Clarice: Ok, these are the food chains I have come up with.
Food chains:
1. Plant --> Omnivore
2. Plant --> Herbivore --> Carnivore 1 --> Carnivore 2 --> Omnivore
3. Plant --> Herbivore --> Carnivore 2 --> Omnivore
Madhu: The habitat of the biome will be Alpine Tundra, on a meadow.
Yuxing: The following are the characteristics that the alpine tundra experiences:
A lot of rainfall
Strong winds
Permafrost
Low rate of decomposition
Low temperatures all year round
No trees, only some shrubs
Does not traverse large expanses of terrains
Very low amount of carbon dioxide
Yamon: Let’s work up the food chain, starting from the plant.
Clarice: The ground is covered in permafrost and I researched that only small plants grow in alpine tundra. So, the plant can’t be too big. How will the roots of the plant hold onto the permafrost?
Wanrui: I think the plant should have a main spike to hook onto the permafrost. Then, when the roots are deep enough into the soil, there will be smaller roots that stems out from the main root to help the plant to have a better grip in the soil so that the plant can withstand the strong winds that the biome experiences. Is that fine with you all?
Wei Tong: Yeah, it’s great. Can we think of how the plant will photosynthesise, if there is a low amount of carbon dioxide in the alpine tundra?
Madhu: I think the plant should have a special type of adaptation that will allow it to be able to photosynthesise even if there is a low amount of carbon dioxide available for it.
Wanrui: There would be much more animals than plants so they will produce a lot of carbon dioxide, right?
Yuxing: Oh yeah. Then it does not need to have an adaptation for that.
Yamon: Okay, so now that we have that settled, we should move onto the adaptations that the plant has to cope with the extreme temperatures.
Wei Tong: Let it have pockets of air. Then, when the temperatures get too high, the plant can just release the air in the air pockets to cool down.
Madhu: The plant can also produce heat from the base of its stem. It will help in keeping the plant warm. It will also allow the plant to be able to melt the permafrost on the ground, so that there will be water for the roots of the plant to absorb.
Wanrui: Yeah, after the plant absorbs the water, it can retain some of the excess water in the stem, so that when the organisms eat the plant, they will get their source of water from the plant. As most of the precipitation is in the form of snow, it will be quite hard for the animals to have access to water, right?
Yuxing: That’s good. If the plant can produce heat, does that mean that when the organisms eat the plant, they will feel warm as well?
Yamon: Yes. They will get some of the heat. It will not be enough to keep the organisms warm all the time. The animals will only get a little amount of heat, to last for, maybe, one hour.
Clarice: That’s a good idea. So, how will the plant reproduce?
Wanrui: There are a few ways for plants to reproduce. For example, they can reproduce by seeds, suckers, underground stems, or by leaves. Which way should the plant use?
Yuxing: If the plant were to reproduce by seeds, it would mean that the seeds would have to be dispersed somewhere, maybe by the strong winds, and then land on the soil to grow into a new plant. However, I don’t think that the seed will be able to dig under permafrost and grow. Therefore, it would be best if the plant uses an asexual reproduction method.
Clarice: Let’s just use suckers then, since the new plant will be growing from underground, it will be easier for the new plant to penetrate through the permafrost from underground to the surface.
Wei Tong: So the suckers can just grow to the surface and grow into new plants. That would mean that the plants would be growing quite near each other. Won’t there be more competition then?
Madhu: A little competition won’t be that bad for the plants, right?
Clarice: I think it should have more branches so that it can have more air pockets on them.
Yuxing: I think the plants should have one main stem and no branches because there would be less surface area and thus, resulting in less heat loss.
Yamon: It makes sense. Okay then. Let’s continue with the herbivore.
Wanrui: The herbivore is going to be preyed on by carnivores 1 and 2. It should have some real good adaptations to escape from its predators so that the population of the herbivore won’t be depleted. It should also have adaptations to withstand the cold.
Clarice: Maybe it should be camouflaged so that the predators won’t spot it easily.
Yuxing: So, it should have a white fur coat, right?
Wei Tong: What if it’s in summer? In summer, the tundra is supposed to be covered in grass, isn’t it?
Yamon: Then it should shed its fur coat in summer. It will have green skin beneath the white fur coat so it can camouflage in summer.
