Because of various confusions around my explanation I have decide to make a model demonstrating how Niches would work, and how they might be generated.
Before we get into the model I should clarify how Trophic Levels work better and why there’s generally about 4 (decomposers are usually set to the side or classed with whichever is final) and how I envision Niches being handled to some extent.
In nature, there is something that occurs known as the 10% Law. In essence, at each level only 10% of energy can be passed on. The following image demonstrates:
Using this law, we can establish the most basic information and hierarchy we need to help define our Niches (In particular, we can class prey and predator AI). So, a niche in the 2nd Trophic Level would primarily list prey in the 1st Trophic Level, a niche in the 3rd Trophic Level might list items in the 2nd, and so forth. It’s also possible for a Niche’s Trophic Level to be fractional, or something of an average, so one could have prey in various levels which is realistic as most Tertiary Consumers don’t spend all their effort on difficult prey like lesser predators and often eat other things too.
As mentioned before, generally speaking there are only about 4 Trophic Levels due to the Sun. Only so much energy can be gained from it and this limits the depth of such hierarchies. It could be made possible to have more energy available in Thrive to extend how many levels are possible but, assuming the Sun is the most viable, the results will generally be similar every time as there is a narrow range of energy life can withstand from the Sun.
Another key piece of information we get from this is a rough idea of biomass and maybe to some extent diversity. If there is only so much energy available in each level, then it makes sense only so many organisms can exist, and they can only take advantage of so many methods especially as energy becomes more and more difficult to obtain.
I made this chart to illustrate how perhaps, Niches could be constrained by energy available. You could use the energy available to cap not only how many Niches are possible but, how much energy they are able to take advantage of. In the chart I assume 1 unit of energy is required for a Niche to be viable but, this could be tweaked of course.
One thing you might notice in my chart is the mention of “Patch Modifiers”. A Patch Modifier is a factor that effects the Niche Count, and how diverse they may have to be. For example, there could be a modifier for Location. It is perfectly possible that energy is not distributed evenly across a Patch, this means there would have to be different Niches for places that are significantly different within the patch or a Niche would have to be able to overcome these differences. There’s also the fact, a place might not be easily reachable from another, which again may mean different Niches. A good example of this could be the difference between a Cave in the patch, and an open area. Another obvious situation is Altitude. If there is energy available higher up, it makes sense there would be Niches to take advantage of greater heights (or able to dig if there is energy down below).
Now for the actual model.
For this model I will be using a fairly basic patch, it is entirely flat land to make things easy and to demonstrate how things may work. There is 5000 units of energy available from the Sun.
So, now going through the Trophic Levels we see there are 4 Levels assuming the sun is the only energy source in this patch. The 4 Levels are:
Trophic Level 1 – Producing 500 units of energy
Trophic Level 2 – Producing 50 units of energy
Trophic Level 3 – Producing 5 units of energy
Trophic Level 4 – Producing .5 units of energy (so we’ll say not enough for a new level)
We also have Decomposers; they will act to remove whatever surplus there is left and will produce certain necessary compounds.
Now that we have our levels, which already act as very broad niches themselves, we must configure the sub-niches they contain. We do this through Patch Modifiers. Some basic Modifiers we can use for this example are as follows:
*Day/Night – When is energy available? When is there light?
*Location – Where along X & Y is there energy?
*Altitude – Where along Z is there energy?
*Nutrients – Where is there Nutrients (so stuff like compounds) and in what quantities?
*Containers – Is energy being contained?
And you could potentially keep making more of these as you need to describe different conditions like temperature, how much light there is, etc.
Having these modifiers, let’s model our first Trophic Level.
Trophic Level 1
Day/Night – This modifier would not do an exceptional deal for the first Trophic Level as they can only use light in this situation to produce energy, not the darkness of night. However, this could add a conditional to our current single Niche that members must be able to survive X hours without light (night).
Location – Currently, light evenly distributes across the patch, this modifier would do nothing for now.
Altitude – It is sensible that members of the first Trophic Level would vary in size. We may implement something that splits Niches for small, medium, and tall members. So, we now have 3 Niches so far. Each Niche would also have requirements of different levels of shade tolerance as light would be less available the shorter a member is (due to larger/taller members blocking light).
Nutrients – We could assume the soil is not perfectly the same everywhere in this particular patch. Therefore, we would split up Niches further between those who can cope with varying kinds of soil. We will do another 3-way split to represent poor, decent, and rich soil on each Niche. This gives us 9 Niches.
Containers – This one is interesting. For Trophic Level 1 energy is quite easily available by simply using Photosynthesis however that also means other members effectively contain some energy that may be usable. Taking advantage of this won’t necessarily make them Trophic Level 2 however, as they could still primarily rely on the Sun and only use other members as a supplementary energy source. We will do a 2-way split for members who take energy that is being contained and those who simply focus on photosynthesis. This gives us 18 potential Niches to fill.
Total number of open Niches: 18 splitting up 5000 units of energy. These Niches have a lot of energy between them so it is possible as the game goes on they could split even more, or we could make even more detailed modifiers (for example, there would of course be modifiers that take further into account who is already populating the patch)
Here is my depiction of a patch with 18 different Niches based on the earlier qualities:
This is Part 1 and I will continue tomorrow but, please share your thoughts or confusions to me.