2021 Darwin Game—Human Garbage Dump

[lsusr]

The human garbage dump is a place you can find anything. It was also (to me) surprisingly popular with 90 species submitted.

Name	Carrion	Leaves	Grass	Seeds	Detritus	Coconuts	Algae	Lichen
Human Garbage Dump	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100

In each of our previous biomes, there was one primary source of forage. This is our first biome with many different viable options to forage. However, individually, none of them are very large. Even if there’s no predators, the diverse primary production should ensure a little more biodiversity among foragers.

Generations 0-1

We start with Anti Predator Flak. It’s just like just like the Ocean’s First Round Predator Distractor except it was created by Multicore.

Goes Extinct in Generation	Species
1	Anti Predator Flak

Generations 1-10

Most of the initial populations crash, as usual.

The Seed Beetle is exactly what it sounds like: a tiny organism with the ability to digest seeds and nothing else.

Goes Extinct in Generation	Species
6	Goo
6	Beauconut
8	Gelatinous Cube
8	Ivem
10	Chittering Harvester
10	Boot Nipper
10	Dump Leaf Blight

Generations 10-100

The Seed Beetle Population explodes. I think what’s going on is something Multicore pointed out at the game launch. The Seed Beetle is so small that it provides inadequate nutrition to large carnivores. At first, predators eat the Seed Beetle, then the carnivores starve. The Seed Beetle is thus left without predators.

The Mutant Two-Headed Speed Snail is a Grass forager with Speed 2. The Beauprey forages for Seeds and Lichen and has Speed 1.

Goes Extinct in Generation	Species
11	Trash Lobster
11	Carrion Condor
11	Roaches
11	Trash Panda2
11	Muk1
12	Small CocoCrab
12	The Fart Brigade
12	Thread-Nibbler
12	Dump Aphid
12	Slime Mold
12	mediocre 2-2-s2
12	Muk2
13	Olchi
13	TrashMonster3-2
14	Sentient Bio Reactor
14	BottomFeeder
14	SpeedDemon
14	mediocre 2-2-g
14	TrashMonster2-2
15	TrashMonster3-4
15	TrashMonster4-3
16	Big CocoCrab
16	Unpalatable Coconut Crab
16	TrashMonster4-2
17	Rabbit
17	Lazy Stationary Glutton
17	sc511
17	trashSeeds
18	Grease Monkey
19	Garbage Dump Shai-Hulud
19	Trolley
20	Coconut Crabs (tiny)
20	TrashMonster3-3
21	Robot
21	Rat
21	CP445957
22	mediocre 2-2-s1
23	Frogger
23	Coconut Cruncher
23	Yonge_Dump
23	TrashMonster4-4
24	All-eating Leviathan
24	Inquisition
25	Bleh
25	Robber Crab
27	Hyper fly
28	Coconut crab
28	Slow Moving Nuclear Waste
29	Garbage Disposal
32	Blitz Leech
32	2-8-0 A algae-carrion-coconut-detritus-lichen
32	Jibbers Crabst
33	Snail-Eating Snail
34	Micro Swamp Dragon
37	Mecha giraffe
37	Twangoola
38	25kg Racing Snake
38	Redneck
40	weaponized human
44	Garbovorous Mirages
45	Dirge Bat
47	AI Lawnmower
48	Trash Locust+
50	gumbler
50	Cubic Carrion Crawlers
56	Trash Dino
56	CarrionSpeedTank
75	COCONUT511
89	Lary
89	Gigantic Cockroach
99	Roomba

Generations 100-200

Species die out more slowly but there are no dramatic shifts in population.

Goes Extinct in Generation	Species
105	hoover
105	Living Garbage Can
107	Ironshell Crab
109	Zigzagoon
157	Adventurous Giraffe

Generations 200-500

Nothing to see here.

Goes Extinct in Generation	Species
330	Timblewinks

Generations 500-1000

Nothing to…wait what?

Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on.

There are nine species of consequence.

