Lamarck Peak" in the template. |
I used this explanation in addition to the high fecundity of the species to help explain the evolution
Question: Could I expand the range of this organism more (ie into the Lamarck Temperate woodlands, low boreal, highvelt, rockies and tundra and maintain plausibility? It could be explained by the quick reproduction rates
This post has been edited by Primalpikachu: Sep 12 2022, 11:08 AM
This post has been edited by Primalpikachu: Sep 12 2022, 11:08 AM
As long as they are connected and it fits the 3 types / 3 flavors rule, a large range is fine.
Whether it can spread to other habitats depends on how it could differentiate a niche compared to genus group species. This is a pioneer species, as are many small genus-group flora. Now, I figure that no one would reject a new submission based on competition with a genus group flora, out of the principle of increasing biodiversity, but this one's in a particular bind because it might compete to some extent with five groups, including three well-adapted to most of those particular environments.
These would surely compete with Tepoflora (1 mm to 5mm tall), Chitjorns (1-5 cm tall), Pioneroots, Cryobowls and possibly, to a small extent, Hikerflora. Tepoflora, Cryobowls and Chitjorns all hav some combination of adaptations to cold, snowy conditions and poor soil. In the harsher habitats of Lamarck Peak, Lamarck Alpine, and Lamarck Highboreal, there would surely be less species biodiversity among its competitor genus groups, and since I designed Hikerflora to have surprisingly narrow operating temperatures, in the harsher environments Terrestrial Cloudbubbles would have very little if any competition with Hikerflora throughout the year. That's not even counting the greater local-flora diversity and abundance in less harsh environments.
You'd have to explain how it can differentiate a niche among multiple species of 3-5 genus groups. Notably, Chitjorns, Tepoflora, and Pioneerroots and Hikerflora all reproduce asexually. If Sagan 4 had more diseases or parasites, including ones which affected genus groups, Terrestrial Cloudbubbles could establish themselves when competitor colonies are weakened or wiped out by parasites or disease. Still, Cryobowls do reproduce sexually, so that reason alone wouldn't weaken them.
You mentioned it can climb up the trunks of larger flora. That might allow it to differentiate a niche among Pioneeroots, since they don't seem to climb up trunks. Notably, in the northern hemisphere, the south-facing side of a slope gets more sunlight and is warmer during the winter. (see source: https://sciencing.com/differences-between-n...s-8568075.html)
Pioneeroots have explicitly "Super Fast Aesexual Budding" and are also purpleflora, so they would compete for the same light frequencies under shading flora. Its advantage against them might be the ability to share nutrients among its colony using its roots, coordinate reproduction, and evolve faster under an unpredictable environment, while retaining the ability to rapidly spread advantageous mutations by asexual reproduction. In other words: if it has some way to sense there's a competitor nearby, or just takes up nutrients very aggressively, it could run a slow siege tactic against any competing Pioneerroots, particularly on poor soil. It might also resist being stepped on by fauna more, which would be more of an advantage in environments with huge, heavy fauna in big migrations or large numbers of heavy fauna in general.
You'd need to put a lot of thought into what sort of adaptations it would need to compete against several genus groups and potentially local flora in all those environments.
There are other ideas for how it can compete, but there's something else I need to do at the moment.
These would surely compete with Tepoflora (1 mm to 5mm tall), Chitjorns (1-5 cm tall), Pioneroots, Cryobowls and possibly, to a small extent, Hikerflora. Tepoflora, Cryobowls and Chitjorns all hav some combination of adaptations to cold, snowy conditions and poor soil. In the harsher habitats of Lamarck Peak, Lamarck Alpine, and Lamarck Highboreal, there would surely be less species biodiversity among its competitor genus groups, and since I designed Hikerflora to have surprisingly narrow operating temperatures, in the harsher environments Terrestrial Cloudbubbles would have very little if any competition with Hikerflora throughout the year. That's not even counting the greater local-flora diversity and abundance in less harsh environments.
You'd have to explain how it can differentiate a niche among multiple species of 3-5 genus groups. Notably, Chitjorns, Tepoflora, and Pioneerroots and Hikerflora all reproduce asexually. If Sagan 4 had more diseases or parasites, including ones which affected genus groups, Terrestrial Cloudbubbles could establish themselves when competitor colonies are weakened or wiped out by parasites or disease. Still, Cryobowls do reproduce sexually, so that reason alone wouldn't weaken them.
