Say we have got a planet that we have been terraforming and now it is our turn to act like gods. Every gram of wieght is important so only the most useful things will be transported.

So could that mean planning an Eco system that is all human usable? Could it sustain itself?

Fields of grass made up of wheats and oats and stuff, only trees with uses, fruit and lumbar, animals starting at maybe a rabbit? No rats or mice in this world. And going up the food chain to cattle? The apex would be a wolf. Birds would be chickens and ducks etc. You get the picture.

• animals starting at maybe a rabbit?

You’re going to need bees…

furious said:

• animals starting at maybe a rabbit?

You’re going to need bees…

Bees are fine. Probably need the fly as well. Mosquitos can get fucked.

Terraforming a planet to support Earth type life would be the easy part, creating a self sustaining planetwide ecosystem would be the hard part. It would probably require tens of thousands of species, many of which are needed for the animals/plants we find useful but not directly useful to ourselves.

Weeds would be useful as they can then be turned into green manure to support plants with higher nutrient requirements

AwesomeO said:

furious said:

• animals starting at maybe a rabbit?

You’re going to need bees…

Bees are fine. Probably need the fly as well. Mosquitos can get fucked.

You’ll need a range of dung beetles.

Cymek said:

Terraforming a planet to support Earth type life would be the easy part, creating a self sustaining planetwide ecosystem would be the hard part. It would probably require tens of thousands of species, many of which are needed for the animals/plants we find useful but not directly useful to ourselves.

Well I am not convinced. Another way of thinking about this is the least amount of creatures to sustain an Eco system. It may not be as large as you think and will probably head off in strange directions, ie great continents of rhubarb, plains full of chickens were cows are rare, until things reach an equilibrium.

And bacteria, you’ll need bacteria, but choose wisely…

sibeen said:

AwesomeO said:

furious said:

• animals starting at maybe a rabbit?

You’re going to need bees…

Bees are fine. Probably need the fly as well. Mosquitos can get fucked.

You’ll need a range of dung beetles.

Gotta watch the insects, flys are fine, they make maggots for birds. But if you start wanting every little thing like dung Beatles, they need other insects to sustain its lifecycle, before you know it you are back to fucking Mosquitos.

Poo can just do its thing with microbes.

I just had a look at wiki on dung Beatles, looks like some at least can sustain a lifecycle just with poo so yeah, give them a ticket.

Is the planet terraformed through technology or do we use plants,animals,bacteria,etc to help transform the atmosphere so we already have a partial ecosystem

Looks like we’re gunna need an Ark.

Peak Warming Man said:

Looks like we’re gunna need an Ark.

NOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

Cymek said:

Is the planet terraformed through technology or do we use plants,animals,bacteria,etc to help transform the atmosphere so we already have a partial ecosystem

Just thinking out loud really. I see it as with air and water ready to go, possibly from plankton and it is up to you as project manager to seed an entire planet but only with things that are beneficial to humans.

• seed an entire planet but only with things that are beneficial to humans

Well, that rules out sending any humans…

Pumpkins are easy to grow and store for a long time so include them

• Pumpkins are easy to grow and store for a long time so include them

But they are not good for anything else…

In the oceans there should be no sharks or poisonous jellyfish….but perfect surfing waves

furious said:

• Pumpkins are easy to grow and store for a long time so include them

But they are not good for anything else…

Eating

AwesomeO said:

Bees are fine. Probably need the fly as well. Mosquitos can get fucked.

hahaha

+1

• Eating

They won’t be going anywhere near a planet I am stocking…

furious said:

• Eating

They won’t be going anywhere near a planet I am stocking…

You pumpkinist

Why would you want rabbits or wolves? If it’s just for human uses, ordinary farmed livestock would be adequate. Rabbits are an agricultural pest and there would be nothing for the wolves to eat except lambs etc.

Bubblecar said:

Why would you want rabbits or wolves? If it’s just for human uses, ordinary farmed livestock would be adequate. Rabbits are an agricultural pest and there would be nothing for the wolves to eat except lambs etc.

