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| World of Micro-Life; Putting things together. | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 15 2009, 07:17 AM (604 Views) | |
| KayKay | Apr 15 2009, 07:17 AM Post #1 |
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Adult
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This world of micro-life I have been working on is starting to come into shape. I might even start evolving the creatures living there soon. This thread is just to show info on how it is progressing and for anyone to input their ideas or advice. I welcome any comments or criticisms you may have about this project. This is the planet map: ![]() This is not the complete map. The complete map is best viewed on photoshop as it has many layers. By selecting which you can view you can see different attributes of the map, such as species distribution and temperature. For example: This is the temperatures in sea and on land: ![]() This is the distribution of colonial amoeba (notice how they prefer shallow sea) and the locations of the major volcanic hotspots: ![]() The distribution maps are most useful. If you're not sure how to make a map like this for your own project, don't hesitate to ask! I'd be happy to explain. When I 'run' this 'sim', disasters which have obvious causes, such as the influence a shift in orbit may have on world climate, are calculated on intuition. However, I have seperated these from 'random' disasters which have a certain chance happening every so often with no real obvious way to predict them. For those, I use a random number generator to determine if and how severe the disaster will be. During most cycles though, there aren't disasters. They'd be a bit rare at least. Now for the creatures. Most are unicellular, and there are hundreds upon thousands of species so I'll only cover the most important groups. SIMPLE ALGAE Simple unicellular green plants. Reproduces by mitosis - no spores, non-sexual. Found free-floating or colonies on submerged rocks. Changes shape depending on surroundings. Becomes shapeless on the sea current, becomes cuboid and flat on rocks. Reproduces quickly, can tolerate cool climates DISTRIBUTION: Global - every square on the map. ALGAL BACTERIA Simple unicellular blue/green bacteria. Reproduce by mitosis. Free-floating bacteria, some have flagella. They gather where there is sunlight. Gathers in numbers in warm, stagnant water. Most are poisonous to other organisms in order to fend off competition for space and light. Reproduces very quickly. DISTRIBUTION: Global - every square on the map. Excludes highest terrains. VIRAL CELL Very simple unicellular organism. Pathogenic and parasitic. Uses multiple sets of the same copy of genetic information during injection and assembly. Assembled genes are usually a single string of several genomes worth of genetic material arranged one after the other. This accounts for the high mutation rate. Like an Earth virus it attaches itself to a host cell but instead of making the host do the work of assembly they infiltrate the host cell and simply use up its resources to divide. Because of this, they are usually specific to one type of host cell. Adult viral cells which are freed from the host cell have a major difference compared with Earth viruses - they are true cells with a metabolism. It cannot metabolise well - they are very slow anaerobically respiring cells. Their metabolic pathway for respiration is much the same as Earth aerobically respiring animal’s anaerobic pathway. They do best where other organisms (such as decomposers) have broken down food into simpler pieces, such as from protein to amino acids. Viral cells are rather different from other cells on this planet in the way that they have a very unique genetic makeup. Their genetic material doesn’t arrange into the usual single (or double) long coiled string. Their genetic material branches from one backbone. This genetic information can separate and be carried off to other parts of the cell for use. It can switch around and rearrange itself in some species (in limited ways) sometimes in an attempt to overcome a host’s cell defences. Genetic activity (as I’ll call it, since it’s rather active genetic material) is costly, so it reduces when it’s not in a host cell. They don’t have the advantage of suspended animation like Earth viruses. They need to find a host fairly quickly. Reproduces quickly around decomposers and animals without cell walls, particularly in warmer regions. Distribution: Global, denser in warmer climates. PARENT AMOEBA Simple unicellular animal. Respires with the use of oxygen - thrives where there are plants. It eats bacteria and very small animals. It is uncommon for a parent amoeba to be able to break down chittin or cellulose - such species only seem to survive in stagnant, non-flowing freshwater habitats such as small lakes. New offspring are produced when the nucleus of the parent divides and then buds off. The bud manufactures its own organelles - they do not have mitochondria. DISTRIBUTION: Mostly in shallow seas, found in some surrounding ocean or freshwater habitats. MOTOR PLANTS A Freshwater unicellular plant. Usually thrives in moderately calm water, capable of surviving in water with minimal dissolved gas circulation. They swim towards sources of the ideal dissolved gas amounts. Are capable of metabolising