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| The Fire Forest; In a hostile environment, a rich ecosystem hangs from the branches of giant trees | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 11 2016, 10:00 PM (4,491 Views) | |
| HangingThief | Feb 11 2016, 10:00 PM Post #1 |
ghoulish
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 Table of Contents 9 million years in the future, life on earth hasn't changed all that much. The anthropocene age was not a severe mass extinction- humans wiped themselves out before they could eliminate many major groups of animals. But they did have a profound impact on the climate- by digging up fossilized swamp plants and algae and using them for energy, they unleashed millions of years of stored carbon back into the atmosphere. As the climate warmed, permafrost melted and bacteria began to digest the frozen plant matter, releasing even more greenhouse gases. They could do nothing as their seas rose and arable land desertified, politics preventing them from taking any steps toward population reduction. The eruption of the Yellowstone caldera midway through the 21st century was the last straw. After the humans, their pollution and their agricultural fields went away, forests and algal blooms went to town converting the human and volcano created co2 into oxygen and creating oxygen rich conditions not unlike the Carboniferous. The ice caps have melted entirely, and barely a dry spot is left- swamp became more common than forest. (EDIT: there's some things wrong with that section^, so just ignore it. For example, the Yellowstone caldera wouldn't actually erupt so soon and cause severe climate change, and it's a cliche anyway. I'll fix it eventually. The basic premise is that the earth is warmer, and this project takes place in coastal arctic regions of North America.) Much of the world became a paradise, especially for ectothermic animals. (However, mammals and birds certainly didn't go anywhere or give up their niches to gigantic insects, as sad as it is.) The coal swamps returned in this thick, humid atmosphere in any reasonably warm lowland area. Life flourished in most areas. But these areas are not what we are going to focus on. The far northern coastal regions is not hot and humid or cold and dry. It is best described as a mild, rather dry Mediterranean climate. In the summer, rain is rare and most moisture comes from sea fog. It should be a desert. But it's not- there are extremely dense forests consisting of the towering descendants of redwoods (Sequoia destruaradix) and bamboos (Tuberculobambusa gigas). The soil is dry and devoid of other plant life. (No thanks to the shade and acidic carpet of needles created by the redwoods.) How do these giant plants get enough water to survive? What is their secret? It's all thanks to their roots. In the redwoods, it's rather simple and has to do with the geography- the areas with redwood forests correlate with shallow water tables. Most trees start their life with a large taproot for getting moisture from the ground, but become shallow rooted in adulthood. The coast redwoods that the future redwoods evolved from were no exception. But the future redwoods evolved to keep it, and grow quite possibly the biggest taproot ever to pierce into the water table and suck out the water. But this brings to light a problem- how do the young trees become established? The establishment of young trees is an unusual case of what could be described as botanical parental care and sacrifice of offspring. Most plants adopt the strategy of spreading their seeds as far away as possible so that offspring aren't in competition with their parent. But a baby tree can't obtain water on its own in this climate- it needs help. So, the parent tree connects some roots with a nearby sapling (which grows in the winter) shares water with it. But this sapling isn't destined to become a giant tree- it's mother simply can't have another redwood grow right next to it. The young tree "understands" this and will sacrifice itself to a sibling- another sapling growing further from the mother. It will connect roots and give the water being pumped to it by their mother to the next sapling. As soon as it has connected to another sapling, it mostly stops growing itself apart from strengthening the roots used to pump water to and from its neighbors. It becomes nothing more than a water transportation unit. A chain of these water transporters continues, sometimes through dozens of young trees, until one that is a sufficient distance from the mother tree is reached. This all must happen before the winter is over- any unconnected saplings die in the summer drought. The final link grows very rapidly, as the mother tree pumps not only fluids but also sugar (as their is little sunlight below the canopy) and nitrogen to the young tree to fuel it. Because it receives everything it needs from its mother, it focuses on two things- growing a tall trunk and thick bark, and growing its taproot. Once the taproot hits the water table, however, the mother doesn't cut it off just yet- perhaps if it has many offspring it will cut off the weaker ones, but generally it keeps the supply flowing. Even though the tree is independent, it's not out of danger yet- indeed, it will not be completely out of danger for hundreds of years. It is important that it grows as tall as possible as fast as possible, and not just because it needs sunlight. We will get around to the reason why shortly. The fast growing bamboo grows in the redwood forest when a tree falls down and lets in sunlight. But in general, places with underground reservoirs are practically monocultures of redwoods (at least from a ground level view) and those without are dominated by bamboo. But in many places, due to redwood's previously described water sharing chains, redwoods can slowly encroach upon the bamboo. So how does the bamboo get its water? One clue is that some species of related, deciduous bamboos have colonized the inland deserts. They have become succulents. Not visible stem or leaf succulents like cacti, but rather root succulents- they have enormous underground tubers for storing water and sugar. One curious fact, though, is that the winters are not long or wet enough for a stand to accumulate enough water to last it through the summer. It should run dry after a bit of vigorous spring growth. Yet it doesn't. Tomorrow, I'll post why there are only bamboo and redwoods, why it is necessary for the young redwoods to receive support from their mother even after hitting the water table, and why the bamboo doesn't run out of water- (hint: it's in the title) I probably won't be getting around to animals for a while. Edited by HangingThief, Aug 22 2016, 09:23 PM.
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| LittleLazyLass | Feb 12 2016, 03:14 PM Post #2 |
Proud quilt in a bag
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This is kind of cool. It's always great to see a project start with such detail into environmental factors instead of just throwing out a generic scenario and a bunch of creatures. Furthermore, this sounds like a rather interesting and unique environment - can't wait to see more. |
totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike)I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess. Me What, you want me to tell you what these mean? Read First Words Maybe | |
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| The Xenologist | Feb 12 2016, 03:56 PM Post #3 |
Adult
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So you've got vegetatively-growing redwoods with an underground biological water pump system? That's pretty cool. |
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"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." -Arthur C. Clarke "I am certain there is too much certainty in the world." -Michael Crichton "When a man is tired of dinosaurs, he is tired of life, for there is in a dinosaur all that life can afford." -Queen Victoria "Fair is what we see, fairer what we have perceived, fairest what is still in veil." -Blessed Nicolas Steno Visit the lovely Second Earth! | |
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| HangingThief | Feb 12 2016, 03:56 PM Post #4 |
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Thank you! I'm going to type up the next part soon. |
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| HangingThief | Feb 12 2016, 04:00 PM Post #5 |
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Oops, accidentally typed my reply in your quote Edited by HangingThief, Feb 12 2016, 04:01 PM.
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| Tartarus | Feb 12 2016, 06:37 PM Post #6 |
Prime Specimen
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Interesting to see a future evolution project that goes into detail on future plant evolution. |
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| HangingThief | Feb 12 2016, 06:45 PM Post #7 |
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There is one dark side to earth's increased oxygen levels- fire. Although they are not as high as they were during the Carboniferous, they are still high enough to increase the likelihood and strength of wildfires in suitable conditions. Fortunately, across much of the planet suitable conditions are quite rare. Swamps are too damp, polar deserts don't have enough fuel for fires to spread. But the dry ground, winds, and abundance of fallen redwood needles and bamboo in the aptly named fire forest create the perfect storm. Forest floor fires are extremely common and dramatically shape the environment. A patch of forest floor that lasts four years without burning is extremely rare. A typical fire doesn't burn very hot or for very long, but can move horizontally with decent speed. They happen with incredible frequency- an aerial view of the forest on any dry summer day will be peppered with dozens of small smoke plumes, sometimes distributed less than a mile apart. Ground dwelling animals that smell smoke retreat into their burrows and emerge again within hours. Even a young redwood (which has very thick bark for its size, naturally. The redwoods are descended from coast redwoods, but resemble giant sequoias more in general form) is unlikely to be damaged by such a blaze. These sorts of fires aren't very destructive, simply because there is little to destroy- ideally. The reason why the bamboo doesn't need to store up enough water to last it through the summer is because, although it is by no means a stem- deciduous bamboo species and its stalks can last many years, it is far more likely to be burned before the summer is over. With the fertile ash soil and thick atmosphere, the giant fire forest bamboo grows faster than virtually any other land plant and will add significantly to its stores even with just a few weeks of growth before being torched yet again. When it gets burned, it doesn't try to send up new shoots until next year unless it occurs very early in the year. When smoke hits it's foliage, it immediately begins reabsorbing as much water and nutrients from its stems and leaves back into the tuber as possible before the fire hits. If you think a tree turning red overnight is quick, the bamboo puts it to shame- in 20 minutes, aided by gravity and particularly efficient vascular canals, the bamboo can drain every last drop of water and chlorophyll from all of its above ground parts, leaving a dry yellow husk. It is sacrificed to the fire. Amazingly, if the fire doesn't end up reaching the bamboo then the stems can be slowly revived and turn green again- but only if the plant begins the process within 10 hours of draining them. This means that the bamboo rarely has to support itself through a whole summer, and can actually accumulate water each year that it burns. So, in the event that it does have to support itself through a full year or two it has more than enough water reserves to fall back on. In the unlikely emergency that it starts to run out of water, it can with some difficulty voluntarily die back and remain underground for a few years- but only a some strains in localities with more unpredictable weather patterns have evolved this ability. Most of them are dependent on regular fires for survival. This may seem like a wasteful and self destructive way survival strategy at a glance, but it suits Tuberculobambusa gigas just fine- the underground tubers may become just as ancient as the trunks of