You mentioned it can climb up the trunks of larger flora. That might allow it to differentiate a niche among Pioneeroots, since they don't seem to climb up trunks. Notably, in the northern hemisphere, the south-facing side of a slope gets more sunlight and is warmer during the winter. (see source: https://sciencing.com/differences-between-n...s-8568075.html)
Pioneeroots have explicitly "Super Fast Aesexual Budding" and are also purpleflora, so they would compete for the same light frequencies under shading flora. Its advantage against them might be the ability to share nutrients among its colony using its roots, coordinate reproduction, and evolve faster under an unpredictable environment, while retaining the ability to rapidly spread advantageous mutations by asexual reproduction. In other words: if it has some way to sense there's a competitor nearby, or just takes up nutrients very aggressively, it could run a slow siege tactic against any competing Pioneerroots, particularly on poor soil. It might also resist being stepped on by fauna more, which would be more of an advantage in environments with huge, heavy fauna in big migrations or large numbers of heavy fauna in general.
You'd need to put a lot of thought into what sort of adaptations it would need to compete against several genus groups and potentially local flora in all those environments.
There are other ideas for how it can compete, but there's something else I need to do at the moment.
I'll extend the range minimally in that case (probably the Lamarck Rocky, Highvelt, and Tundra. I'll also add in that competition detection system you mentioned, so that when the root networks detect a foreign flora it will actively spread and shape itself to choke out the competitor. Thanks for the feedback. I really like how it has turned out and am super excited about the possibility that it might be approved.
"The Terrestrial Cloudbubble": the "The" should be uncapitalized.
"overtaking": did you mean "overtaking it"?
It's unlikely it could choke out large flora in its range, so it's worth specifying what kinds of flora it tries to choke out. Pioneeroots are probably the biggest threat in most environments or micro-habitats which actually have soil, as they spread so quickly and probably have the closest nutritional requirements. If it had a great way to compete against Pioneerroots in particular, and a decent method to either choke out or avoid (e.g., by growing up trunks, fresh logs or rocks instead), two other species, that would be plenty for it to at least be common to uncommon in most of the habitats.
It would need to be a very smart (loosely speaking) or exquisitely well-adapted plant to have excellent tactics against 4 or 5 potential competitors among the genus groups alone, given those lineages are physiologically very different from each other.* It would, simiarly, need to be very smart to identify small flora and specifically counter-attack only them, unless it had a decent screening mechanism. For example, small genus group flora probably have most or all of their roots or rootlet mass or overall spread in the first few millimeters or soil, perhaps to 2 cm deep. If these have a way of "scanning" chemical signals or smells in particular root depths, and these chemical signals fall within a certain strength range (so that there isn't a big mass of roots just below or behind the "scanned" range), then, a decent amount of the time, it would guess correctly that there's a small flora it can siege.
One other method, which is pretty mindless but might be hard to evolve all at once since its ancestry has been out of root-warfare for a while, would be depositing allelopathic chemicals that work pretty well to excellently on multiple kinds of flora. One simple method to detect whether other flora are potentially threats is to let it keep just a trace of Cloudbubble Cryoutines in its roots, and detect its species from others (but especially Pioneeroots) based on chemical emissions from Cloudbubble Cryoutines.
Notably, hydrogen gas is an asphyxiant at very high concentrations. If it kept Cloudbubble Cryoutines/a specifically-adapted descendant in its roots, it could just flood pore spaces in soil a few centimeters around it, which woud displace oxygen somewhat, and stunt or redirect any root growth of would-be rivals. It could temporarily not grow in the passage while it's hydrogen-filled, or have some way of withstanding high hydrogen concentrations to occupy the potential root spaces quickly and exclude competitors from it. Actually...provided the battle-zone is both at least a centimeter down from the surface, and is in very compacted soil with few possible air spaces, high concentrations of hydrogen would probably at least slow down the roots of almost any kind of small flora without a lot of root mass or specialized circulatory systems.
In other words: if it had a huge, well-coordinated army (chemical signaling in the colony), great supply lines (nutrient sharing, especially from areas not surrounded by competitors, like up a tree trunk), and moderately good chemical warfare, it could eventually win by siege against almost any similarly-sized or smaller foe that didn't have similar advantages or resistances, at least under the conditions of cold, relatively dry, high-UV full-sun environments with very compacted soil and battle zones at least 1 cm deep. Just one sufficiently big and heavy fauna stomping around could crush Pioneeroots, but be resisted by Terrestrial Cloudbubbles, and then compact the soil, allowing it to siege-out an isolated patch of Pioneeroots very quickly. If it's in a place with high-clay soil, heavy organisms 150 pounds or heavier, or both, those would be ideal for quickly outcompeting Pioneeroots.