Rabbits to keep down the fields of grains, wolves to keep the rabbits down. Personally I would do without a dog but maybe planet wise might be safe to keep a human/dog interface going, we seem to work well in a setting of survival.

AwesomeO said:

Bubblecar said:

Why would you want rabbits or wolves? If it’s just for human uses, ordinary farmed livestock would be adequate. Rabbits are an agricultural pest and there would be nothing for the wolves to eat except lambs etc.

Rabbits to keep down the fields of grains, wolves to keep the rabbits down. Personally I would do without a dog but maybe planet wise might be safe to keep a human/dog interface going, we seem to work well in a setting of survival.

But wouldn’t you be using the grains to feed humans? With a planet load of stuff for rabbits to eat, their population would soon explode. Look at the highly destructive rabbit plagues Oz suffered after they were introduced.

Bubblecar said:

AwesomeO said:

Bubblecar said:

Why would you want rabbits or wolves? If it’s just for human uses, ordinary farmed livestock would be adequate. Rabbits are an agricultural pest and there would be nothing for the wolves to eat except lambs etc.

Rabbits to keep down the fields of grains, wolves to keep the rabbits down. Personally I would do without a dog but maybe planet wise might be safe to keep a human/dog interface going, we seem to work well in a setting of survival.

But wouldn’t you be using the grains to feed humans? With a planet load of stuff for rabbits to eat, their population would soon explode. Look at the highly destructive rabbit plagues Oz suffered after they were introduced.

Put cats in, they’ll keep the buggers down.

Bubblecar said:

AwesomeO said:

Bubblecar said:

Why would you want rabbits or wolves? If it’s just for human uses, ordinary farmed livestock would be adequate. Rabbits are an agricultural pest and there would be nothing for the wolves to eat except lambs etc.

Rabbits to keep down the fields of grains, wolves to keep the rabbits down. Personally I would do without a dog but maybe planet wise might be safe to keep a human/dog interface going, we seem to work well in a setting of survival.

But wouldn’t you be using the grains to feed humans? With a planet load of stuff for rabbits to eat, their population would soon explode. Look at the highly destructive rabbit plagues Oz suffered after they were introduced.

No not a farmed planet, a planet which has been seeded so even its own wild environments are useful to humans. Hense the wolves to eat the rabbits. And the smaller cows and deers.

sibeen said:

Bubblecar said:

AwesomeO said:

Rabbits to keep down the fields of grains, wolves to keep the rabbits down. Personally I would do without a dog but maybe planet wise might be safe to keep a human/dog interface going, we seem to work well in a setting of survival.

But wouldn’t you be using the grains to feed humans? With a planet load of stuff for rabbits to eat, their population would soon explode. Look at the highly destructive rabbit plagues Oz suffered after they were introduced.

Put cats in, they’ll keep the buggers down.

And of course you’ll need cane toads if you’re going to plant lots of cane.

Bubblecar said:

sibeen said:

Bubblecar said:

But wouldn’t you be using the grains to feed humans? With a planet load of stuff for rabbits to eat, their population would soon explode. Look at the highly destructive rabbit plagues Oz suffered after they were introduced.

Put cats in, they’ll keep the buggers down.

And of course you’ll need cane toads if you’re going to plant lots of cane.

Well no, there would be no cane Beatles, just the cane. No need for toads.

make sure there are cannabis plants

cannabis indica

cannabis sativa

and that other cannabis plant for hemp

and if that nylon guy says anything knock him out

AwesomeO said:

No not a farmed planet, a planet which has been seeded so even its own wild environments are useful to humans. Hense the wolves to eat the rabbits. And the smaller cows and deers.

So, keep out rabbits and other unnecessary animals. And if you’re going to have cattle & sheep etc you’ll need lots of non-grain grasses.

I don’t know how many kinds of human food grain crops can be expected to look after themselves in the “wild”, anyway.

CrazyNeutrino said:

make sure there are cannabis plants

cannabis indica

cannabis sativa

and that other cannabis plant for hemp

and if that nylon guy says anything knock him out

I am pretty sure that would be included along with opium and other medicinal plants.