Madhu: As a defence against the predators, it should squirt out a type of gas, from its rear, that is attractive to the predators so that the wind will carry the scent to the predator. Then the predator will stop chasing the herbivore and start following that scent.
Wanrui: Then the herbivore should run against the wind when running away from the predator so that the wind will carry the scent in the direction opposite from that it is running in.
Clarice: That means it should have long and strong legs to run away from predator against the wind direction, shouldn’t it? I mean, if the herbivore is slow, it won’t take long for the predator to realize it has been fooled and in the end find the herbivore.
Yuxing: It should also have a streamlined body shape as well, to run faster as it would reduce air resistance.
Yamon: Oh and how about reproduction? It is very important to ensure the continuity of the species so as to balance the food web. What about the males will make pleasant sounds to attract mates all year round, as they have no mating season. Perhaps, gestation period can be about 3 weeks so that it has enough time to develop fully and grow the adaptations.
Wei Tong: Now that we are done with the herbivore, let’s move on to carnivore 1. I thought about my organism having small ears, padded feet, long and sharp whiskers, small in size, and sharp claws. What do you think?
Clarice: I do agree with your points, but let me add some points. It should have far apart eyes, which causes poor vision so that it cannot see the herbivore running away in the opposite direction.
Yamon: It should also have large nostrils, allowing them to have a good sense of smell. That’s how it will get tricked by the herbivore, right?
Yuxing: To prevent the cold, like what you said, it can have sharp claws to dig into permafrost to burrow in soil and keep warm when it is sleeping. It should be big so that it has more energy to dig.
Madhu: I don’t think it should be very big because digging a big hole in the permafrost can be a tiresome job. It cannot be doing that every night. Let’s make it small so that it would be easier to dig the hole. Also, if it digs big holes, the soil might become very loose which may result in a catastrophe for the plants.
Wanrui: Yeah i agree. Although they are small, but they are equally powerful and maybe they can attack in packs?
Yuxing: Okay then, so carnivore 1 is small in size and attack in packs. But, how are they going to find a mate during mating season?
Yamon: It will then lay many eggs at a time so they do not need to take care of their young. The female will burrow the eggs in a hole that the male has dug. On average the female will lay 150 eggs each time. About 100 of them will reach adulthood.
Wanrui: As carnivore 1 is eaten by carnivore 2, to sustain its population, we can say that the young of carnivore 1 reaches adulthood in 3 months’ time and carnivore 1 can reproduce thrice a year, which means there will be 3 mating seasons in a year.
Wei Tong: To escape from carnivore 2, I think it should have a good sense of hearing too. Normally, big ears allow good sense of hearing, but I think if carnivore 1 has big ears, then it will have problems with digging a hole and burrowing in it. The big ears will not fit into the hole.
Yamon: Let’s choose another form of adaptation, which will allow it to have a good sense of hearing but still will not affect it from fitting into the hole that it has dug. Any ideas?
Madhu: It can have 2 ears on each of their 2 legs to hear from all directions. Thus, they have a good sense of hearing.
Clarice: I don’t think having only good hearing is enough for it. What if the organism is about to catch it? Having good hearing will not be of much use then.
Yuxing: Actually, I don’t think the part about long and sharp whiskers will work out. Whiskers are probably too flimsy to be able to kill prey. It can probably have 2 long colourful spikes at the side of mouth that are poisonous to act as a weapon to kill prey, protect themselves from predators and attract mates.
Yamon: Yes. As they are small, they should attack in packs, right? It will allow them to catch a prey easily.
Wanrui: We have got nearly everything about carnivore 1 settled, so we should now move on to carnivore 2.
Yamon: Since carnivore 2 is preying on carnivore 1, it should have a good sense of sight because it needs to search for carnivore 1, which is quite small.
Yuxing: How about letting it have big eyes? It will help in seeing better. It might even scare away its predators.
Madhu: Big eyes alone will not be too effective, I think. Let’s give it big, bulging eyes, which result in good vision, allowing the organism to see 180 degrees in any direction.
Wei Tong: As it is eaten by the omnivore, it should also have a strong sense of hearing. That will warn the organism when the omnivore approaches and give the organism time to escape.