the great redwoods that surround them. From the redwood's perspective, the bamboos are more than just competitors- they're dangerous "pests". When a bamboo thicket burns, it really burns- their dry stems provide perfect fuel and the fires burn hotter, last longer and are very destructive- they can even injure mature redwoods on rare occasions. Having bamboo in their midst is a serious danger to redwoods and their offspring. When a redwood falls and leaves a patch of light in the canopy, bamboo establishes itself with astonishing speed using rhizomes that trail through the soil of the lightless understory, searching for a sunny patch to settle down in. It expands horizontally, preventing new redwood saplings from becoming established and letting the fires fueled by its stalks do the work of destroying any that do. Individual redwoods are spaced apart so widely that any attempt to close the canopy and cut off the bamboo's light supply will eventually result in branch breakage, especially considering the large volume of light thirsty epiphytes that cover the thick boughs. (More on that later.) The bamboo thicket is trapped in this 'island' of sunshine and may remain there for hundreds of years until a rare series of damp, fire free summers allows a new redwood to gain a foothold- a very slow forest succession but a battle the redwoods always win in the end, at least where they have access to the shallow aquifers they require to survive. In the meantime, the bamboo growing in limited space can devote its plentiful energy to sending out subterranean runners in the hopes of finding a new clearing in which a new tuber can be established. But for some strange reason, not all of the bamboo plants burn every time there's a fire. The reason (it might just involve animals) will be covered in the next update, along with another interesting form of plant life. |
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| Beetleboy | Feb 13 2016, 03:04 AM Post #8 |
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
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Finally a good, in-depth future evo project. Since Settlers, there's only been poorly thought out projects. Well done. |
| ~ The Age of Forests ~ | |
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| HangingThief | Feb 13 2016, 08:00 PM Post #9 |
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A few bamboo plants, almost always those found deep within the forest, isolated from other patches of bamboo, never seem to burn down. Individual stalks last years, remaining unscathed even as ground fires sweep right through their midst. There are two noticeable differences in these plants that don't burn- the bottoms of the stalks are tan in color, with an unusual texture, and most of the stalks have at least one 3 inch diameter hole carved into them. To understand why they don't burn, we have to investigate the biology of the creature responsible. Pale green, striped wasps drone slowly amongst the bamboo stems. The size of rats, they are among the largest hymenopterans- Seripolybia magnum, the great silkwasp. Silkwasp foragers No, the silkwasp is not a ferocious predator that flies around stinging animals to death and butchering their carcasses. It has a very dangerous sting, but it is used strictly for self defense and defense of the nest, never in hunting. (If you can call it hunting.The silkwasp is more of a gatherer). But even then it is not particularly aggressive, just like its paper wasp (Polistinae) ancestors. It may have forgone its paper making habit, but in social structure, basic appearance, and foraging behavior it has remained very similar to its ancestors in spite of their being among the more ‘primitive’ eusocial wasps. What sets the silkwasps apart, however, is the way they construct their nest- which is up to fire code. It all starts with a founding queen. She searches for a suitable patch of bamboo, in late winter when the stems are well on their way growing back. The smaller and younger the plant, the fewer the stalks, the better; but if she is joined by several of her sisters (or in rare cases, unrelated queens) they can work together to tackle a larger plant. The queen is only slightly larger than the sterile workers she will produce, but there is one big morphological difference between them- their mandibles. Proportionate to her size, she has a larger head that is filled with powerful jaw muscles. Her jaws are large, strong, serrated and very sharp- she can chew straight through bamboo. She chews a hole large enough to comfortably enter and leave. Each bamboo section is a ready- made larval cell. She chews the internodal ceiling of the chamber to provide a textured anchor point, and glues an egg to the ceiling. She repeats this process with another section, which may or may not be on the same stem. This depends on whether the thicket is crowded with other queens or whether she must use up more space to fireproof all the stems. Then, on each stem where she has an egg laid, she chews yet another hole, lower than the egg chambers and usually about four feet off the ground. Every node on the stem below this hole, she removes the center of so that the stem becomes a single continuous tube. This decreases the stem’s structural integrity to some degree, but is a necessary step if she is to prevent it from going up in flames. When the eggs hatch into little grubs, she goes off foraging. Ideally at least one other queen stays behind to guard everyone’s nest while they are gone. For single foundresses, which are fairly uncommon, this is a very dangerous stage for the young larvae. There is a reason why she starts with two larvae. Only one of them will be metamorphosing into a worker