Microbe Biomes

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

Temperature

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

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.

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