…and the livestock will need to be carefully selected to ensure they can thrive without human attention.

and that other cannabis plant for hemp

C. sativa.

• and the livestock will need to be carefully selected to ensure they can thrive without human attention.

You’d want to avoid sheep then. Deer would work…

While it’s a nice idea, there are so many problems with your premise that it’s difficult to find a place to start.

When you’re talking about ecosystems, you need diversity to ensure resilience and “stability”. What you’re talking about with only “useful” species is going to end in tears. Ecosystems by their nature are dynamic places. The more diverse they are, the greater their ability to spring back after a negative event.

If your rhubarb crop is subjected to attack from a fungus who managed to evade biosecurity procedures (and this can, does and will happen – spores are so damn small and they can hide so well), by having a wider range of less “useful” plants that the fungus may prefer to colonise you may salvage at least part of your crop and avoid a great rhubarb famine.

It’s actually really important to have predators, parasites and all sorts of other things that you probably don’t think necessary to an ecosystem. If you want a self sustaining fish population, mosquitoes are vital as they are one of the main links between primary and tertiary productivity.

Then there’s the evolutionary business. Without rats and mice plundering your grain, there is no evolutionary pressure for it to be as productive. Stochastic drift will occur with or without pressure, so in a couple of thousand years, it may be that your fields of wheat and oats are no longer as productive.

Then we could look at mutualisms. Do you want peanuts? Or vanilla? They and a ginormous number of plant species are dependant on mycorrhizal associations. No fungi, no plants.

There is no such thing as a simple ecological system.

ChrispenEvan said:

and that other cannabis plant for hemp

C. sativa.

And its companion plant the bong plant

It can be a diverse ecosystem, just the set of population for it is limited. I do not believe a varied grassland cannot be made with the variety of grasses and grains to choose from. Add some rabbits and wolves and I can see that settling down over seasons to a see saw stability. Off course you can add mushrooms and dung Beatles etc, fruit trees and peanuts along with its fungus, still diverse and getting more complicated but still simple compared to billions of years of evolution.

You’ll need a stripped down grand piano.

See: Robert Heinlein’s “Passage for Piano”

Ian said:

You’ll need a stripped down grand piano.

See: Robert Heinlein’s “Passage for Piano”

OK, Ian, you’re going to have to expand upon that. I thought I’d read everything that RAH had produced. I also cannot find a reference on the web for a story called “Passage for Piano”.

I think I’d start with the oceans and waterways. Algae and plankton and stuff, and try to get a food chain going starting at the base and gradually introducing larger organisms.

we’ll need property developers and real estate agents

we’ll need vast plantations of cocoa to sustain the womenfolk

“We were the one shining light, and many people refocused their activities or intentions on this nation, and, in fact, our record level of migration ever was in 2009, the year after the GFC, where we accepted 300,000 migrants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/australian-population-rising-fast-but-public-spending-lags/6348232

I remember mentioning this kind of figure on the holiday forum of the sssf and people told me I was crazy

wookiemeister said:

“We were the one shining light, and many people refocused their activities or intentions on this nation, and, in fact, our record level of migration ever was in 2009, the year after the GFC, where we accepted 300,000 migrants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/australian-population-rising-fast-but-public-spending-lags/6348232

I remember mentioning this kind of figure on the holiday forum of the sssf and people told me I was crazy

Plagiarism

CrazyNeutrino said:

wookiemeister said:

“We were the one shining light, and many people refocused their activities or intentions on this nation, and, in fact, our record level of migration ever was in 2009, the year after the GFC, where we accepted 300,000 migrants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-25/australian-population-rising-fast-but-public-spending-lags/6348232

I remember mentioning this kind of figure on the holiday forum of the sssf and people told me I was crazy

Plagiarism

fucktards.. I was doing permaculture before someone thought of a name for it.

AwesomeO said:

Say we have got a planet that we have been terraforming and now it is our turn to act like gods. Every gram of wieght is important so only the most useful things will be transported.

So could that mean planning an Eco system that is all human usable? Could it sustain itself?