anytime soon. The other one, when it has grown sufficiently, will devote its energy to becoming a ‘living glue gun,” for spinning silk, similar to the larvae of 21st century weaver ants. As soon as they are old enough to spin significant quantities of silk, both larvae are moved by their mother to the side of the chamber, gripping a silk pad they have spun so that they are suspended just above the hole. They then spin a door, completely covering the entrance with a thick layer of silk. Their silk is a dark tan color once dry. It is very strong, quick setting, adhesive, and above all waterproof. The only thing that weakens it is intense heat, which renders it no longer waterproof if it is applied correctly. (Yes, there is a reason for it to stop being waterproof). Mixed into the silk are flame retardant compounds from the larva’s saliva, which become more potent when exposed to heat. The mouthparts of the larvae strong, sharp, and asymmetrical- one of them has a much longer, knife like extension. The larva uses this to slit the door open when an adult arrives with food. It opens the door every time it receives food, usually twice a day, and patches it back up. Any excess silk that builds up around the seam is eaten so it can be reused. The next thing it does with its silk is waterproof it's entire cell. This helps to keep things sanitary, as excrement builds up at the bottom of the cell and is removed during feeding. Since the larva is mostly immobile, an adult wasp must pick it up and assist it in waterproofing the cell. The purpose of the silk spinning larva is preparing the large bottom chamber. The queen enters it and begins to cut numerous small vertical slits, each about an inch, into the bottom two feet of the stem. She removes the larva from its chamber and takes it into the large bottom chamber, where it waterproofs it completely. This may take several day’s worth of silk. The same is done to about 4 feet of the stem’s exterior. When this is finished for all the stems under the queen’s jurisdiction, the silk spinning larva finally gets a chance to metamorphose, which the other larva already did weeks before. The mouthparts of the workers that emerge, unlike those of the queen, are not at all suited to cutting bamboo. They are long, fairly weak, and not very sharp. They have comb like teeth that lock together. They are far more efficient at gathering prey than the queen’s. Despite their large size, as mentioned before silkwasps are not aggressive predators. Rather, these large, powerful insects feed chiefly on the smallest and weakest- the bulk of their diet comes from aphids, scale insects and other plant lice. They fly high up into the canopy, where they forage mostly on the narrow redwood twigs. Their large size means that they are unlikely to accidentally bump into a camouflaged predator large enough to eat them here. Once the silkwasp has found a twig generously covered with plant lice, they use their specialized mandibles to scrape the length of the twig in an action similar to the way insects clean their legs and antennae. The wasp’s large size also renders it invulnerable to the attacks of the ants who zealously guard their aphid “cattle”, and the ants are included when the wasp chews what it has scraped from the twig into a ‘meatball’ of plant lice and their sugary honeydew. Additionally, the wasp’s preferred time of day to forage is early morning, when dew (actually sea fog) covers the needles. The silkwasp laps up as much dew as possible as it scrapes the twigs. Much of the honeydew ends up mixed with the water she swallows, so the wasp metabolizes it. But the honeydew still inside the guts of the plant lice just ends up in the meatball, which the wasp carries around with her mandibles and forelegs. The silkwasp is far from totally specialized, though. Significant quantities of larger slow moving insects, such as caterpillars and walking sticks, are also taken. Injured or dying animals, or even reasonably fresh carrion, aren’t out of the question. But the silkwasp isn't fast or agile enough, nor does it have sufficient predatory instinct, to catch anything else. Unless you're an aphid, “you don't bother them they won't bother you” certainly holds true for the placid silkwasp. By the time they are finished with morning foraging, their abdomens are quite distended with water and very heavy. For this reason, they start at the very top of the canopy so that the only direction they have to fly in to get home is down. Usually, they fly in groups for protection. Upon returning, the first thing they do isn't feeding the larvae- they vomit all of the water into the bottom chamber of the bamboo stem. On an average morning foraging trip, they will have collected over a hundred milliliters of dew- quickly the chamber fills up. The silk that lines the chamber can last 3 years submerged before it even begins to loosen its adhesion to the bamboo. When the larva opens its cell door, the first thing the wasp does is drum the larva with its antennae, prompting it to regurgitate a sugary fluid- all the honeydew it received mixed in with the last meatball it ate. The grub only wants meat and returns the sugar to the adult wasp. The wasp then holds the meatball to the larva’s mouth until it has eaten its share, then repeats the process with all the other larvae until the meatball is gone. If the colony, in the other hand, has many workers it may give the entire meatball to one larva to save time. If you haven't figured it out yet, the water filled lower chamber and the flame retardant silk is the anti fire system. Most of the small ground fires, fueled by redwood needles, are very prostrate in form and seldom have flames taller than a few inches. This