Clarice: Its paws can sense vibration of sound waves, which results in the organism having a good sense of hearing. The paws should also be powerful to help in killing prey by swiping.
Wanrui: How about defence? It should have a form of defence, right?
Yamon: It can have a long tail with one spike at end. Spike can be shot out once and regrown.
Madhu: That is good but the spike can only be regrown once a day. If not, the organism will be too strong for the omnivore to catch it. The omnivore may starve to death because of starvation and the population of the carnivore 2 will also not be controlled.
Clarice: How does the organism adapt to the low amount of rainfall? How about it is able to survive without water for a long time. When it finds a source of water, it can drink up to a quarter of its weight and store it in its bloodstream. It has oval-shaped red blood cells to drink a huge amount of water in an instant without fear of cells splitting due to excess water content.
Yamon: That’s a good idea!
Wanrui: Since carnivore 1 has a small stature, how about we let carnivore 2 be bigger and stronger to aid in direct confrontation?
Weitong: I agree.
Yuxing: To keep warm, it can have many insulating layers of fat. That will mean that the organism will have to be quite big. That is both good and bad because the organism will be able to scare both its prey and the predator with its big body. However, its big body will prevent it from running fast. That is when the spikes come in handy, as it can shoot the spikes at the omnivore, to defend itself. It can also curl itself up to keep warm when it is asleep.
Wei Tong: As it is a carnivore, it should also have sharp teeth to get a strong grip on prey’s throat and rip flesh apart. There should also be sharp claws that serve the same purpose. However, the sharp claws also help to give a grip on the permafrost to prevent slipping.
Clarice: The organism can be colourful and have different colours for every body part to attract mates. Should the organism have a weakness? Or else it might be too powerful and hunt till extinction. Carnivore 2 should have a good sense of smell as the herbivore squirts a liquid that vaporizes and is attractive to predators in opposite direction of where it's running to mislead predator. As carnivore 2 has an acute sense of smell, it would easily smell the scent and chase in the opposite direction of where herbivore is running. Hence, herbivore would be able to escape.
Yamon: But how should it smell then?
Clarice: How about letting carnivore 2 smell using the Jacobson’s organ. It flicks out its forked tongue, and presses the tongue to roof of the mouth. The forked tongue is used to bring minute air particles into contact with this organ, and then perceives and identifies the smell as prey, predator, or otherwise. So, unlike mammals, the tongue is not used to taste or aid in swallowing, but simply as an accessory smelling organ. This allows carnivore 2 to smell what is in the air, hence giving an acute sense of smell.
Wanrui: It can give birth to few young alive every 3 months and protects young until they become mature. The young matures in 3 months’ time.
Yamon: With this settled, we can move on to the omnivore.
Yuxing: Since carnivore 2 can shoot spikes, it should be able to fly and dodge those spikes. Hence, the omnivore can be a type of bird
Madhu: So, the omnivore flies and has feathers to trap heat to protect itself from the cold. It has 2 wings and 4 legs. It has 4 legs to grab prey from the ground since the prey is big.
Clarice: It can wrap its feathers which are on its wings around itself when sleeping to keep warm.
Wei Tong: It can have sharp talons on legs to have a strong grip on prey and rip flesh open since it will be swooping down to catch prey. So it must be able to swiftly grip onto the prey and fly away immediately. If it has a poor grip, it may drop the prey.
Yamon: Since it is an omnivore, it will be eating both the meat diet and the vegetarian diet. How about its teeth?
Wan Rui: It can have 2 heads. For one of the heads, the beak would be sharp and tongue would be thorny to tear flesh. For the other head, the mouth is round, and will have molar teeth, to chew vegetables.
Madhu: Since it is such a strong organism, too many of it will not result in a healthy food web. So it should lay few eggs and protects its young. There will be a specific mating season at the start of summer season and the females will give birth near the end of summer season.
Clarice: So, it only reproduces once a year, right?
Yuxing: Yes. It can also have feet like a gorilla’s to enhance walking on land or landing. That will help the organism when it wants to feast on its prey.
Yamon: We only have the decomposer left. What adaptations should it have?
Wei Tong: I think it should be able to decompose matter from inside out as well. For example, when an organism eats it, it should be able to decompose that organism from inside its stomach.
Wan Rui: It should have a protective layer that protects itself from digestive juices because if not, once it goes into the other organisms’ stomach, it would just be digested and so won’t be able to do its job. It should also grow roots to cling onto passing animals whose fur coat brush against fungi.
Wei Tong: So, it can decompose animals from both inside out and outside in. For inside out, fungi hook onto passing herbivore/prey. Herbivore/prey gets eaten by consumer. Fungi are consumed and decompose animal from inside out. For outside in, fungi hook onto predator and decompose it from the outside.
Madhu: For reproduction, it can have hook-like spores to hook onto passing animals. The spores will grow into a new fungus on the animal that it has clung onto. It will get nutrients from the animal by decomposing it. The decomposition rate will be per normal and it won’t be affected by the cold temperatures because it can get warmth from the animal’s body itself.
Clarice: So when other animals die, they will also get decomposed in the same way. The fungi will hook onto the dead matter and decompose it from outside. The decomposition rate will be slower than when it is decomposing the live animals though, because of the cold temperature.
Yuxing: There are two problems if the spores have air pockets. When the fungi is still not fully grown yet, it will not have any spores, so that will lead to not heat being generated. And furthermore, the spores will eventually be dispersed! So the heat should not be generated by the spores.
Wan Rui: What about the hyphae? They can generate heat in the process of generating the digestive enzyme right? Furthermore, the hyphae is at the roots, so when the spore first germinate, the hyphae can already provide it with the heat it needs to survive and decompose!
Yamon: That is alright. So when the fungi are decomposing dead animals or plants, they will generate their own heat, but when the fungi are decomposing live animals, they will get the heat from the animals. The former one will be slower, because the amount of heat generated will not be a lot.
Madhu: When the fungi are decomposing the dead plants and animals, they can melt the snow to get water. This adaptation solved two problems! Both water and warmth is done now.
Wei Tong: So now, all the three factors required for decomposition is present for the fungi. We are done with this organism.
Yuxing: Alright! We have finalized all the adaptations. We can now move on to building our models of the organisms! Good job, guys!
Food chains:
1. Plant --> Omnivore
2. Plant --> Herbivore --> Carnivore 1 --> Carnivore 2 --> Omnivore
3. Plant --> Herbivore --> Carnivore 2 --> Omnivore
Madhu: The habitat of the biome will be Alpine Tundra, on a meadow.
Yuxing: The following are the characteristics that the alpine tundra experiences:
A lot of rainfall
Strong winds
Permafrost
Low rate of decomposition
Low temperatures all year round
No trees, only some shrubs
Does not traverse large expanses of terrains
Very low amount of carbon dioxide
Yamon: Let’s work up the food chain, starting from the plant.
Clarice: The ground is covered in permafrost and I researched that only small plants grow in alpine tundra. So, the plant can’t be too big. How will the roots of the plant hold onto the permafrost?
Wanrui: I think the plant should have a main spike to hook onto the permafrost. Then, when the roots are deep enough into the soil, there will be smaller roots that stems out from the main root to help the plant to have a better grip in the soil so that the plant can withstand the strong winds that the biome experiences. Is that fine with you all?
Wei Tong: Yeah, it’s great. Can we think of how the plant will photosynthesise, if there is a low amount of carbon dioxide in the alpine tundra?
Madhu: I think the plant should have a special type of adaptation that will allow it to be able to photosynthesise even if there is a low amount of carbon dioxide available for it.
Wanrui: There would be much more animals than plants so they will produce a lot of carbon dioxide, right?
Yuxing: Oh yeah. Then it does not need to have an adaptation for that.
Yamon: Okay, so now that we have that settled, we should move onto the adaptations that the plant has to cope with the extreme temperatures.
Wei Tong: Let it have pockets of air. Then, when the temperatures get too high, the plant can just release the air in the air pockets to cool down.
Madhu: The plant can also produce heat from the base of its stem. It will help in keeping the plant warm. It will also allow the plant to be able to melt the permafrost on the ground, so that there will be water for the roots of the plant to absorb.