Fields of grass made up of wheats and oats and stuff, only trees with uses, fruit and lumbar, animals starting at maybe a rabbit? No rats or mice in this world. And going up the food chain to cattle? The apex would be a wolf. Birds would be chickens and ducks etc. You get the picture.

Interesting idea.

> There is no such thing as a simple ecological system. Teleost
> It would probably require tens of thousands of species. Cymek

I strongly disagree. Even a single bacterial species can by itself form a viable ecosystem. And a single bacterial species can be all that is needed as a food source for humans.

The slow colonisation, one species at a time, of isolated islands after sterilization by volcanic action is evidence of the viability of tiny ecosystems.

For me, the starting point is what is available on the planet to start with. Suppose the planet has natural (or makeable) water, sulphate, nitrate, carbon dioxide and trace elements. Then an ecosystem consisting only of wheat is viable. Use a pollinating machine, easy. Wheat, like all plants, has the disadvantage of sequestering carbon, of converting usable CO2 into unusable soil carbon. So burn it to return carbon to the air. Or add a single species of fungus that lives on dead wheat and produces CO2.

Ditto for other food species. Some won’t survive in a tiny ecosystem, but if the terraforming is planned properly then most will. The psychological factor would be the most important one, some organisms don’t thrive despite their every need being satisfied.

To take an even more extreme example. We could even have a terraformed planet with the only species in the completely sustainable ecosystem being Homo sapiens. Mineral supplements are mined. Inorganic tars and asphaltenes are processed provide the carbon, nitrogen and sulphur we need in our diet. The need for this is slowly reduced as human waste is recycled for food.

Now, although tiny ecosystems are viable, I object to them on ethical grounds. I personally want to see terraformed planets having maximally biodiverse ecosystems.

As for an “ark”. At one point in the life-cycle of every organism on Earth, that organism consists of a single cell. A single cell weighs so little that the entire Earth’s ecosystem could be transported in a spacecraft whose biological payload weighs only 1 kg.

4 Fermented foods by type

4.1 Bean-based 4.2 Grain-based 4.3 Vegetable based 4.4 Fruit based 4.5 Honey based 4.6 Dairy based 4.7 Fish based 4.8 Meat based 4.9 Tea based

isn’t this almost exactly what they are doing on Mars?

• isn’t this almost exactly what they are doing on Mars?

Who are “they”? And what are they doing on Mars?

furious said:

• isn’t this almost exactly what they are doing on Mars?

Who are “they”? And what are they doing on Mars?

the people who are training to go live there forever… they will build it and others will come (just like the movie said)

seriously though, to establish a planet where things are similar to earth you need to include whole ecosystems, that means the mozzies have to go too.

“Mosquitoes do feed on blood (at least the female mosquitoes do), but they are also partial to nectar. Males drink sugary flower nectar to energize themselves for their swarming flights, when they search for mates. Females also drink nectar prior to mating. And any time an insect drinks nectar, there’s a good chance it’s going to collect and transfer a little pollen. Mosquitoes are known to pollinate certain orchids, and it’s possible they pollinate other plants as well. “

as well as other stinging, pest like creatures..

http://insects.about.com/od/BeneficialInsects/tp/7-Insect-Pollinators-that-Arent-Bees-Or-Butterflies.htm

• Mosquitoes are known to pollinate certain orchids

luckily orchids are not essential to human survival…

in that case just populate the planet with delicious bacon.

• in that case just populate the planet with delicious bacon.

I expect GM, self pollinating, bacon trees would be the way to go…

Arts said:

seriously though, to establish a planet where things are similar to earth you need to include whole ecosystems, that means the mozzies have to go too.

“Mosquitoes do feed on blood (at least the female mosquitoes do), but they are also partial to nectar. Males drink sugary flower nectar to energize themselves for their swarming flights, when they search for mates. Females also drink nectar prior to mating. And any time an insect drinks nectar, there’s a good chance it’s going to collect and transfer a little pollen. Mosquitoes are known to pollinate certain orchids, and it’s possible they pollinate other plants as well. “

as well as other stinging, pest like creatures..

http://insects.about.com/od/BeneficialInsects/tp/7-Insect-Pollinators-that-Arent-Bees-Or-Butterflies.htm

Why? If you can find a mix of plants that don’t require pollination by a mosquito why include them? Not trying to recreate the earth or an earth like ecosystem, of course the ecosystem won’t be as varied as earths but that does not to me translate to requireing every input.