....I just spent 20 minutes figuring out thorough quasi-military tactics for how a purple alien moss could win in slow-motion siege warfare against five other very different alien plants. In certain soil conditions and root depths, the game is basically set as soon as it starts pumping in hydrogen into limited pore spaces, because none of its competitors has adapted to anything like it. It would need water to make the hydrogen, but, oh no, it can just collect morning dew or mountain fog on its leaflets like a moss. In very specific conditions against very specific foes, this could be nearly unstoppable.
"overtaking": did you mean "overtaking it"?
It's unlikely it could choke out large flora in its range, so it's worth specifying what kinds of flora it tries to choke out. Pioneeroots are probably the biggest threat in most environments or micro-habitats which actually have soil, as they spread so quickly and probably have the closest nutritional requirements. If it had a great way to compete against Pioneerroots in particular, and a decent method to either choke out or avoid (e.g., by growing up trunks, fresh logs or rocks instead), two other species, that would be plenty for it to at least be common to uncommon in most of the habitats.
It would need to be a very smart (loosely speaking) or exquisitely well-adapted plant to have excellent tactics against 4 or 5 potential competitors among the genus groups alone, given those lineages are physiologically very different from each other.* It would, simiarly, need to be very smart to identify small flora and specifically counter-attack only them, unless it had a decent screening mechanism. For example, small genus group flora probably have most or all of their roots or rootlet mass or overall spread in the first few millimeters or soil, perhaps to 2 cm deep. If these have a way of "scanning" chemical signals or smells in particular root depths, and these chemical signals fall within a certain strength range (so that there isn't a big mass of roots just below or behind the "scanned" range), then, a decent amount of the time, it would guess correctly that there's a small flora it can siege.
One other method, which is pretty mindless but might be hard to evolve all at once since its ancestry has been out of root-warfare for a while, would be depositing allelopathic chemicals that work pretty well to excellently on multiple kinds of flora. One simple method to detect whether other flora are potentially threats is to let it keep just a trace of Cloudbubble Cryoutines in its roots, and detect its species from others (but especially Pioneeroots) based on chemical emissions from Cloudbubble Cryoutines.
Notably, hydrogen gas is an asphyxiant at very high concentrations. If it kept Cloudbubble Cryoutines/a specifically-adapted descendant in its roots, it could just flood pore spaces in soil a few centimeters around it, which woud displace oxygen somewhat, and stunt or redirect any root growth of would-be rivals. It could temporarily not grow in the passage while it's hydrogen-filled, or have some way of withstanding high hydrogen concentrations to occupy the potential root spaces quickly and exclude competitors from it. Actually...provided the battle-zone is both at least a centimeter down from the surface, and is in very compacted soil with few possible air spaces, high concentrations of hydrogen would probably at least slow down the roots of almost any kind of small flora without a lot of root mass or specialized circulatory systems.
In other words: if it had a huge, well-coordinated army (chemical signaling in the colony), great supply lines (nutrient sharing, especially from areas not surrounded by competitors, like up a tree trunk), and moderately good chemical warfare, it could eventually win by siege against almost any similarly-sized or smaller foe that didn't have similar advantages or resistances, at least under the conditions of cold, relatively dry, high-UV full-sun environments with very compacted soil and battle zones at least 1 cm deep. Just one sufficiently big and heavy fauna stomping around could crush Pioneeroots, but be resisted by Terrestrial Cloudbubbles, and then compact the soil, allowing it to siege-out an isolated patch of Pioneeroots very quickly. If it's in a place with high-clay soil, heavy organisms 150 pounds or heavier, or both, those would be ideal for quickly outcompeting Pioneeroots.
....I just spent 20 minutes figuring out thorough quasi-military tactics for how a purple alien moss could win in slow-motion siege warfare against five other very different alien plants. In certain soil conditions and root depths, the game is basically set as soon as it starts pumping in hydrogen into limited pore spaces, because none of its competitors has adapted to anything like it. It would need water to make the hydrogen, but, oh no, it can just collect morning dew or mountain fog on its leaflets like a moss. In very specific conditions against very specific foes, this could be nearly unstoppable.
That hydrogen idea is absolute genius! I'll have to add that and its coordinating features. I will also fix my grammar errors too.
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