Wanrui: Yeah, after the plant absorbs the water, it can retain some of the excess water in the stem, so that when the organisms eat the plant, they will get their source of water from the plant. As most of the precipitation is in the form of snow, it will be quite hard for the animals to have access to water, right?
Yuxing: That’s good. If the plant can produce heat, does that mean that when the organisms eat the plant, they will feel warm as well?
Yamon: Yes. They will get some of the heat. It will not be enough to keep the organisms warm all the time. The animals will only get a little amount of heat, to last for, maybe, one hour.
Clarice: That’s a good idea. So, how will the plant reproduce?
Wanrui: There are a few ways for plants to reproduce. For example, they can reproduce by seeds, suckers, underground stems, or by leaves. Which way should the plant use?
Yuxing: If the plant were to reproduce by seeds, it would mean that the seeds would have to be dispersed somewhere, maybe by the strong winds, and then land on the soil to grow into a new plant. However, I don’t think that the seed will be able to dig under permafrost and grow. Therefore, it would be best if the plant uses an asexual reproduction method.
Clarice: Let’s just use suckers then, since the new plant will be growing from underground, it will be easier for the new plant to penetrate through the permafrost from underground to the surface.
Wei Tong: So the suckers can just grow to the surface and grow into new plants. That would mean that the plants would be growing quite near each other. Won’t there be more competition then?
Madhu: A little competition won’t be that bad for the plants, right?
Clarice: I think it should have more branches so that it can have more air pockets on them.
Yuxing: I think the plants should have one main stem and no branches because there would be less surface area and thus, resulting in less heat loss.
Yamon: It makes sense. Okay then. Let’s continue with the herbivore.
Wanrui: The herbivore is going to be preyed on by carnivores 1 and 2. It should have some real good adaptations to escape from its predators so that the population of the herbivore won’t be depleted. It should also have adaptations to withstand the cold.
Clarice: Maybe it should be camouflaged so that the predators won’t spot it easily.
Yuxing: So, it should have a white fur coat, right?
Wei Tong: What if it’s in summer? In summer, the tundra is supposed to be covered in grass, isn’t it?
Yamon: Then it should shed its fur coat in summer. It will have green skin beneath the white fur coat so it can camouflage in summer.
Madhu: As a defence against the predators, it should squirt out a type of gas, from its rear, that is attractive to the predators so that the wind will carry the scent to the predator. Then the predator will stop chasing the herbivore and start following that scent.
Wanrui: Then the herbivore should run against the wind when running away from the predator so that the wind will carry the scent in the direction opposite from that it is running in.
Clarice: That means it should have long and strong legs to run away from predator against the wind direction, shouldn’t it? I mean, if the herbivore is slow, it won’t take long for the predator to realize it has been fooled and in the end find the herbivore.
Yuxing: It should also have a streamlined body shape as well, to run faster as it would reduce air resistance.
Yamon: Oh and how about reproduction? It is very important to ensure the continuity of the species so as to balance the food web. What about the males will make pleasant sounds to attract mates all year round, as they have no mating season. Perhaps, gestation period can be about 3 weeks so that it has enough time to develop fully and grow the adaptations.
Wei Tong: Now that we are done with the herbivore, let’s move on to carnivore 1. I thought about my organism having small ears, padded feet, long and sharp whiskers, small in size, and sharp claws. What do you think?
Clarice: I do agree with your points, but let me add some points. It should have far apart eyes, which causes poor vision so that it cannot see the herbivore running away in the opposite direction.
Yamon: It should also have large nostrils, allowing them to have a good sense of smell. That’s how it will get tricked by the herbivore, right?
Yuxing: To prevent the cold, like what you said, it can have sharp claws to dig into permafrost to burrow in soil and keep warm when it is sleeping. It should be big so that it has more energy to dig.
Madhu: I don’t think it should be very big because digging a big hole in the permafrost can be a tiresome job. It cannot be doing that every night. Let’s make it small so that it would be easier to dig the hole. Also, if it digs big holes, the soil might become very loose which may result in a catastrophe for the plants.
Wanrui: Yeah i agree. Although they are small, but they are equally powerful and maybe they can attack in packs?
Yuxing: Okay then, so carnivore 1 is small in size and attack in packs. But, how are they going to find a mate during mating season?