both oxygen and carbon dioxide. Freshwater species have a water vacuole that keeps the rest of the cytoplasm at the required water concentration due to displacing the water out of the cytoplasm. Saltwater species are isotonic to their surroundings and do not need this vacuole. They have many chloroplasts since they require a lot of energy. They do not have mitochondria - they carry out the process of aerobic respiration on their own. Reproduction is simple - by mitosis. DISTRIBUTION: Fresh water habitats, all continents. Some species live in shallow seas. CALCITE PLANTS The most complex green plants. They are successful since they grow in a spiral shape, with photosynthetic tissues pointing outward which means it catches sunlight almost no matter what position it is in. They have an internal calcite skeleton that keeps its spiral shape. The spiral skeleton grows lengthwise from one end, by laying down calcite-based compounds, but the calcite laid down never undergoes growth since it is non-living, like fingernails. The organism is never weighed down by the calcite since it is so small it is buoyant. Some larger species in tropical and sub-tropical seas have irregularly shaped cells beneath their photosynthetic tissue with trapped gas between them to counter the weight of calcite shells. They reproduce by spore-producing tissue on the inside surface of the spiral. They are non-sexual plants. DISTRIBUTION: Not on land, not in freshwater. WALL AMOEBA A unicellular animal that has a cell wall at the mature stage of its life. It originates from when two gametes fuse together. There are no sexes - gametes are simply from different parents. The young zygote takes on an amoeboid shape with two flagella (number or presence of flagella may vary between species). It feeds until it is big enough for the nucleus to begin to divide. The nuclei accumulate in a pocket as cells and divide further into haploid gametes. The process repeats until the gametes burst from the parent cell. Parents will seek out other adults ready to reproduce so that the genes mix. During the stage where nuclei are being accumulated the adult develops a chitin cell wall for protection. At regular intervals there are proteins poking through the cell wall which help it sense other cells of its own species chemically. DISTRIBUTION: Thrives best in algae and plankton rich shallow seas. A rather large amoeba that doesn’t tolerate cold seas well. COLLONIAL AMOEBA Multi-cellular animals that differentiate into two different kinds of cells. They grow attached to rocks with an inner tissue of amoeboid cells that help transport nutrients and keep the structure strurdy. The outer skin is one cell thick. These cells usually have cell walls of chitin and cover the whole outer surface of the organism. The outward facing surface has many long flagella that catch pieces of food and digest them. The digested fluids are transported into the outer skin cell where a small amount of it is used and stored by the cell. The rest are transported down into the organism’s extra-cellular fluids where it is used and distributed by moving amoeboid cells. The cone-like structures formed by these colonies tends to grow upwards. Outward growth is the production of new cone-pillars which add strength to the colonies. This is generally how they reproduce. If colonies become destroyed, cells which have been detached from a colony will become amoeboid in shape with flagella used to swim. They generally swim towards rocks where they settle, divide and differentiate. DISTRIBUTION: It is confined to shallow seas, surviving beast in calmer seas. CARPET Simple colonial animals that grow on rocks in shallow seas. These unicellular organisms live side-by-side one another in dense populations. Cells which have gained lots of food create gap junctions with other cells and pass on their nutrients. Nutrients flow freely amongst the carpet of cells. Large accumulations of these animals give off toxic wastes which most other life are killed by, it is beneficial to have many neighbours. They reproduce by the replicating nuclei method, where they are pouched before escaping the parent cell. Oddly, some of these are sexual, and there are two distinct sexes - unlike most sexually reproducing life forms on this planet! The sexual breeders actually have male and female individuals, and males do not pouch their nucleus copies but instead make them into a cell with their vestigial pouch mechanism. They then send them through gap junctions until a female with unfertilized eggs is found. These are freely accepted amongst the carpets. The male cells multiply into haploids which each fertilize all of the female cells. The female parent then casts the fertilized offspring into the sea. Their top surface is covered in villi for catching food. It secretes sticky, digesting solutions. It eats any organic material, mostly detritus. DISTRIBUTION: Inhabits all seas and oceans. It is found most densely in warmer regions and in shallow water. SEXUAL HYPHOIDS DECOMPOSER Simple multi-cellular organisms that use hyphae to break down nutrients in the mediums around it. Hyphae have a chitin cell wall. These animals use the replicating nucleus method of reproduction and to make new cells for tasks. The nuclei bud from the master cell to form hyphae. The hyphae are used to digest and retrieve food, mostly detritus and other