[MUD-Dev] (Java, applets,) forests and ecologies.

[Marian Griffith]

On Sat 29 Nov, Ling wrote:

> Okay, today's stupid question:  Forests!  How do they start?  I mean,
> seriously!  I've always lived in rurban areas, and the forests near me
> seem to have been pruned a bit.  Do forests really start off with a wall
> of trees?  Does nature define a sharp boundary in Her mysterious ways?

They can be like that. Most of the time there is some outside force in-
volved though. E.g. farmland or roads or rivers frequently act as natu-
ral barriers.  But even under entirely natural conditions forest have a
boundary that is quite sharp. I don't know exactly what is the cause of
that but probably it has to do with climates and animals. Forest affect
the climate around them so they can not grow easily. Nor are there many
natural reasons why many trees can go down at the same time.
Near the edge of a forest you generally find smaller trees that stand a
little farther apart and much more undergrowth, but lone trees are very
rare,  unless it is by unnatural causes.  Exceptions being dry regions.
There trees are forced to stand far apart because otherwise there would
not be enough water for them. In other climates there are so many seeds
available that an opening caused by a downed tree is beginning to over-
grow within a year, unless something is keeping it open (animals or the
climate).
So, from a distance you would indeed see the forest as a wall of trees.
Up closer there would be some kind of barrier  that keeps it from grow-
ing further.  Rivers, animal tracks (herds) or farmland most likely. It
may be anything that removes saplings faster than they can grow. Once a
tree grows a certain size there is little except age or a plague on in-
sects that will kill it again.

> Also, today, I read a really interesting article in the NewScientist about
> ecologies and how, sometimes, introducing a creature with better
> attributes to a new environment won't necessarily mean the creature will
> thrive.  It's all to do with webs, heavy independencies between species
> and how it parallels with the business world.  I haven't drawn any
> conclusions from it but it seemed interesting at the time and almost
> applicable to muds in some ways...

> This is it, in my own words:  If your mud ecology/food chain/supply chain
> can be corrupted by adding a few entities a few factors more 'powerful'
> than the existing ones, then there's something wrong. (that's not what the
> article says, that's me being me)

There seems to be much more subtlety in nature than there is in muds?

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey