Questions tagged [ecology]
For questions dealing with the interactions between organisms and their environments.
290 questions
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What is a realistic size and population for a predator that eats humans?
I'm trying to build a species that's exclusively carnivorous, and its favored prey is humans. The species is a solitary mammalian ambush predator, probably with a build similar to a big cat such as a ...
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Where would oxygen in the Underdark come from?
The "Underdark" — as it is referred to in D&D, though equivalents exist in many settings — refers to the massive network of caverns and connected cave systems, ranging in depth from just ...
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How would this magical biosphere impact human civilization?
I'm building a world with the "perfect" conditions for very biodiverse and competitive ecosystems, with vast and old rainforests dominating the global picture (though not ubiquitous). This ...
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How large can a network of underground tunnels be before it collapses on itself?
How large can a network of underground tunnels be before it collapses on itself?
In my world I have an alien planet where most intelligent life lives underground in a global network of tunnels. These ...
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What type of climate or geography would allow for a large mountain (10000m+) that glows when the sunlight hits the rockface?
The idea behind this is that there is a large mountain in my world that can be seen from the capital city over 500 km away. I took inspiration from Denali in Alaska, and how it can be seen from ...
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Life on a planet with never-ending rain
I'm intrigued by the notion of life on a planet where rain is a constant presence. Imagine a world where precipitation never ceases, where the skies are perpetually gray, and the sound of raindrops ...
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Growth rate of super moss
Following an answer to aprevious question I posted, this world does is filled with moss and lichen fields that make other plant growth (and crop cultivation) impossible.
But after researching mosses ...
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Would the diet described below sustain a human?
In my world I need to feed a colony of Kobolds. I'm modeling my Kobolds' dietary requirements on humans. My question is whether or not the following foodstuffs would meet the dietary needs of human ...
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In a setting in which South American megafauna and current African animals coexist, which if any could be suitable for domestication?
In my book series, there is a large area of the Planet Aurea called Zebusylvania with a similar climate, flora, and (some) fauna to the Cerrado and Caatinga regions of Brazil in our world. ...
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The miraculous substance of carrangan: can it exist, and what does it change about its planet of origin?
First, this account is a replacement for my old one, Jobah_HigherMind, because I forgot the password after being inactive for four months. But I’m moving away from Algennon questions, at least for now,...
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Which natural process could make the surface of a planet temporarily uninhabitable for some, but habitable for other species?
I want to tell a story about two sentient species inhabiting the same planet, but never meeting. Essentially, some kind of random event (every couple of days up to every couple of months) causes ...
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What would the geological effects of erosion due to extreme megafauna be like on large timescales?
Whenever I see fictional biospheres with massive or otherwise extreme megafauna capable of significant short-term erosion (such as toppling large rock formations, leveling mountains, digging huge ...
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How large could an animal that only eats blood become?
Sanguivores, also known as hemophages, are animals that consume blood. They include obligate sanguivores, like vampire bats, or facultative sanguivores, like the vampire finches from the Galapagos ...
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Anatomically Correct Chupacabra [closed]
This is a submission for the Anatomically Correct Series.
The Chupacabra is a legendary cryptid animal from North American folklore. It is a strange bear-like or reptilian creature that sucks the ...
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Would a carnivore that can only see in infrared be an effective predator?
I'm trying to design new animals. One animal I came up with is a type of nocturnal & carnivorous predator that is shaped like a very large wolf. This predator sees in infrared light instead of ...
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Introducing animals to a terraforming Mars by air-drop
So, the moment has arrived: Mars is habitable. Plants, fungi, and even insects have been introduced by air-drop, along with fish and crustaceans introduced as eggs. However, what larger animals could ...
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How would plant life be affected by rapid fluctuations in temperature?
In my fantasy world I'm constructing, there is not a traditional day and night. Rather, magical lights cross the sky. As soon as one sets, another rises. There are three of these lights, each ...
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Can we use consistent ashfall to help reclaim or create topsoil?
Earth has reached a point of significant desertification due to issues such as climate change, deforestation, pollution, etc. Because of this there's significant topsoil loss across the planet. What's ...
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Can my city be full of giant rats?
The rodents of unusual size in question are not implausibly large from a biological standpoint, being roughly the same weight as an American Beaver, but much more adapted for land living and with an ...
user71781
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How would prey animals adapt to large aerial predators?
Let's say the world's natural history evolved along much the same lines, but the modern species of large herbivores we're familiar with - ie cattle, deer, elephants, antelopes, etc - had to deal with ...
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Which large marine animals could live in an ocean 60 m deep? [closed]
The setting I'm currently working on, has a sea that is large in area, but even the deep ocean, far from land, is only sixty meters deep. (It's a Banks Orbital, but I don't think that matters in and ...
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Make a tiny island robust to ecologic collapse
My world is to have a tiny island that will periodically be inhabited by a person or small group of people. By tiny I'm using a fuzzy yardstick: 1-50 hectares. When people are here, they will be ...
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How could creatures in a zero-G but otherwise Earthlike environment move around?
Humanity has just discovered a massive, derelict space ark containing its own ecosystem. Its artificial gravity has long since failed, and it's been drifting undisturbed for millennia.
Assume that:
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The "Exciting" Drilling company dug an underground canal connecting Death Valley to the Pacific. How does it change the Mojave climate?
Badwater Basin, part of Death Valley, is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point.
The "Exciting" drilling company, based in Nevada (they are exciting and not at all like their b**...
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Why would a creature both have carnivore teeth and side-facing eyes?
So, after a long unplanned hiatus, I have started designing alien creatures again, and one image that eve before that hiatus I could not get out of my head is that of a creature which has both the ...
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