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I noticed a lot of organisms exist across big habitats separated by large rivers, with unclear ways of existing across rivers. Since I wasn't sure how organisms spread across such big rivers without specified adaptations for it, I decided to make the Quassagule exist only west of Blood Tropical River.

Should it be assumed that all fauna are capable enough of swimming, wading, floating, rafting, or clinging onto organisms capable of those things, to cross large rivers frequently enough to establish populations unless otherwise specified? (e.g., a noted vulnerability to drowning or inability to swim) It's not that implausible, since it seems most mammals (barring great apes and possibly giraffes) can swim.

Rivers have never been treated as hard-to-cross boundaries in Sagan 4 history. There will always be narrow streams, fallen logs, ice, or drought allowing stuff to cross in the timespan of only hundreds of years. The course of the river itself readily changes in a short timespan as well.

A few flora on Fermi and its coast, namely Bonespires, Branching Bonespires, Bonegroves and Mangrovecrystals have big, obvious effects on their environments, noted in their descriptions. They, along with other large or abundant flora, would likely exert such a great effect on their environment as to justify large-landmark status, or even one or two new habitats, should Fermi still exist at a substantial size next Week.

Since the Driftwood Islands are allowed to be huge landmarks with specific organism sets, one or two large (but comparatively far smaller) habitats sufficiently large and distinct for large organism endemism should be sensible.

Socotra may suggest adding new landmarks or habitats. Socotra is both a desert (well, bordering on semi-desert) and an island, although Fermi is much, much bigger than Socotra, and probably closer to the size of New Zealand. Socotra has a few xeric woodlands of dragons' blood trees. Since Socotra can have multiple distinct habitats, despite its tiny size, it makes sense Fermi could have a temperate beach, a polar beach, a desert and some kind of densely forested area.

For others' convenience, the relevant descriptions of explicitly habitat-providing or altering flora are below:

Bonespires:

"A dense, spreading root system lies just beneath the sand[...] [helping to] [...] stabilize the ground it grows out of. Because of this smaller flora that typically fair [sic] poorly in loose sand are able to thrive around the bases of these giants, thus furthering the stabilization of the ground. Also, because of this increased stabilization of the ground, oasis [sic] have also become far more common, resulting in an overall increase of fresh water on Fermi Island, which the bonespires and other flora quite eagerly exploit."

"Those [seeds] that do manage to germinate will eventually give rise to a new floral giant that will join with others in steadily increasing, if somewhat sparse, forests that have now begun to cover the majority of the island."

Branching Bonespire:

"Other than that, the branching bonespire is the same as its ancestor, and because it possesses the same root system, it also stabilizes the desert's soil and in turn, helps terraform Fermi desert."

Bonegroves also extend out from Fermi Temperate Beach to Fermi Temperate Coast, and Mangrovecrystals grow in Fermi Temperate Coast.

I'd be in favor of a landmark or two for that.

What are the expected adaptations to living in volcanic habitats? How are they different from mountain habitats? Should each volcanic region be classified in order of the number or intensity of volcanic activity or lava flows? I'm making some flora for Raptor Volcanic, with specific volcanic adaptations in mind such as not suffocating under ash flows, enduring ash-choked skies, and finding a way for the population to survive wildfires, but I actually don't know what adaptations would be useful for Raptor Volcanic. I also haven't noticed any Volcanic habitat-dwelling fauna whose descriptions explicitly mention adaptations that help them escape volcanic eruptions, whether by detecting them, rapidly escaping or enduring ash falls.

The "volcanic" biome is basically just like, Iceland or Hawaii. Not a constant lava hellscape.

Obviously, it wouldn't be constant danger, especially considering the habitats exist for many millions of years. It's not out of the question plants (or in this case, flora) which live close to volcanoes would have adaptations for it, though.

Sources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic...098847212002031
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.338...2018.00052/full
https://www.botany.one/2016/02/plants-and-p...r-popocatepetl/
One plain-English source: https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/volcano-wa...canic-pollution

Two of the animals in the article have fairly direct adaptations to living in volcanically-influenced environments:
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-animals-t...-volcanoes-home

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Jun 16 2021, 07:16 PM)

A few flora on Fermi and its coast, namely Bonespires, Branching Bonespires, Bonegroves and Mangrovecrystals have big, obvious effects on their environments, noted in their descriptions. They, along with other large or abundant flora, would likely exert such a great effect on their environment as to justify large-landmark status, or even one or two new habitats, should Fermi still exist at a substantial size next Week. Since the Driftwood Islands are allowed to be huge landmarks with specific organism sets, one or two large (but comparatively far smaller) habitats sufficiently large and distinct for large organism endemism should be sensible. Socotra may suggest adding new landmarks or habitats. Socotra is both a desert (well, bordering on semi-desert) and an island, although Fermi is much, much bigger than Socotra, and probably closer to the size of New Zealand. Socotra has a few xeric woodlands of dragons' blood trees. Since Socotra can have multiple distinct habitats, despite its tiny size, it makes sense Fermi could have a temperate beach, a polar beach, a desert and some kind of densely forested area.

I feel like organisms influencing habitats or engaging in intricate symbioses has never been dealt well with by Sagan 4, Alpha in particular. I'm honestly just not smart enough to tackle it, but its definitely a set of issues I'm concerned about. (I realize that the second isn't really what you were talking about AT ALL, but for some reason it came to mind in connection with the former). For example, how much detailed internal fauna have we made? Some, but not enough, and there were literally NO multicellular endoparasites except for the recent plentwurms and that one anipede so long ago. Are there any symbioses comparable to mycorhizzal systems or corals? I guess THAT'S where it interweaves.

I don't recall any intricate Alpha symbioses....perhaps next Generation can expand on that.
The fairly recent shrog influence (Great Shroggian Interchange, you could say) does lead to some level of keystone species habitat influence and notable symbioses. Indeed, I was planning on making two pseudo-ectoparasitic shrog symbiotes next Generation.