decomposing organic material. Hyphae divide and branch like roots, and grow far within the medium. A diploid copy of the nucleus buds as a cell in a pouch. It splits into two haploid cells, which in turn split further into more haploid cells. When the pouch is full, it reaches the edge of the master cell and dispenses all of its gametes. The gametes meet gametes of other master cells and fuses with them. There are no sexes - gametes simply detect whether or not they are of the same parent or not. All gametes have a sperm-like appearance; streamlined, smooth and with a single flagellum. An individual master cell can empty and refill its pouches throughout its life about 10 times. DISTRIBUTION: CALCITE TENTASHELLS Simple multi-cellular animals that live on the sea current. Calcite plates surrounding the master cell protect from predation and rough seas. It has tentacles made up of between three and twelve cells each, depending on the species. The tentacles are aligned one after the other leading to the master cell. Bristles on the cells capture and digest food, usually algae and other plants, small unicellular animals or detritus. Nutrients are passed down from cell to cell and into the master cell. As the cell grows the nutrients can be used up, stored in fat deposits within the master cell, or used towards making nuclei and new cell material. They reproduce by replicating nuclei. The nucleus copies itself while there is enough energy to do so, sending its copies down to exit the cell at the gap at its rear. They bud as new offspring, which make their own organelles. Once organelles are made the cell immediately makes a food gathering tentacle cell using a copied nucleus, so that it has a steady income of food. DISTRIBUTION: Mostly found on open ocean particularly in plant rich areas. Never found in freshwater habitats. STAR AMOEBAS Simple multi-cellular organisms with an inner master cell surrounded by outer pseudopod cells. Pseudopod cells catch food with their cilia and make secretions for digestion. Some of the nutrients are passed down to the master cell. The pseudopod cells are formed after fertilization from the mitosis of the master cell and differentiation of one of the daughter cells into a pseudopod cell. That pseudopod cell divides further into more pseudopod cells until the entire surface of the master cell is covered. The master cell makes gametes by replicating its nucleus in a pouch within the cell. That cell splits into haploids over and over until the pouch can hold no more. The pseudopod cells part to make a space for the release of the zygotes. DISTRIBUTION: Dweller of shallow seas and estuaries. Some species that live near fresh water have water vacuoles to eject excess water periodically. ASEXUAL HYPHOIDS DECOMPOSER An asexually reproducing multi-cellular organism that uses hyphae to break down and absorb nutrients from its environment. They create their hyphae by the copied nucleus budding method. They only require one copied nucleus - the rest of the hyphae are formed by mitosis. They create offspring by budding. Copied nuclei travel to the surface of the cell where they bud off, carrying membrane, fat and cytoplasm. The budded offspring make their own organelles. They do not make their first hyphae until they contact sand, scum or soil to feed on. DISTRIBUTION: Fine distribution globally in the seas. Few to none in freshwater habitats. I'm not too sure what I'm going to work on next. I guess I'll be getting down to evolving them now. |
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| Venatosaurus | Apr 15 2009, 10:12 AM Post #2 |
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HAUS OF SPEC
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Wow, this increadibly interesting. I love how you did the maps, good luck on your project. Though has vertabrate-less Earth been cancelled ?! |
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| KayKay | Apr 15 2009, 10:26 AM Post #3 |
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Adult
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No, no. I'm still working on that too. |
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| Cynovolans | Apr 15 2009, 10:29 AM Post #4 |
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Servant to Empress Min
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Wow, you put a lot of work into this. I hope there is more coming soon. |
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I wish I could give the public a true picture of the queen as she appeared at her best, but this would be impossible, even had she permitted a photograph to be taken, for her charming play of expression while in conversation, the character and intellect which were then revealed, were only half seen when the face was in repose. -Lilias Underwood when speaking of Empress Myeongseong "I was born in the dark. I went out into the light, and your Majesty, it is my displeasure to inform you that I have returned to the dark. I envision a Seoul of towering buildings filled with Western establishments that will place herself back above the Japanese barbarians. Great things lie ahead for the Kingdom, great things. We must take action, your Majesty, without hesitation, to further modernize this still ancient kingdom."-Min Young-ik to Empress Myeongseong | |
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9:41 AM Jul 11