The Fire Forest

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The Fire Forest; In a hostile environment, a rich ecosystem hangs from the branches of giant trees
Topic Started: Feb 11 2016, 10:00 PM (4,496 Views)
HangingThief	Feb 11 2016, 10:00 PM Post #1
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	Table of Contents Intro and the Redwoods Fires and the Bamboo Silkwasps and their fireproof nests Epiphytes, Parasites and the Pinevine Songbirds, Pinevines and Planarians Silkwasp enemies Harpoon Bugs Winter Ephemeral Vegetation Carnivorous Plants vs. Cunning Crawdads Flying Spiders! The Serpent Insect 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.
	Hey.

Replies:
HangingThief	Feb 19 2016, 09:37 PM Post #31
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	truteal Feb 19 2016, 09:02 PM LittleIslander Feb 19 2016, 04:55 PM Not sure how I feel about the Kea descendant. The idea of Kea's becoming established seems a bit shaky, and I don't see why you couldn't use any number of other birds as ancestors. It's extreme behaviour and proportions also seem unnecessary to me. Why'd it evolve such odd methods of life and hunting? I agree, maybe you could make its ancestor another parrot species? it was originally descended from caracaras, but i (stupidly) changed it because of the Carakiller. I'll change it back soon. Edited by HangingThief, Feb 19 2016, 09:41 PM.
	Hey.


HangingThief	Feb 19 2016, 09:39 PM Post #32
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	LittleIslander Feb 19 2016, 09:08 PM I like that the harpoon bugs aren't just the most derived form, that the more "primitive" ones are still around, living alongside them. People all too often like imaging evolution as linear, but more often than not this is the case, particularly with something like insects. Also, a note on the table of contents, some people use different settings for amounts of posts per page, so what page it's on might not be correct all the time. For example, post 17 is on page one for me, but for most people it's on page two. You can click the post number, and it will bring you to the single post by itself. From there you can get a link and put it in the table of contents like this, by using the "ULR" button in the posting UI, so the person can just get a link to the post instead of tracking it down. Similarly, you can put images directly into posts with the "Image" button and an imgur link, although it's recommended to put them in spoilers for the sake of people who's browsers don't auto re-size them (like mine). thanks, i was wondering how to do that Edit: I meant the table of contents, I actually did post the photos with the image button (like I did for the picture of the trees in the first post) and put them in spoilers but they weren't showing up for whatever reason, so I just put a link underneath them. That's why it says "posted image". Edited by HangingThief, Feb 19 2016, 10:16 PM.
	Hey.


HangingThief	Feb 19 2016, 09:40 PM Post #33
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	Sheather Feb 19 2016, 09:22 PM I really like the evolution you've done for the plants. What is the pine vine's ancestor? Melaleuca tree
	Hey.


Datura	Feb 20 2016, 06:45 PM Post #34
Adult Posts: 988 Group: Members Member #734 Joined: Mar 23, 2012 Gender: Male Nationality: U.S.A Favorite Quote: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!	Aside from redwoods and bamboo, do any other plants have any major role in the environment? Aside from the pine vines, surely some weedy plants would make it. Also, to use imgur images on the forum, right click on the image, copy the image link, and put it in the image BBCode.



Vorsa	Feb 20 2016, 07:11 PM Post #35
Mysterious tundra-dwelling humanoid Posts: 866 Group: Members Member #1,607 Joined: Dec 21, 2014 Gender: Male Area of expertise: Alternate Evolution Nationality: British Favorite Quote: "Sarcasm-just one of the many services I offer" Also known as: блин Gender: Male	This is really interesting and unique. However, the pictures (for me at least) aren't appearing unless I click the link. Have you tried posting the image URL into the label 'image' on the full post screen like so: (quote this to see how) Edit: Nevermind, I can see why you posted the links. For whatever reason, Imgur doesn't work. Perhaps you can upload them to a DA stash if you have an account
	My Deviantart: http://desorages.deviantart.com/ Birbs "you are about to try that on a species that clawed its way to the top of a 4 billion year deep corpse pile of evolution. one that has committed the genocide you are contemplating several times already. they are the pinnacle of intelligence-based survival techniques and outnumber you 7 billion to 1" - humans vs machine


Sheather	Feb 20 2016, 07:29 PM Post #36
Posts: 5,953 Group: Admin Member #999 Joined: Mar 13, 2013 Gender: Male Nationality: United States Favorite Quote: if tidepods are so good then why isn't there a tidepods 2 ~ Martin Also known as: Dylan	They work just fine.
	The Gaiaverse \| Eden \| Terra Metropolis \| Life of the Sylvan Islands \| Other Spec Evo \| Sheatheria \| Serina \| The Last Dinosaur A Wholesome and Good Thing \| Sam \|