Yamon: It will then lay many eggs at a time so they do not need to take care of their young. The female will burrow the eggs in a hole that the male has dug. On average the female will lay 150 eggs each time. About 100 of them will reach adulthood.
Wanrui: As carnivore 1 is eaten by carnivore 2, to sustain its population, we can say that the young of carnivore 1 reaches adulthood in 3 months’ time and carnivore 1 can reproduce thrice a year, which means there will be 3 mating seasons in a year.
Wei Tong: To escape from carnivore 2, I think it should have a good sense of hearing too. Normally, big ears allow good sense of hearing, but I think if carnivore 1 has big ears, then it will have problems with digging a hole and burrowing in it. The big ears will not fit into the hole.
Yamon: Let’s choose another form of adaptation, which will allow it to have a good sense of hearing but still will not affect it from fitting into the hole that it has dug. Any ideas?
Madhu: It can have 2 ears on each of their 2 legs to hear from all directions. Thus, they have a good sense of hearing.
Clarice: I don’t think having only good hearing is enough for it. What if the organism is about to catch it? Having good hearing will not be of much use then.
Yuxing: Actually, I don’t think the part about long and sharp whiskers will work out. Whiskers are probably too flimsy to be able to kill prey. It can probably have 2 long colourful spikes at the side of mouth that are poisonous to act as a weapon to kill prey, protect themselves from predators and attract mates.
Yamon: Yes. As they are small, they should attack in packs, right? It will allow them to catch a prey easily.
Wanrui: We have got nearly everything about carnivore 1 settled, so we should now move on to carnivore 2.
Yamon: Since carnivore 2 is preying on carnivore 1, it should have a good sense of sight because it needs to search for carnivore 1, which is quite small.
Yuxing: How about letting it have big eyes? It will help in seeing better. It might even scare away its predators.
Madhu: Big eyes alone will not be too effective, I think. Let’s give it big, bulging eyes, which result in good vision, allowing the organism to see 180 degrees in any direction.
Wei Tong: As it is eaten by the omnivore, it should also have a strong sense of hearing. That will warn the organism when the omnivore approaches and give the organism time to escape.
Clarice: Its paws can sense vibration of sound waves, which results in the organism having a good sense of hearing. The paws should also be powerful to help in killing prey by swiping.
Wanrui: How about defence? It should have a form of defence, right?
Yamon: It can have a long tail with one spike at end. Spike can be shot out once and regrown.
Madhu: That is good but the spike can only be regrown once a day. If not, the organism will be too strong for the omnivore to catch it. The omnivore may starve to death because of starvation and the population of the carnivore 2 will also not be controlled.
Clarice: How does the organism adapt to the low amount of rainfall? How about it is able to survive without water for a long time. When it finds a source of water, it can drink up to a quarter of its weight and store it in its bloodstream. It has oval-shaped red blood cells to drink a huge amount of water in an instant without fear of cells splitting due to excess water content.
Yamon: That’s a good idea!
Wanrui: Since carnivore 1 has a small stature, how about we let carnivore 2 be bigger and stronger to aid in direct confrontation?
Weitong: I agree.
Yuxing: To keep warm, it can have many insulating layers of fat. That will mean that the organism will have to be quite big. That is both good and bad because the organism will be able to scare both its prey and the predator with its big body. However, its big body will prevent it from running fast. That is when the spikes come in handy, as it can shoot the spikes at the omnivore, to defend itself. It can also curl itself up to keep warm when it is asleep.
Wei Tong: As it is a carnivore, it should also have sharp teeth to get a strong grip on prey’s throat and rip flesh apart. There should also be sharp claws that serve the same purpose. However, the sharp claws also help to give a grip on the permafrost to prevent slipping.
Clarice: The organism can be colourful and have different colours for every body part to attract mates. Should the organism have a weakness? Or else it might be too powerful and hunt till extinction. Carnivore 2 should have a good sense of smell as the herbivore squirts a liquid that vaporizes and is attractive to predators in opposite direction of where it's running to mislead predator. As carnivore 2 has an acute sense of smell, it would easily smell the scent and chase in the opposite direction of where herbivore is running. Hence, herbivore would be able to escape.
Yamon: But how should it smell then?
