Duff Dinner
| Duff Dinner | ||
|---|---|---|
| (Talpidibufogrex kosemenii) | ||
 | ||
 | ||
 | ||
| Information | ||
| Creator | Colddigger Other | |
| Week/Generation | 27/167 | |
| Habitat | Kosemen Temperate Rainforest, Kosemen Taiga, Kosemen Temperate Woodland, Central Kosemen Lowboreal, East Kosemen Lowboreal, Vivus Lowboreal, Kosemen Cloud Rainforest, Martyk Temperate Woodland Archipelago | |
| Size | 100 μm to 500 μm cells, 1-10 cm wide colonies | |
| Primary Mobility | Unknown | |
| Support | Unknown | |
| Diet | Detritivore | |
| Respiration | Passive (Diffusion) | |
| Thermoregulation | Ectotherm | |
| Reproduction | Asexual Mitosis, Sexual Conjugation and Spores | |
| Taxonomy | ||
| Domain Class Order Family Genus Species | Eukaryota Lithoamoebia Lithoamoebales Lignarimorphaceae Talpidibufogrex Talpidibufogrex kosemenii | |
| Ancestor: | Descendants: |
|---|---|
The duff dinner split from its ancestor, the Spore Towers and became a general detritivore in Kosemen forests. Though it has the appearance of a single amorphous organism, with the tactile sensation of gelatin, what is actually seen is a colony of individual genetically distinct cells. During the day, or periods of drought, the duff dinner spends its time a few centimeters underneath the surface of the forest floor. It forms a cavity in the soil, or leaf litter if it's particularly deep, in which the colony permanently resides. Underneath the colony fingers of sub cavities are dug both to scout potential weak points underneath in which the colony May migrate into if greater drought occurs or to allow a portion of the colony to continue existing if the main body is excavated by predators or environmental cause.
At night pseudopods formed from The colony exert their way up through the soil to reach the surface. When these come in contact with organic matter they will spread tendrils of cells across in order to secure the food from other decomposers and break it down into transportable fragments or organic slush. The tendrils will form small beads of cells along themselves in which the activity of breaking down the organic matter is focused. This can look like a bubbling foaming ooze at times. This partially digested material is transported back down through the pseudopods to the main body of the colony, where they're stored in clumps and digested at the leisure of the Duff Dinner. The tunnels formed by this nightly activity aerates and may even gradually churn the soil above the colony as it punches holes through the forest floor. Although tunnels may be used repeatedly, more often a tunnel is simply abandoned shortly after use and allowed to gradually collapse back in on itself as new tunnels push the soil around.
The main means of spreading for the duff dinner is similar to its ancestor. The creation of clusters of spore packets on the end of a tall stalk. After a prolonged wet period, regardless of time of year so long it's not frozen, the cells of the colony undergo conjugation and the creation of new cells with recombined genomes. Long pseudopods will then extend upward through the soil at night in a similar fashion to the forms used for feeding. However unlike the more typical feeding pseudopods these push well above the leaf litter, capable of reaching heights of over 4 cm. Large numbers of cells are shuttled to the tops of these stalks where they cluster and form spore bodies. By morning the tall thin stocks will have desiccated, the cells inside dying and the movement of cells inside ceasing. The outermost layer of the spore body is made of cells that sacrifice themselves to create a protective sheet over the others. They dry out, and in response to this fill with proteins that are meant to prevent excessive water loss under more typical circumstances. Though they themselves die their remains will act as a barrier between the outside world and the hundreds of other cells inside the spore body. These individual cells develop protective coatings over themselves, taking the time granted to them to prepare themselves for a journey through the air. They dry in a more controlled fashion and go dormant, forming spores ready to venture off by midday.
As the spore body eventually bursts open the individual spores are cast out to drift through the forest air and eventually land in a different section of leaf litter. Each individual spore reactivates into a single cell. This method of travel can carry the spores very far on the wind, even so far as to off coast islands. Once having landed these cells scramble about through the soil feeding on organic matter, replicating themselves, and seeking one another. The stimulus to seek one another simply increases the more often a cell meets another, in a form of positive feedback loop. In time the density of cells in a given section of forest floor meets a threshold and the cells do not leave one another once meeting. The mass of cells concentrates toward a central point and, if not already beneath the surface of the leaf litter, will work their way further down to a place of safety against drying out.
Having now reached their mature stage, the individual cells of the colony will still replicate their personal genome, growing the total mass of the colony, or at the very least replacing lost cells. Stimulus to seek out members of their own species essentially stops occurring at this point, and those individual cells outside of this new mass also refrain from joining it. This switch of behaviors prevents the potential for unending and massive accumulation of cells into a single point, which would be detrimental if environmental catastrophe or predation were to befall this centralized body. An interesting occurrence in regard to the fact that there are many cells that make up this colony, is that certain genomes will be better prepared for their own microclimates in the leaf litter. Although the biomass of the colony may be halved during the production of spores, The colony itself is a long lived perennial entity. Each time that the duff dinner performs conjugation there's an exchange of genes between all the cells, those genomes that have been more successful at surviving in the environment increase the odds of their genes passing on to the other cells in the colony. Through this as the colony ages the cells within it become more genetically homogeneous and specialized for their particular spots in the woods and combinations of litterfall.
During times when the temperature drops below freezing, they may delve deeper into the warmer soil. If they cannot escape the freeze then the colony will go dormant, exuding water from their cells and increasing antifreeze proteins. If this doesn't save them during a particularly hard freeze then they just die. Spores that have been created are capable of surviving very low freezing temperatures, easily capable of waiting out long periods of frost and even being inside ice during their dormancy. Through these, if a particularly harsh winter destroys the active population of Duff dinner in an area, these species will continue to exist and recolonize fairly rapidly.