HangingThief	Feb 20 2016, 07:35 PM Post #37
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	Datura Feb 20 2016, 06:45 PM Aside from redwoods and bamboo, do any other plants have any major role in the environment? Aside from the pine vines, surely some weedy plants would make it. Also, to use imgur images on the forum, right click on the image, copy the image link, and put it in the image BBCode. Some smaller herbaceous plants grow in the winter, but in the summer they all get burned. In the canopy there's plenty of epiphytic plants, including desiccation resistant ferns and mosses, cacti and other succulent plants that grow in soil deposits, gigantic mistletoes and other parasitic plants, and tons of epiphytes including bromeliads, orchids, rhododendrons, other vines besides pinevines, drought tolerant pitcher plant relatives etc. but they all have to adapt to the lack of rainfall and nutrients. I have been trying to post images but they never show up, just a little box that says "posted image."
	Hey.


HangingThief	Feb 20 2016, 07:37 PM Post #38
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	Sheather Feb 20 2016, 07:29 PM They work just fine. Well actually, earlier I noticed that some of them did work (including the one in the intro) but not all of them and never more than one at a time.
	Hey.


Datura	Feb 20 2016, 07:44 PM Post #39
Adult Posts: 988 Group: Members Member #734 Joined: Mar 23, 2012 Gender: Male Nationality: U.S.A Favorite Quote: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!	http://i.imgur.com/vLIJ7aY.jpg Use the image address, like this.



HangingThief	Feb 20 2016, 07:46 PM Post #40
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	I did, that's why it says "posted image" above the links. I added the links after seeing that the images didn't work.
	Hey.


Datura	Feb 20 2016, 07:53 PM Post #41
Adult Posts: 988 Group: Members Member #734 Joined: Mar 23, 2012 Gender: Male Nationality: U.S.A Favorite Quote: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!	Huh, that's odd.



HangingThief	Feb 20 2016, 08:17 PM Post #42
ghoulish Posts: 1,238 Group: Members Member #1,870 Joined: Feb 10, 2016 Gender: Male Nationality: Yank Also known as: A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products. Gender: Chitinous	I don't think anybody needs to see my hideous pencil sketches anyway unless they really want to lol. Also, I fixed the bird thing. I also watched the episode of The Future Is Wild with the carakiller for the first time, and was disheartened to find that not only my use of a caracara descendant but ALSO the idea of an environment with frequent wildfires wasn't unique...
	Hey.


Datura	Feb 20 2016, 08:45 PM Post #43
Adult Posts: 988 Group: Members Member #734 Joined: Mar 23, 2012 Gender: Male Nationality: U.S.A Favorite Quote: My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!	That is not a reason to give up on it, at all. Also, Earth has had time periods where forest fires were frequent. The Carboniferous, for instance. And there are environments just as bad as that today on Earth. Also, the makers of TFIW aren't going to care that you had some similar ideas to them unless you blatantly plagiarized them, which you didn't. Nature often comes up with the same stuff over and over again, usually for a reason. It can also happen with projects.