Name	Venom?	Weapons	Armor	Speed	Forage?	Creator
Seed Beetle	Neither	0	0	0	Seeds	DaemonicSigil
Mutant Two-Headed Speed Snail	Neither	0	0	2	Grass	DaemonicSigil
Nuclear Waste	Antivenom only	0	10	0	Carrion	Henny
Brown Bear	Neither	3	0	6		elspood
Beauprey	Neither	0	0	1	Seeds;Lichen	Luke
Trash Slime	Antivenom only	0	10	0	Detritus	Yull-Rete
Forest Finch	Neither	0	0	3	Leaves	MA
Snark	Neither	0	0	10	Leaves	Vanessa
Hopsplitter	Neither	0	0	10	Grass;Seeds	Nem

We have four invincible foragers: Nuclear Waste consumes Carrion. Trash Slime consumes Detritus. Snarks consume Leaves. Hopsplitters consume Grass and Seeds.

The Forest Finch competes for leaves with the Snark.

The Hopsplitters compete for seeds with the Seed Beetles and the Beaupreys. The Seed Beetle is a tiny organism optimized to consume seeds. The Beauprey is less efficeint at eating seeds than the Seed Beetle but makes up for it by also being able to digest Lichen.

The Mutant Two-Headed Speed Snail eats grass, where it competes with the Hopsplitter.

The Brown Bear is a pure predator. It cannot eat the invincible foragers but it can eat the Seed Beetles, Snails, Hopsplitters, Forest Finghes and Forest Finches.

Putting this all together, we have two kinds of foragers: small foragers that can be eaten by bears and invincible foragers those that cannot. If the bear population increases the small forager population decreases which increases the invincible forager population which decreases the bear population. This cycle works in reverse too. We have a stable ecosystem.

But if it’s stable then what happened around generation 690?

The Seed Beetle population decreased because the Beauprey population increased. The Beauprey Population increased because there was lots of Lichen available. The Beauprey is the only species which can eat Lichen. Around generations 550 to 650 there were very few Beaupreys. The Lichen accumulated. The Beauprey’s growth around population 680 ate that accumulated Lichen. After the Lichen was consumed, the Beauprey population decreased to something stable.

Generations 1000-9000

The dynamic equilibrium is maintained until generation 8101 when the Beaupreys suddenly go extinct.

Goes Extinct in Generation	Species
8101	Beauprey

Let’s zoom in.

What happened is the Brown Bear population randomly rose for long enough to extinguish the Beaupreys, which were already in a precarious position due to competition from the Seed Beetles..

But that’s not all. I just counted the common species. There are a few rare species hiding on the bottom edge of our graph, like Snarks. The Snark is a 10-speed Leaf eater by Vanessa. The Beauprey, having Speed 1, comes back from time to time too.

Winners

Species	Creator	Social Media
Seed Beetle	DaemonicSigil	Twitter
Mutant Two-Headed Snail	DaemonicSigil	Twitter
Nuclear Waste	Henny	None
Forest Finch	MA	None
Brown Bear	elspood	None
Trash Slim	Yull-Rete	None
Snark	Vanessa	None

[Bezzi]

So far this is the only biome with non-invincible winners. I suspect that having just one large primary source of forage (like previous biomes) pushes too much towards “maximal-efficient invincible foragers eating this”. Now I’m really curious to see how it went in Grassland-Rainforest-Temperate Forest.

[elspood]

Damn, now I’m upset I didn’t spend more time thinking of a good name. A brown bear isn’t even a pure predator! Really wish I had called THIS one the Trash Panda, instead. :)

[Measure]

I’m curious what caused my Ironshell Crab to die out (Antivenom, 0/​10/​1, Coconuts). It seems like all the other coconut-eaters had already died out and nothing can eat the crab. Was it just random fluctuations?

[elspood]

Of all the things, the coconuts were by far the most difficult to get anything to survive on. In my simulations, usually the coconut eaters that survived were also eating something else.

In theory, coconuts should sustain a 13.1 E creature; In practice, with such a small food source this size creature gets outcompeted at first by much smaller organisms that then get hunted to extinction by predators.

[Measure]

The equilibrium population for my crab (size 13.6) is around 110. I guess its population must have been so low by the time the last smaller coconut-eater was hunted out that a random fluctuation killed it before it could recover.

If it had managed to recover, it should have eventually migrated to establish itself in both River and Shore.

[aphyer]

The Beauprey is the only species which can eat Lichen. Around generations 550 to 650 there were very few Beaupreys. The Detritus accumulated. The Beauprey’s growth around population 680 ate that accumulated Detritus. After the Detritus was consumed, the Beauprey population decreased to something stable.

Should ‘Detritus’ here read ‘Lichen’?

[lsusr]

Fixed. Thanks.