Clarice: How about letting carnivore 2 smell using the Jacobson’s organ. It flicks out its forked tongue, and presses the tongue to roof of the mouth. The forked tongue is used to bring minute air particles into contact with this organ, and then perceives and identifies the smell as prey, predator, or otherwise. So, unlike mammals, the tongue is not used to taste or aid in swallowing, but simply as an accessory smelling organ. This allows carnivore 2 to smell what is in the air, hence giving an acute sense of smell.
Wanrui: It can give birth to few young alive every 3 months and protects young until they become mature. The young matures in 3 months’ time.
Yamon: With this settled, we can move on to the omnivore.
Yuxing: Since carnivore 2 can shoot spikes, it should be able to fly and dodge those spikes. Hence, the omnivore can be a type of bird
Madhu: So, the omnivore flies and has feathers to trap heat to protect itself from the cold. It has 2 wings and 4 legs. It has 4 legs to grab prey from the ground since the prey is big.
Clarice: It can wrap its feathers which are on its wings around itself when sleeping to keep warm.
Wei Tong: It can have sharp talons on legs to have a strong grip on prey and rip flesh open since it will be swooping down to catch prey. So it must be able to swiftly grip onto the prey and fly away immediately. If it has a poor grip, it may drop the prey.
Yamon: Since it is an omnivore, it will be eating both the meat diet and the vegetarian diet. How about its teeth?
Wan Rui: It can have 2 heads. For one of the heads, the beak would be sharp and tongue would be thorny to tear flesh. For the other head, the mouth is round, and will have molar teeth, to chew vegetables.
Madhu: Since it is such a strong organism, too many of it will not result in a healthy food web. So it should lay few eggs and protects its young. There will be a specific mating season at the start of summer season and the females will give birth near the end of summer season.
Clarice: So, it only reproduces once a year, right?
Yuxing: Yes. It can also have feet like a gorilla’s to enhance walking on land or landing. That will help the organism when it wants to feast on its prey.
Yamon: We only have the decomposer left. What adaptations should it have?
Wei Tong: I think it should be able to decompose matter from inside out as well. For example, when an organism eats it, it should be able to decompose that organism from inside its stomach.
Wan Rui: It should have a protective layer that protects itself from digestive juices because if not, once it goes into the other organisms’ stomach, it would just be digested and so won’t be able to do its job. It should also grow roots to cling onto passing animals whose fur coat brush against fungi.
Wei Tong: So, it can decompose animals from both inside out and outside in. For inside out, fungi hook onto passing herbivore/prey. Herbivore/prey gets eaten by consumer. Fungi are consumed and decompose animal from inside out. For outside in, fungi hook onto predator and decompose it from the outside.
Madhu: For reproduction, it can have hook-like spores to hook onto passing animals. The spores will grow into a new fungus on the animal that it has clung onto. It will get nutrients from the animal by decomposing it. The decomposition rate will be per normal and it won’t be affected by the cold temperatures because it can get warmth from the animal’s body itself.
Clarice: So when other animals die, they will also get decomposed in the same way. The fungi will hook onto the dead matter and decompose it from outside. The decomposition rate will be slower than when it is decomposing the live animals though, because of the cold temperature.
Yuxing: There are two problems if the spores have air pockets. When the fungi is still not fully grown yet, it will not have any spores, so that will lead to not heat being generated. And furthermore, the spores will eventually be dispersed! So the heat should not be generated by the spores.
Wan Rui: What about the hyphae? They can generate heat in the process of generating the digestive enzyme right? Furthermore, the hyphae is at the roots, so when the spore first germinate, the hyphae can already provide it with the heat it needs to survive and decompose!
Yamon: That is alright. So when the fungi are decomposing dead animals or plants, they will generate their own heat, but when the fungi are decomposing live animals, they will get the heat from the animals. The former one will be slower, because the amount of heat generated will not be a lot.
Madhu: When the fungi are decomposing the dead plants and animals, they can melt the snow to get water. This adaptation solved two problems! Both water and warmth is done now.
Wei Tong: So now, all the three factors required for decomposition is present for the fungi. We are done with this organism.
Yuxing: Alright! We have finalized all the adaptations. We can now move on to building our models of the organisms! Good job, guys!
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