At the end of today's session, Dave Kale teasingly suggested that someone should present a paper on the ecosystems of Middle Earth during the Sleep of Yavanna at Mythmoot.
I've taught high school biology, and part of me would not want to touch that topic with a 10 foot pole. I'll draw family trees outlining inheritance patterns for elvish hair color. But, I won't do this. Because, of course, it is impossible without a very strong dose of 'magic!!!' to make it work. There's not much sense in discussing the biology of the Sleeping Beauty castle being put to sleep for 100 years while a forest of thorns grows up around it.
But, you know, if you *were* going to consider it, there are a few things to keep in mind.
One is the slow growth of taiga forests, which can survive with long winters and only short summers. Not, of course, *no* sunlight, as that would not work at all. But if you need an ecosystem that both vaguely resembles Middle Earth *and* can get by on limited energy input...look at boreal forests.
https://www.britannica.com/science/taiga
There are, of course, several types of ecosystems whose primary energy source is not sunlight. These are...not particularly helpful, but perhaps some inspiration could be found there.
There are several types of living things that depend upon the decay of other living things to survive. So, they are only secondarily not dependent on light. Something (which does depend on light) dies or produces waste products, and then this other ecosystem thrives on the remains.
Examples include:
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Deep_sea_vent
Nor will a whale fall be particularly appetizing to non-deep-sea-creatures, but again, the *concept* of something sustaining an ecosystem without sunlight may be helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall
A coastal cave ecosystem based on methane (not sunlight or detritus) is a thing that exists. And it's in the Yucatan, ground zero for the meteor that set off the K-T extinction event, so that's...interesting. (We're equating the destruction of the Lamps to the K-T extinction event in SilmFilm, for those who didn't know.)
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/ugs-myp112717.php
Still, light is best. Without light from the sun, everything dies. No, seriously, *everything*. Nuclear winter, no hope of recovery. I mean, for a few years, sure, things hang on, struggling to survive. But we're talking millennia in starlight, here, so...not going to cut it. We *need* magic to make this work.
My suggestion would have to be that magic!starlight is sufficient to make magic!plants grow, but only slowly and not as well as under sunlight. So...taiga forests levels of growth.
I've taught high school biology, and part of me would not want to touch that topic with a 10 foot pole. I'll draw family trees outlining inheritance patterns for elvish hair color. But, I won't do this. Because, of course, it is impossible without a very strong dose of 'magic!!!' to make it work. There's not much sense in discussing the biology of the Sleeping Beauty castle being put to sleep for 100 years while a forest of thorns grows up around it.
But, you know, if you *were* going to consider it, there are a few things to keep in mind.
One is the slow growth of taiga forests, which can survive with long winters and only short summers. Not, of course, *no* sunlight, as that would not work at all. But if you need an ecosystem that both vaguely resembles Middle Earth *and* can get by on limited energy input...look at boreal forests.
https://www.britannica.com/science/taiga
There are, of course, several types of ecosystems whose primary energy source is not sunlight. These are...not particularly helpful, but perhaps some inspiration could be found there.
There are several types of living things that depend upon the decay of other living things to survive. So, they are only secondarily not dependent on light. Something (which does depend on light) dies or produces waste products, and then this other ecosystem thrives on the remains.
Examples include:
the aphotic zone of the ocean (which is fed from dead things falling to the sea floor),
caves (which depend on organisms moving in and out, bringing back food from the world of light),
fungi (which feed be absorbing nutrients from organic matter) and - perhaps the most interesting -
the bacteria that live under extreme conditions and are not fed by organic material at all.
Not that I think chemosynthetic archaea in deep sea vents is in any way relevant to our lack-of-sun dilemma in the early days of Beleriand, but...there you are. caves (which depend on organisms moving in and out, bringing back food from the world of light),
fungi (which feed be absorbing nutrients from organic matter) and - perhaps the most interesting -
the bacteria that live under extreme conditions and are not fed by organic material at all.
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Deep_sea_vent
Nor will a whale fall be particularly appetizing to non-deep-sea-creatures, but again, the *concept* of something sustaining an ecosystem without sunlight may be helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall
A coastal cave ecosystem based on methane (not sunlight or detritus) is a thing that exists. And it's in the Yucatan, ground zero for the meteor that set off the K-T extinction event, so that's...interesting. (We're equating the destruction of the Lamps to the K-T extinction event in SilmFilm, for those who didn't know.)
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-11/ugs-myp112717.php
Still, light is best. Without light from the sun, everything dies. No, seriously, *everything*. Nuclear winter, no hope of recovery. I mean, for a few years, sure, things hang on, struggling to survive. But we're talking millennia in starlight, here, so...not going to cut it. We *need* magic to make this work.
My suggestion would have to be that magic!starlight is sufficient to make magic!plants grow, but only slowly and not as well as under sunlight. So...taiga forests levels of growth.