is the reason the wasps prefer isolated bamboo plants, since their system doesn't work against the large fires created by burning bamboo. So, they must modify every bamboo stalk in the vicinity, which is why it pays for several queens to found nests in the same plant. When the fire touches the water filled bamboo stems, the intense heat causes the silk fibers to shrink thanks to a chemical reaction brought on by high temperatures. Water flows from the slits cut by the queen, soaking the stem and surrounding ground. Even if a flame reaches the dry part, the special silk spun by the wasp grubs is very flame retardant. The wasp’s home is saved. The fire may cause the bamboo’s chlorophyll- draining reaction to kick in, but as mentioned before the plant is capable of reviving itself. When all the water has drained from the bottom chamber,(irrigating the bamboo and allowing it to survive despite not burning every year, see above) it gives the wasps an opportunity to redo the waterproofing, which doesn't last forever. The wasps are not the only creatures that use the water filled chamber. There is no door, of course, and it is not heavily guarded. Plenty of animals come to drink from it, and only the largest, most threatening ones are chased off. Beetles and other insects searching for shelter or water often fall in and drown. If the wasps discover them, they might be fished out and fed to the wasp grubs, but more likely they will be eaten by the aquatic larvae of insects who lay their eggs there. A large species of dragonfly, which in adulthood has a 16 inch wingspan, lays eggs in the bottom chamber. Its elongated, slender aquatic nymph eats the insects that fall in- and sometimes manages to grab and drown a silkwasp which it grabs with the bizarre appendage possessed by all dragonfly larvae- only this one and other members of its family (descended from the darners) have potent venom to paralyze their victims. A few species of tree frogs live and breed in the lower chambers, preferably those without dragonfly nymphs. Their tadpoles, along with the dragonfly nymphs and a number of other species that develop in these reservoirs, are traditionally gill breathers but must come up for air due to the very low surface area and thus dissolved oxygen content of the water in the chamber. No species lives in them permanently, as fires cause them to be drained frequently. The silkwasp is a very common species in the fire forest, and a friend to the redwoods. They eliminate the fire hazard posed by the bamboo, and clearings where the bamboo is inhabited by silkwasps are places where young redwoods become established. Additionally, they greatly reduce the populations of insects who suck the redwood’s sap. But the tiny things aren't a real problem for a giant tree, especially considering the strain of all the parasitic plants that infest them… these, and one prominent, interesting species and its relationship with animals in particular, will be covered in the next exciting installment... Edited by HangingThief, Feb 21 2016, 02:41 PM.
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| HangingThief | Feb 13 2016, 09:53 PM Post #10 |
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Here's a quick illustration I made of a silkwasp nest for visual reference: http://i.imgur.com/PwutYhJ.jpg (I know, I write like a 5 year old lol) |
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| HangingThief | Feb 14 2016, 04:32 PM Post #11 |
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In some areas, a significant amount of moisture enters the environment through mist and fog. Even when it doesn't rain, a phenomenon known as “fog drip” from trees can moisten the ground to a significant degree as the droplets form on leaves, grow larger and drop to the ground. Ancient 21st century redwood trees, due to their great size and surface area, could supply over half the moisture to the forest floor through fog drip falling to the ground. Yet even though fog forms droplets on the needles of the redwoods almost every day in the Fire Forest, virtually none of that moisture reaches the ground. Part of this has to do with the tree’s shape and growth habit. It is roughly cone shaped, and the lowest branches on the trunk are the widest, and they are usually half dead with healthy twigs and needles only at the very edge. This is partly due to being shaded out, mostly due to the huge numbers of epiphytes that coat every inch of the tree’s branches. The twigs are erect, so water flows in toward the branches and trunk rather than off the twig’s ends. The ancient redwoods were also known for supporting communities of epiphytes- their giant limbs developed pockets of soil in which other trees and shrubs could grow. But in the future redwood’s canopies, it is dry and the spruces have been replaced with cacti. Where there is no soil to root in, true epiphytes grow. Succulence is one method of drought tolerance, resistance to desiccation is another. Such plants as resurrection ferns, spike mosses, and some kinds of true mosses form colonies in the shadier areas. In the summer, these roll up and turn brown in the heat of the day. When they spring back to life after a winter rain, it is quite an odd sight to see a lush carpet of ferns and moss right next to the soil deposit full of cacti and other desert plants. Other plants make the most of the fog with absorbent surfaces. Lichens are the ancient masters of this. Bromeliads, especially Tillandsia and related genera, have water absorbent trichomes and are very efficient at collecting water. They are among the most abundant epiphytes in the canopy. Other kinds of plants, mostly descended from rainforest species that have adapted to the dry climate, copycat the bromeliad’s method of absorbing water. There is an art to finding the right surface area ratio so that moisture can be collected and retained with maximum efficiency. Orchids with thick, fleshy, spongelike roots wrap them around narrow twigs and allow them to dangle, or even project them into the air. Some photosynthesize with their roots and have lost their leaves entirely. Other species of plants from various families have evolved to absorb water directly through their leaves and stems. They open specialized pores in their leaves when the fog arrives, and close them to seal in the water when it becomes dry again. The combined consequence of all these thirsty epiphytes, and the form of the redwood’s foliage is that almost no fog that collects on the redwood’s foliage ends up in the soil. The typical rule that the ground is moist, and the treetops are dry has been effectively reversed. This is no accident- the dry ground ensures that the redwoods have zero competition. The redwood actively encourages the epiphytes in its canopy, to ensure that the ground stays dry and the fire regularly scours the forest of any competition that may arise. That's right, the redwoods themselves are partly responsible for the fires. For other trees, epiphytes are freeloaders that burden their host, but the future redwood has harnessed them to its advantage. Another reason the plants that get their moisture from fog are beneficial to the redwood is because they leave less room for the redwood’s scourge- parasites. The plants that live on the branches of the redwoods form a rich community, and this is where most of the biodiversity of the Fire Forest is found. But that doesn't mean that plants who have gone the evil way of the mistletoe hesitate to bring harm to the very living substrate that (literally) supports the entire ecosystem to get the water and nutrients they crave. Indeed, mistletoe itself is a fairly common plant in the canopy, piercing the redwood branches with its sharp roots to reach the sugary xylem flowing under the thick bark. Some varieties can grow as large as the oak trees their little ancestors used as hosts, and they produce copious quantities of fruit- converting nutrients that would otherwise go toward growing relatively unpalatable conifer needles to a much more delicious form. Other parasitic plant species evolved their lifestyle more recently, and some parasitic plants infest other parasitic plants! (Since piercing redwood bark, even on small branches, is not particularly easy.) But one parasitic plant stands out from the pack. It’s species may have arisen relatively recently, but it is an organism that may become more ancient than the redwoods themselves. It is a slow growing, woody vine than draws sap from larger branches. It looks bizarre, relatively smooth vines occasionally interrupted by large, rounded, corky burl like growths. The burls have sparse patches of small, aromatic, needle like leaves that bear a superficial resemblance to pine needles, earning it the name of Pinevine (Arborannuum sequoiaphila). The plant, due to its parasitic nature, has only a minimal requirement for photosynthesis, which is not the leave’s only purpose. It's growth pattern is messy and inconsistent, with the oldest vines as thick as large tree trunks and the younger ones, at least on a mature vine trying to find a new tree to attach itself to when it's current, weakened tree gets fed up with it and the branch it is attached to start to die, can be less than a centimeter in circumference. The round, bulky growths are the plant’s nodes- and they are still mainly where the leaves grow. They are where the vine forks into several stalks, which are smaller and smaller the more they diverge away from the vine’s massive original attach point. The node burls are storage organs, filled with starch. The reason for this has to do with the pinevine’s life cycle. When a young vine becomes established, it's modified roots bore into a large redwood bough to suck the sap- fairly typical parasitic plant lifestyle. But unusually, although it is a vine, these are the only roots it will ever grow on this tree. It will eventually reach a massive size, but these roots are the only place where it gets nutrients. If a vine wraps around another secure branch, it may grow as large as the first vines, but it won't grow roots and pierce the tree. This isn't so unusual, after all, trees only have one anchor point, and the Pinevine is descended from a tree. (not a pine, however.) And there is a good reason for it to only have one anchor point. The original vine where the seed sprouted and successfully bored below the bark can eventually reach several feet in diameter. After the first burl, it splits off into 2- 5 slightly thinner branches. They start off green and supple and gradually become woody. Their purpose is to wrap around new branches, until the Pinevine is held securely in place for more growth. At most of the nodes, the vine doesn't diverge into several vines, but when it does the vines become slightly smaller. The smaller vines start projecting horizontally into the open air, light enough to support their weight. Their purpose is to find a new tree- for all this while, as the Pinevine has slowly grown, it has been sucking the life out of its host. The redwoods don't like having to drop branches, as they become fire hazards, but when the vine (which may eventually account for a tenth of the redwood’s mass not including other epiphytes) becomes intolerable the redwood cuts of the supply of sap to the branch, and it dies. This is where all those starch filled node- burls come in, which it also fills with water when it senses the branch starting to