LittleLazyLass	Feb 20 2016, 08:48 PM Post #44
Proud quilt in a bag Posts: 8,639 Group: Global Mods Member #1,463 Joined: Jun 18, 2014 Area of expertise: Alternate Universes Nationality: Sorry, but why do you want to know aboot my nationality, eh? Uh... sorry, that was rude of me. Sorry. Favorite Quote: "you know you're a nerd when you search Wookieepedia for porn" Also known as: You can call me Little; full list of old names found through profile. Gender: Trans Questioning (see link in sig; feminine pronouns)	HangingThief Feb 20 2016, 08:17 PM I don't think anybody needs to see my hideous pencil sketches anyway unless they really want to lol. Also, I fixed the bird thing. I also watched the episode of The Future Is Wild with the carakiller for the first time, and was disheartened to find that not only my use of a caracara descendant but ALSO the idea of an environment with frequent wildfires wasn't unique... Once again, completely different. One is an open, treeless savannah, whereas this is a redwood/bamboo dominated dry forest.
	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 Forum user Uncanny Gemstar drew what is supposed to be a me. Thanks! Spoiler: click to toggle As they walk in, they're greeted by a small, poorly kept pathway leading to a poorly constructed Japanese-style gate. Behind this, a small field made up of corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, among other plants is contrasted by large piles of books, as well as a few rather out of place looking laptops. Off in the corner, a small woman, with long, striped, and strikingly colorful socks, no shoes, unremarkable denim shorts, a large, fancy black coat, arm warmers, glasses, a tuque, and somewhat unkempt, mid-length blue-and-pink-streaked red hair, is rummaging through a trash bin, located behind a sign saying "employees only". She continues this for a while (walking behind a wall to change her outfit now and then), until one of her visitors coughs. Startled, she looks up, apologizes, and grabs a handful of textbooks and novels before daintily running off to join them. What, you want me to tell you what these mean? Predenterra The (Lost) Lost World The Standing World Read First Clarifications on my sex and gender Sorry if I come off as rude, I don't put much thought into word choice sometimes. I'm also super prone to editing my posts, sometimes multiple times, in the minutes following posting. For the love of god, take my posts from my earlier days on the forum with a grain of salt. I was not particularly knowledgeable or mature back then. Some of them are so cringe-worthy I can't even bring myself to look at them. Words Maybe Great Words Words To Spec By It would have to be something extremely alien, pushing the limits of our imagination. But those are always my favorite kinds of life. ~~The Words of The Xenologist Words To Live By Ignorance is never insulting if you're willing to learn, we're all ignorant about most things. ~~The Words of Lamna Words I Live By Yeah, and even if you don't agree with creationists on that concept, that doesn't mean they can't be decent people. I have friends who are creationist (possibly even young earth) that I get along with fine in general life. I don't think they're right of course, but that doesn't make them intellectual degenerates. ~~The Words of forbidden3 Member Quotes jman123 Ass-breathing fish-lizards? Sounds like a punk rock band Sheather "Holy fucking shit a toilet paper roll! Our favorite thing!" Urufumarukai Tyrannosaurus aquastronka Kamineigh Myo, if you don't stop reading the YouTube comments... Lamna Are you saying what I think you're saying? Sheather bathes in cum? Cephylus And last night I dreamed I was blowing up a Kindergarten with a grenade launcher for no particular reason... revin Oh, and of course more people get killed by selfies than by sharks. Of course. Parasky SHEEEEAAAAATTTTTTHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! whachamacalit2 The smell of rotting flesh really kills my appetite, surprising, but the visual appearance of corpses makes me hungry. Is that weird? Ebervalius I mean, let us say I'm a genderfluid blurflux demi-romantic woman who is sexually attracted to men, but only if they are Melanesian and have a voice like that of Nicholas Cage. Okay, so what? trex841 When I first saw that picture, I thought you were dissecting a condom. Mr Mysterio All hail Robo-Stalin. Peashyjah Seems like everything in this project is now dead. Stealth Rock Seagulls are pretty much trees, right? Watcher We all must finish chapters of our lives to go on to the next. Sometime this means leaving behind versions of ourselves that don't want to die. Yiqi15 For April fool's, we had to make an orgasm that resembled a human foot. Flisch im the black market CaledonianWarrior96 He was a skater birb, she said tweet you later birb Most People at Some Point Quotes Some dude called plucas1 from Youtube comments Funny, isn't it, that our world needs Clark Kent a lot more than Superman. Xenoblade Chronicles Even though he is our creator, that does not afford him the right to take our lives on a whim. But that is the thinking of a homs. He is a god. Such morals cannot apply to gods. So you think we should just shut up and die?! If that is the fate decided by a god. You are mistaken if you think we will simply accept such a fate and wait to die. We'll never stop fighting. Not till the end. To Zanza, the outcome is the same. Thus your logic is flawed. Hades - Kid Icarus Uprising When freaky aliens give you lemons, make freaky alien lemonade. Kid Icarus Uprising But Souls are delicious. They're like bacon - they taste good on anything. But if you eat them, you completely remove them from existence! They can't move on or... or be reincarnated! Huh. I never really gave it much thought. Besides, what do you mean by reincarnation anyway? You know, being reborn as someone or something else. Which means different body, different memories, different experiences, yes? So isn't being reborn as "something else" the same as being "removed from existence"? I... I... eating souls isn't right! That depends on your definition of "right". All living things survive by eating other living things. So what? You're a god. You should be above all that! Gods are above living things, which doesn't necessarily mean we care about them. Some Dude on BBC Two You are being shagged... by a flightless parrot. Stuff http://imgur.com/gallery/Tshu9


Thylacine	Feb 20 2016, 09:00 PM Post #45
thylacine.exe has failed Posts: 393 Group: Members Member #1,620 Joined: Jan 18, 2015 Gender: Male Nationality: Kiwi Favorite Quote: “I am very tired of this Government, which I have never seen, and which is always insisting that I must do disagreeable things, and does no good to anybody.” - Temeraire Gender: Why is there another one	Also, Australia. EDIT: Reduced image size, width 4614 to width 1154 - Holben Edited by Holben, Feb 20 2016, 09:10 PM.
	Spoiler: click to toggle maybe i'll make a project maybe i won't maybe go fuck yourself


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