Acidfruit Megaplage

The acidfruit megaplague replaced its ancestor the stoutplage. With so much competition and limited space on Truteal island the stoutplague began to produce the acid fruits its distant ancestor, the purpplage, once used to produce to carve the rocky landscape of ancient Sagan 4. The result was first minimal and only killed off a small amount of competing flora but the abundant rains eventually dissolved the concentration of acid in the soil and washed it out to sea.

However due to island gigantism it grew to ten times its ancestor's size which ment it could produce not only larger fruit but ones with a higher concentration of acid. This was the key to a mass extinction on Truteal island. With highly acidic soil the other flora could not grow. So much so even the nitrogen cycle microbes were having trouble surviving. However due their high reproduction rate they quickly adapted to the change in the soil acidity.

The first species to go were actually its closest relatives, the purple flora. Their slow growth and cellulose was weak against the acid. Thus the following purple flora went extinct first on Truteal island; polar quilbil, and segmented carnofern. Next were the crystal flora and glass flora. Their chitin outer coating should have helped, but their roots were fungi-like and just as weak against the acidic soil as the purple flora was. Thus the following crystal and glass flora went extinct on Truteal island; poolalgae, glass colony, cryobowl, fruiting cryobowl, box cryobowl, fat korystal, carnivorous cryobowl, dome crystal, and capseed.

Lastly it was a big struggle against the stickyball relatives. While they were indeed purple flora too, they had one advantage, their high reproductive rate. But sadly they could not grow enough with the depleted amount of nitrogen in the soil. Even the poison and toxic varieties hung on for awhile until they were eventually wiped out. Thus the following stickyball flora went extinct on Truteal island; spotted hydroglobe, molted hydroglobe, volvoglobe, stalkglobe, bogaglobe, ringed terraglobe, bouble-banded toxiglobe, saltglobe, boball, and fruiting glog.

Now you ask if the soil was so acidic how could the acidfruit megaplage survive? Well for the most part even with it developing thicker roots it would actually dissolve itself in the process. Its solution was to grow above the soil. Most of its roots grow outside the soil and allow the nixus to get airborne nitrogen directly from the air. Also during the winter the acid is not washed away due to the frozen soil. Thus it must time its fruit to the warmer summer rains in order to keep it from killing itself off too much.

More recently with all the other flora gone the acidic fruits act as a way to thin out the huge forests of acidfruit megaplague. They produce just enough to keep from becoming extinct themselves. However there were other species that went extinct due to their food going extinct. This ranged from microbes that depended upon the crystal flora to species that directly ate the other flora to even 3rd or 4th chain species that died because another species that depended upon the flora died too. Thus the following other species went extinct on Truteal island; cryodome hydroutine, drake cloudswarmer, climbing korrybug, tileback, rolling rlune, ringtailed ketter, purple phlock, pudglyn, armored cloudswarmer, leafcutter krugg, spiked krugg, and scaled diveskimo.

Of those species that did survive life was tough. The soil could still burn the feet of fauna and the only safe season the walk was the winter or when it was heavily raining. Thus species that could fly or escape into the sea thrived. But even then the run off killed off many marine species in the process. Thus creating a dead zone surrounding Trueal island. Thankfully the ocean is so huge it dissipates the acid before it can reach the mainland. However sometimes durring strong storms some of the acid can reach the mainland and scar the flora on the beaches. The species on the brink of extinction due to them living in soil much of the time are the cadovermi, helmethead uksip, uksor, squat limbless and violet cadovermi.

Despite such a devastating impact upon Truteal island, there were some species who thrived such as the pudgy ketter who helps pollinate the tiny flowers of the acidfruit megaplage. They stayed safe from traveling on the large roots and climbing up the tall stalks. Without them the acidfruit megaplage could not survive. Scavengers like the krugg and bloody nose cotingo thrived off the death of so many other species.

Not all of their fruit is acidic. They also produce sweet fruit which houses their actual seeds that will grow into new plants. These are produced at the end of the rainy season and actually germinate slowly during the winter. This helps them grow above ground before its parents produce their acid fruit. Its takes them about 10 years to reach maturity in which they can produce both types of fruit. However it takes them around 100 years to reach full size.