Microbe Biomes

This page or section contains outdated information. This often happens when plans are changed after something has been written.

Biomes are the backdrop for ecosystems in the Microbe Stage. Biomes in the Microbe Stage are mostly preset, unlike in the later stages.

Overview

Biomes define the conditions of the environment in a certain area. Different conditions in different biomes will restrict the habitats of microbial species and lead to the creation of different species of Microbes residing in different parts of the planet.

Factors

Every biome is defined by a set of physical characteristics called "Factors". These include light, temperature, pressure, and more. Below is a list of all the environmental factors.

• Factor (unit)
• Depth (m, or meters): How far below sea level the biome is.
• Light (% Intensity): Light will appear in the environment ranging between a set of intensities. It speeds up chloroplasts, but at higher intensities can also damage cells that haven't evolved pigments to protect against solar radiation.
• Temperature (°C, or degrees Celsius): Heat will appear in the environment ranging between a set of temperatures. It speeds up thermoplasts, but at higher temperatures can also damage cells that get too close and aren't evolved to withstand high heat.
• Currents: How strong the water currents are, affecting the need to evolve more movement organelles or not, and how quickly compounds circulate throughout the environment.
• Salinity (ppm, or parts per million): Cells that are adapted to high salinity need to evolve their membranes to migrate into low salinity biomes. (This might be an unnecessary variable to include)
• Pressure (atm, or atmospheres): Cells that are adapted to high pressure need to evolve their membranes to migrate into low pressure biomes.
• Acidity (pH, or Potential of Hydrogen): Cells that are adapted to regular pH need to evolve to tolerate highly acidic or basic environments.
• Gasses: The gasses (gaseous compounds) present in this biome.
• Compounds: Liquid or solid compounds present in this biome.
• Compounds Generated: Any naturally occuring/produced compounds in this biome.

Though some factors of a biome are relatively constant, some can be subject to change from natural phenomena. For example the ocean surface may start deoxygenated, but years of photosynthesis could lead to an oxygenation event ultimately leading to a buildup of oxygen in the ocean surface.

Inherited Factors

Not every variable of a biome is always the same for that biome. Sometimes, the variables depend on where the biome has been generated. For example, the Sea Floor biome (Benthic Zone) will have a different pressure level based on whether it's the seafloor of a shallow sea, or the seafloor of a massive and deep ocean. Inherited factors will be inherited from the biome's Region, which is described further below.

Regions

Some biomes may all be part of a greater, collective region. For example, a set of ocean surface "Epipelagic" patches may all be part of a large ocean. As such, these will be grouped into a "Region" to represent that ocean. Some of the factors of these biomes will be inherited from the factors of that ocean. And then furthermore, some of the factors of some of the patches in this region will be inherited from the factors of other patches they are attached to. So the overall hierarchy of inheritance of factors looks like:

Regions --> "Base" Patches (Epipelagic, Mesopelagic, Bathypelagic, etc.) --> "Associated" Patches (Caves, Sea Floor, Vents, etc.)

As a result, if a large scale environmental event occurs that affects the factors of a region, all biomes within that region will be effected because of factor inheritance.

List of Factors

Depth

Depth is measured in meters (m).

Depth itself has no effect on life, and is only descriptive. Instead it predicts or determines other factors such as pressure, temperature, light, etc.

Some biomes are defined by their depth, such as the different oceanic layer biomes (Epipelagic, Mesopelagic, Bathypelagic, etc).

Once we get further into development for the game and start implementing terrestrial and aerial biomes, perhaps it would be better to rename this factor to Altitude or Elevation.

Pressure

Pressure is measured in atmospheres (atm, with 1 atm being pressure at sea-level on Earth).

Pressure is directly a result of the depth of a patch, and the fluid makeup of the patch.

On Terran planets, most fluid bodies will be comprised of fresh or salt water, which have nearly identical densities. As such, pressure in aquatic patches will scale linearly with depth, to be about 1 atm at sea level, and increase by 1 atm for every 10m of depth.

Cells adapted to low pressures will be able to live on ocean surfaces, and will be able to more easily migrate to freshwater patches (provided they can survive the salinity difference) making them more widely distributed in the world. Cells adapted to high pressure will be mostly constrained to deep ocean patches, and will likely be more isolated.

Light

Light is measured in lux (lx).

Light is directly a result of the depth of a patch, as well as star intensity, weather patterns, seasons, and the day/night cycle.

On Terran planets, light will never penetrate deeper than 200m. As you descent from 0-200m, not even all light will penetrate. Depths closer to 200m will have a smaller and smaller spectrum of wavelengths of light that are able to penetrate to that depth, whereas the surface will have nearly the entire spectrum.

