Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds - Life Comes to Serina (2024)

Building an Ecosystem

Somewhere in the distant reaches of the cosmos, a project was initiated on an incredible scale by an ancient entity of greater ability than anything humanity could comprehend. A large-scale evolutionary experiment on a never before seen scale, it would allow observation of the processes of evolution in an artificial, closed system from its beginning to an eventual end. A sterile rocky moon orbiting a large gas planet in a far-off solar system was utilized as a base, rendered habitable through the formation of an Earth-equivalent atmosphere and stabilized into a rotating and slightly tilted orbit to closely replicate the familiar seasons and day/night cycle. Used as a template on which to observe the process, this moon was then seeded with living things, like an immense bioactive vivarium, and so let alone to develop, grow and evolve. The primary subject of the closely controlled experiment was to be an animal small and adaptable, yet with unique constraints to its biology that would provide limits and restrictions on the ways it could evolve. A representative of a common animal group but one whose full potential would likely never be realized in its native setting among the many other competing species that formed the complex ecosystems of the Earth.

The world of Serina's focus would be the canary bird, a species of domesticated finch, and so a nod to the finches of the Galapagos Islands which were pivotal in the formation of the theory of evolution. Here the birds would have no initial competitors and so as they adapted to exploit every possible niche open to them, their evolution could lead them down paths otherwise unlikely. To survive, however, these introduced bird would require a modest number of partners in the web of life. Plants would be necessary to maintain the atmosphere and the carbon cycle, but to keep the initial ecosystem simplistic plants suitable to the introduced canary's diet would form the majority of colonist species with a few less-edible land plants such as bamboo introduced to provide cover and habitat. As primarily seed-eating birds, which also partake in a fair amount of greens and a few insects for good measure, a wide variety of grasses and seed-bearing plants were vital to the foundation of the early canary-based ecosystem.

A second need in crafting an ecosystem from the bare basics, though less immediately important to the birds themselves, were decomposers. Dead plant matter, droppings and the bodies of deceased canaries would build up and their nutrients remain locked up out of the environment without a healthy sampling of microfauna to break them down. Primarily to perform janitorial duty, detritivorous invertebrates such as earthworms, isopods, springtails and mites and scavengers such as ants, crickets and beetles were vital to establish a healthy ecosystem. To keep the flowing waters of the new world healthy also required a number of their own introductions; founded by various algae and elodea - both also incidentally edible to canaries - small crustaceans, snails and worms also found a home. A small number of fish were included additionally and would serve as an additional point of interest over time. Those introduced to Serina's waterways were all live-bearing ray-finned fishes of the genera Xiphophorus and Poecilia - common in the pet trade under their common names as platies, swordtails, guppies and mollies. These fish would stabilize the aquatic environments out of reach of the canaries, feeding on the algae and controling invertebrate populations. And though the project's focus would center upon the canary birds, especially at first, these secondary colonists would too go on to play their own important parts in the story.

Beginning with the most primitive of plants and algae, over several million years the barren moon was gradually fitted with increasingly advanced organisms, building upon their earlier foundations just as one might build up a towering skyscraper, creating an ever increasingly complex system. Following the flora came the microsopic soil creatures - the nematodes, the worms, the vital detritivores - and then the invertebrates - the earthworms, the crickets, the shrimp and the snails. As complexity increased with each class of creature, so too reduced the number of forms introduced. Thousands of plants, hundreds of insects, but only seven species of vertebrates, only a single one of them terrestrial. It was this single creature however, the last crowning introduction to the world, that would perhaps most impact it. Nothing would ever be the same again following the release of the canaries upon the verdantly awaiting, endless meadows of their new kingdom.

When all was established and the last components in place, the experiment was then to be left alone to continue on its own without further influence... but it which was responsible for it would always be watching its progress.

The domesticated canary, Serinus canaria domestica, was the ancestor of all birds on Serina.

The Domestic Canary, Serinus canaria domestica, chosen for Serina, was a human-bred cultivar of the wild Atlantic canary, a small passerine bird belonging to the genus Serinus in the finch family of Fringillidae. Once native to the Canary Islands, the Azores, and Madeira of ancient Earth, these small birds became, following the seventeenth century, among the most commonplace of human house pets, with a captive range quickly coming to cover the whole of the planet as a result. Bred into forms carrying nearly any color of the rainbow, few if any would re-adapt to survive in the wild in a normal environment. Here, however, they found no predators. Food was abundant, enormously so. Life would be privileged for a time... but gradually, dynamics would begin to shift, as the silent and timeless processes of which the creators so longed to observe would begin their work upon the birds, as well as their compatriots - the fishes, the invertebrates, and the plants with which they shared their new world.

Evolution would carry on and work quickly to reshape the colonists to the environments of their new world. From these few founding creatures, one day would a world of strange and wonderful life grow and develop.

The following is a complete list of Serina's originally imported macroscopic organisms. Not included are the innumerable soil bacteria and fungal organisms vital to a stable ecosystem and the numbers of small invertebrates are approximate. Though Serina is most foremost the canvas for its namesake to claim, an ecology cannot subsist upon one bird alone and a great variety of other creatures have also been introduced to the world to fulfill other ecological niches. Only once these were in place and a basic ecosystem established could the true subjects of the project be introduced and expected to thrive. Following the departure by its mysterious creators, this motley assortment of beasts and flora would have been utterly on their own, to live or to die, to adapt or to perish, to die out or diversify in a world all their own. Though many creatures would diversify over the eons following, at least at first, none would compare to the humble canary. The world of birds was born.

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List of Life Introduced to Serina

Plants

(and similar)

Helianthus giganteus, the giant sunflower, was among the several species of the genus introduced to Serina.

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~300+ grass species, including cereal grains and bamboo

~Dandelion

~Sunflowers (30+ species)

~Clovers (120+ species)

~Elodea canadensis

~Liverworts (1000+ species)

~Algae (10,000+ species)

~Moss (1000+ species)

A pair of domesticated canaries.

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~Domestic Canary (Serinus canaria domestica)

~Live-bearing Xiphophorus fishes [platies + swordtails] and Poecilia fishes [guppies and mollies] (total 7 species)

Domesticated platies such as this blue Xiphophorus maculatus were among the fish species introduced to Serina.

Arthropods

Among arthropods, the ants - leafcutter ants in particular - are destined for big things on Serina.

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~Springtails (1000+ species)

~Woodlice [pillbugs] (100+ species)

~Ants (50+ species)

~Aphids (110+ species)

~Millipedes (200+ species)

~Ladybird Beetles (10 species)

~Burying Beetles (all of genus Nicrophorus)

~Crickets (50+ species of Gryllinae (field crickets) )

~Triops longicaudus

~Parthenogenic Crayfish

~Neocaridina (cherry) shrimp

~Copepods (500+ species)

~Hermit Crabs (100+ species, marine)

~Mites (10,000+ species)

-Oribatida (decomposing mites)

-Ornithonyssus (parasitic biting mites)

Molluscs

Land snails such as this fellow will thrive on a young, predator-free Serina.

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~African Giant Land Snail (Achatinidae, 5 species)

~Land Slugs (100+ species of Veronicelloidea)

~Sea Slugs (150+ species of Opisthobranchia)

~Bivalve molluscs [clams/mussels] (1000+ species/freshwater + marine)

~Pond Snails (20+ species)

~Whelks (20+ species)

Cnidarians

~Hydra

~Jellyfish (100+ species)

Start your journey in the Hypostecene, where Serina's story begins.