There is a random element in reproduction. If your animal would have an average of let’s say 1.1 descendants, what actually happens is that it gets 11 separate 1-in-10 chances to reproduce, and could in theory produce any number of descendants from 0 to 11 (though with an average of 1.1).
On average, with large numbers of animals, this averages out the same way. However, when your population is very small, there’s always a chance that it’ll randomly die. I imagine this is what’s going on with your population, though not certain.
Thank you aphyer! You’re absolutely right, the size is 3.85, so it needs like 0.8 energy per turn.
5⁄0.8≈6, with this number it’s more likely for the animal to die out by random chance.
I redid the experiment on the Benthic biome, and removed the cold resistance, set Seeds in the biome to 1, and the species survives with around 6-21 in population, which is around the population of 12 we would expect.
There is a random element in reproduction. If your animal would have an average of let’s say 1.1 descendants, what actually happens is that it gets 11 separate 1-in-10 chances to reproduce, and could in theory produce any number of descendants from 0 to 11 (though with an average of 1.1).
On average, with large numbers of animals, this averages out the same way. However, when your population is very small, there’s always a chance that it’ll randomly die. I imagine this is what’s going on with your population, though not certain.
(Also, your animal is larger than you think: Cold Resistance has a size cost of 2, so your animal’s size is actually 3.85)
Thank you aphyer! You’re absolutely right, the size is 3.85, so it needs like 0.8 energy per turn.
5⁄0.8≈6, with this number it’s more likely for the animal to die out by random chance.
I redid the experiment on the Benthic biome, and removed the cold resistance, set Seeds in the biome to 1, and the species survives with around 6-21 in population, which is around the population of 12 we would expect.