The light penetration spectrum of water.

On Terran Planets, no cells will start adapted to light. Cells will gradually evolve tolerance to light if they wish to escape competition in the deeper ocean, or if they wish to harness light to perform Photosynthesis (or other light-driven metabolic processes).

Temperature

Temperature is measured in degrees Celsius (°C).

For Terran Planets, temperature decreases by depth according to the following pattern.

The change in water temperature with increasing depth, with differences in latitudes and seasons shown.

High latitude biomes (far north and far south) are equally cold from the surface to the ocean floor. Meanwhile, tropical patches experience the greatest fluctuation from surface to sea floor, with the surface being very warm and it then rapidly dropping in temperature as the water gets deeper. Seasonal temperature variations are minimal as even winters in the tropics will likely be warm and sunny. Temperature biomes are a mid-ground, with a reasonable decline in temperature as depths increase, and with seasonal variation of surface temperatures year round.

Adaptation to higher temperatures will allow cells to live in ocean surfaces and shallow waters in warmer parts of the planet, with the most extreme adaptations allowing cells to live near hydrothermal vents or in geothermal pools. Colder temperature adaptations will allow cells to live in the deep ocean or in the oceans of the far north or south, and extreme adaptations allow living near ice shelfs.

Currents

The currents of a patch range between low, medium, and high. This simply determines the strength of currents generated in that biome.

Stronger currents in a patch make it harder for mobile organisms to evolve. It greatly incentivizes sessile living, since currents will be hard to swim against and will bring compounds to you anyways. Cells that evolve to attach to each other or to foreign surfaces (like chunks) will be greatly incentivized, as they will be able to anchor themselves against the strong currents.

Weak currents in a patch make it easier for mobile organisms to evolve, as there will be little hindrance of their mobility and so they will be able to mostly in control of their own movement. Such patches will likely experience much more active predator species.

We couldn't find much research on how currents differ between biomes, so the values per biome are estimates. If better research can be found linking current strengths to biomes, we will use those more accurate values.

Salinity

Salinity in a patch is measured in parts per million (ppm).

Salinity distinguishes aquatic patches between saltwater and freshwater.

Acidity

Acidity in a patch is measured in power of hydrogen (pH).

Acidity is typically always neutral, and is only found in extremely low or high levels in brine seeps, near hydrothermal vents, or in geothermal pools. Planetary climate change can also result in oceans increasing or decreasing in acidity. For example, an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to acid rain that can lead to ocean acidification.

Gasses

The gaseous compounds found in a patch depend on the patch's depth and what patches it's connected to. Gasses will flow between patches based on natural processes until reaching an equilibrium (note that this does not mean equal amounts in every patch). Natural events can create a concentration or deficit of a gas in one/several patches, but this will equilibrate over time.

Compounds

The solid and liquid compounds found in a patch also depend on the patche's depth and what patches it's connected to.

Compounds Generated

The compounds generated in a patch depend on its biome.

Habitability

The physical and chemical boundaries of life will make each species only able to tolerate a certain range of each Environmental Variable. On the standard, Earth-based player world produced via Planet Generation (sometimes referred to as Terran planets), life will always originate at one of the planet's Hydrothermal Vents biomes. As such, life on "Terran" planets will always start with the following environmental tolerances:

• Temperature: 50-70 °C
• Pressure: 100-200 atm
• Light: 0-5%
• pH: 6-8
• Salinity: 0-50,000 ppm

Environmental Tolerance

If a species migrates to a patch with variables outside of its tolerances, it will receive penalties to its cellular functions. This will be in the form of a reduction to the efficiency (i.e. processing speed) of its compound processing organelles. These means any organelles that turn one compound into another, or turn compounds into ATP. The penalties, per variable, are:

• Temperature: -10% efficiency for every 5°C out of range.
• Pressure: -10% efficiency for every 20 atm out of range.
• Light: -10% efficiency for every 5% out of range.
• pH: -10% efficiency for every pH 0.5 out of range.
• Salinity: -10% efficiency for every 1000 ppm out of range.

These penalties stack, so if you are 20 atm out of your depth tolerance, and 5% out of your light tolerance, you will receive an overall 20% penalty to your cell's efficiency. This will mean species are encouraged to live within the biomes they're adapted to, or evolve to adapt to new biomes if they want to compete there. It will also drive species to diverge if living in separate biomes.

List of Microbiomes

The current list of biomes can be found on the Microbe Appendices page here.

For the direct link to the spreadsheet look here.

To-Do

Underwater Cavern? Ice Shelf? Estuary?

This topic is currently being discussed here: https://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/differentiating-microbe-biomes/194/3