die. Often, the redwood is a bit more proactive about parasites than the Pinevine had counted on, and it hasn't even come close to attaching itself to a new tree. It's thin outer vines, which are radiating outward in search of a new tree, are more likely to encounter the shoots of another Pinevine than they are to touch an unoccupied redwood- when this happens, both vines retreat and start to search in a different direction. So, the Pinevine may be trapped on a dead branch for years before it finds a new tree to colonize. All of this time, it lives off the reserves of water and starches in the burls. When it finds a new tree, the Pinevine wraps vines around the branches until it finds one sturdy enough to serve as the new anchor point. It once again pierces the bark with its roots and begins draining sap once again. After growing for a few years, it is ready to cut off ties with its birthplace. This is the reason it takes sap from only one spot on the old tree, because somewhere, there is just a single vine connecting it that has since diverged many times, since to save energy all the other exploration vines stop growing as soon as the tree is found. If part of it was attached to one branch that is dead, and another part to a still living branch, then this process would be very difficult since the vine will never withdraw its roots from a living branch deliberately. If the dead branch fell, it could drag the entire vine down to its doom. Even if it didn't , the vines now connecting the treetops to the ground create a very convenient ladder that could bring the next fire into the canopy... So, the newly established Pinevine sucks it's ‘former self’ on its original tree dry and lets the vine connecting them die and break as soon as it can. The dead part remains on the tree until it rots away. The whole process, from sprouting to moving, can take 150 years. The plant repeats this process over and over, moving to a new tree or returning to the original one and back, and often lives longer than the redwoods it parasitizes. I didn't get around to the Pinevine’s unique relationship with animals, so that will be covered in the next update. In the meantime, here's an illustration of a Pinevine on a redwood branch, with other epiphytes removed for clarity: http://imgur.com/Ry8emIt Edited by HangingThief, Feb 16 2016, 10:31 AM.
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| LittleLazyLass | Feb 14 2016, 08:08 PM Post #12 |
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Proud quilt in a bag
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Bromeliads, cacti, redwoods, and bamboo all in the same place. You have created something wonderful. |
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totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike) I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess. Me What, you want me to tell you what these mean? Read First Words Maybe | |
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| DroidSyber | Feb 14 2016, 09:05 PM Post #13 |
I'll cut ya swear on me mum
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ClapClapClapClapClap!!!!!! Flora!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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Non Enim Cadunt! No idea how to actually hold down a project. | |
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| HangingThief | Feb 15 2016, 09:37 PM Post #14 |
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ghoulish
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(WARNING: contains gross things eating baby birds. Proceed with caution.) A problem for any plant that stores nutrients for times of need like the Pinevine is the fact that all sorts of organisms will attempt to steal their reserves. Wood is a notoriously non nutritious food, which is why insect larvae that feed upon it are ordinarily used to taking a very long time to develop. The Pinevine may be tough, but what's to stop insects that are already adapted for boring into such materials from plundering the stores of starch and other nutrients found in the vine’s burls? The sap of the Pinevine is full of astringent, acidic, and just plain poisonous chemicals that give it’s leaves their characteristic scent, like many plants including its ancestors in the myrtle family. This gives it a degree of protection, but insects are not known for giving up so easily. Cerambycid and buprestid beetles, timber flies, horntails and others have ancestors that generally attacked only weakened and dead trees, since it's rarely worth it to attack more well protected, healthy trees when other sources of wood are available. But the burls, packed with nutrition that would allow larvae to develop much faster than wood, are a prize that warrants attention no matter how poisonous it is. Weevils also attack the burls, especially smaller ones. Chemicals, as humans came to learn, are never a lasting solution for fending off attacking insects. So how does the Pinevine defend itself? Small passerine songbirds are abundant in the Fire Forest. No other animal has equaled their knack for spotting camouflaged prey. Nowhere will you find a more insect- free surface than a surface constantly scrutinized by birds, which is exactly what the Pinevine is. How does the Pinevine convince birds to guard it against insects round the clock? As mentioned before, the main purpose of the Pinevine's leaves is not photosynthesis. Rather, when the leaves are ripe and ready, the birds harvest them as nesting material. There is no particularly good or bad time of year to raise chicks in the fire forest, and many of the insects that attack Pinevines are generalists or come from those that can't afford to produce leaves because their redwood branch has died, so this relationship is continuous. Nearly all birds, even those that don't typically build using such materials, incorporate some amount of Pinevine needles into their nests. This may sound silly. Why would all the birds pay special attention to the Pinevine, when their are plenty of other good materials? The leaves texture and flexibility (and one other factor) is best for nest building only at a certain stage, and the birds must sort through many before they can find a ripe leaf. Why would they go to the trouble? To find the reason, we have to meet some of their predators… Back in the Holocene, terrestrial planarians were confined to wet places, in rainforests or underneath stones and the like. Slow moving, gliding along on a trail of slime like slugs they digested earthworms and other slow moving invertebrates with the bizarre eversible pharynx in the center of their bodies. They were comparable to some groups of amphibians, dependent on constant moisture for survival. But other amphibians have become more tolerant of dry conditions. Due to their mode of locomotion, a flatworm could never have dry rough skin like a toad. But that isn't the only solution. The Holocene Waxy Monkey Frog, a type of tree frog that lived high in South American rainforest trees, earned its name from the lipid rich “sunscreen” it anointed itself with to avoid drying out in the sun’s heat. Lipids do not evaporate nearly as fast as water and seal in moisture, so arboreal species of planarians have slime with a higher lipid content. Additionally, whenever it is just too hot and dry to be active flatworms can use a type of water based slime to create a hard, waterproof cocoon to ride out the heat of the day inside, attached to a tree trunk or the underside of a leaf. Some flatworms have moved on from simple scavenging or eating slow moving prey. Though many, like their ancestors, are quite poisonous and advertise this with bright colors, others camouflage themselves from their prey. They can have color and texture that masks their moist, shiny exterior so they blend in with dry bark, flattening out like a pancake and waiting. If any hapless small animal touches it, they flood their surface with sticky, poisonous glue to trap it. Should a potential predator assault them, they partially peel themselves off the bark and reveal a brightly colored underside, warning of their toxic and gummy defensive secretions. This is similar to a behavior found in some toxic amphibians known as the Unken reflex. Some species are ‘flavored’ like edible substances to attract prey, so they need a way of telling larger, unwanted investigating animals that they are not food since any attempt to eat them would be far from pleasant to either party involved. Others have not developed more sophisticated hunting techniques, and use their sense of smell to track down an easier meal. For an arboreal flatworm, what could be easier than raiding a bird nest? Ovivoraturbella septemtrionalis and related species are experts in the art of nest raiding, and common in the canopy of the Fire Forest. Up to 20 centimeters long, well camouflaged, and able to slowly crawl pretty well anywhere they want at any time of day, they slowly slither into bird nests and digest the eggs or helpless young chicks. They choose unattended nests purely out of preference. Even if the parents did notice the flatworm creeping towards their young, what could they do? It adheres too strongly to simply flick off, and any physical contact with the creature will result in being covered by the horrible slime. Even if the birds managed to tear it to pieces, they would grow back into new flatworms- simplicity can sometimes be an advantage. Some birds poop on the flatworms with their corrosive excrement, but the worm simply sloughs off its slimecoat from the affected area and carry on without missing a step. (Er, cilia wave?) Occasionally, chicks can be moved, but to where? And most birds can’t move their eggs. Building suspended nests, or nesting in a cavity and blocking the entrance, only slows the worms down- they are strong and persistent. It may be soft, squishy, and not really have a brain, but to small songbirds defending their young it might as well be invincible. Or is it? It’s porous, moist skin may be protected with slime, but as anyone who ever put salt on a slug knows it is still vulnerable to chemicals that dry up liquids. One particularly rich source of such chemicals comes from the Pinevine. When the Pinevine needles are ‘ripe,’ at about 5 inches long, they become pliable and are flooded with chemicals that draw water and dissolve lipids, destroying the flatworm’s slime. A bird nest made of Pinevine needles is an uncrossable, even lethal, barrier to most flatworms. Specialists like Ovivoraturbella have developed some resistance, able to come into contact with older, dried out leaves without ill effects, but birds can keep them at bay for the most part by replacing the needles in their nests with fresh ones at least twice a day. As the birds search among the Pinevines for ripe needles, they snap up any insect they encounter, preventing pests from becoming established in the plant that provides such a service to the well being of their young. Edited by HangingThief, Jun 29 2016, 03:54 PM.
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| HangingThief | Feb 15 2016, 09:42 PM Post #15 |
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ghoulish
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I can't come up with a name for those flatworms that stick to the bark and act like living flypaper, so if anyone has an idea please post it. |
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