I think it would be possible to produce an Eco system that is stable over time with a reduced amount of inputs. Over large amounts of time you would probably find like Darwins finches niches would be exploited and you would have chicken humming birds etc.

AwesomeO said:

Arts said:

seriously though, to establish a planet where things are similar to earth you need to include whole ecosystems, that means the mozzies have to go too.

“Mosquitoes do feed on blood (at least the female mosquitoes do), but they are also partial to nectar. Males drink sugary flower nectar to energize themselves for their swarming flights, when they search for mates. Females also drink nectar prior to mating. And any time an insect drinks nectar, there’s a good chance it’s going to collect and transfer a little pollen. Mosquitoes are known to pollinate certain orchids, and it’s possible they pollinate other plants as well. “

as well as other stinging, pest like creatures..

http://insects.about.com/od/BeneficialInsects/tp/7-Insect-Pollinators-that-Arent-Bees-Or-Butterflies.htm

Why? If you can find a mix of plants that don’t require pollination by a mosquito why include them? Not trying to recreate the earth or an earth like ecosystem, of course the ecosystem won’t be as varied as earths but that does not to me translate to requireing every input.

I think it would be possible to produce an Eco system that is stable over time with a reduced amount of inputs. Over large amounts of time you would probably find like Darwins finches niches would be exploited and you would have chicken humming birds etc.

ok, but you’d also want to make sure that nothing catastrophic hits any species that wipes them out.

Arts said:

AwesomeO said:

Arts said:

seriously though, to establish a planet where things are similar to earth you need to include whole ecosystems, that means the mozzies have to go too.

“Mosquitoes do feed on blood (at least the female mosquitoes do), but they are also partial to nectar. Males drink sugary flower nectar to energize themselves for their swarming flights, when they search for mates. Females also drink nectar prior to mating. And any time an insect drinks nectar, there’s a good chance it’s going to collect and transfer a little pollen. Mosquitoes are known to pollinate certain orchids, and it’s possible they pollinate other plants as well. “

as well as other stinging, pest like creatures..

http://insects.about.com/od/BeneficialInsects/tp/7-Insect-Pollinators-that-Arent-Bees-Or-Butterflies.htm

Why? If you can find a mix of plants that don’t require pollination by a mosquito why include them? Not trying to recreate the earth or an earth like ecosystem, of course the ecosystem won’t be as varied as earths but that does not to me translate to requireing every input.

I think it would be possible to produce an Eco system that is stable over time with a reduced amount of inputs. Over large amounts of time you would probably find like Darwins finches niches would be exploited and you would have chicken humming birds etc.

ok, but you’d also want to make sure that nothing catastrophic hits any species that wipes them out.

Use bats not mosquitoes for pollination?

AwesomeO said:

Say we have got a planet that we have been terraforming and now it is our turn to act like gods. Every gram of wieght is important so only the most useful things will be transported.

So could that mean planning an Eco system that is all human usable? Could it sustain itself?

Fields of grass made up of wheats and oats and stuff, only trees with uses, fruit and lumbar, animals starting at maybe a rabbit? No rats or mice in this world. And going up the food chain to cattle? The apex would be a wolf. Birds would be chickens and ducks etc. You get the picture.

Why not just remove homo sapiens sapiens from planet Earth? this can be done with virulent genetically engineered diseases?

furious said:

• isn’t this almost exactly what they are doing on Mars?

Who are “they”? And what are they doing on Mars?

“They” is ESA. What they are doing is the Expose-R2 project, in particular the Biology and Mars Experiment (BIOMEX). 46 species of bacteria, fungi and arthropods were delivered to the International Space Station last July for testing under Mars-like environmental conditions.