Worldbuilding 104: Trophism
Greetings and Solferino! …Eh, my purple leans more toward the blue kind, but still purty! Anyway, today I will be discussing biology once again! Because I love it, but not sex this time! We’ll get kinky another time, but today it is about the fundamental types of EATING! Which I partially covered before in alien biologies. And we’ll make up some, too. Let’s go!
Troph
First off, this is not really a word, it’s a suffix, but I will be using troph as its own word because I think it definitely deserves it. But of course that means defining what the bloody thing means.
A troph is a method by which an organism acquires energy to use to function.
Now what does this actually mean? Well, first of all, all organisms need ENERGY! Which my blogpost describes! Well, I describe it as the ability to change a system, so even if you have magic or whatnot, energy is what makes life and things go! But the thing is, how an organism gains it is the big question, and that is a troph.
Autotrophs
Energy cannot come out of nothing… or can it? Okay, that is a discussion with a lot of ifs, ands, buts, maybes, and physics that will make everyone’s brain hurt in real life. So let’s assume it can’t! I said in my blogpost on energy that entropy can best, in an easy manner, be described as the energy unavailable to change a larger system. That is, the more entropy energy has, the less it is able to change large systems, and a maximum of entropy can only change microstates. As entropy always has to increase, that means if there is no source for low entropy energy for life, life will eventually run out of useful energy until all life dies as the existing energy will, in the best of worlds, increase in entropy over time. Which actually makes for an interesting story if someone can figure it out.
What this means is that there must be an external source of energy that reduces the entropy, and that is what autotrophs do. Auto- meaning “self,” and “-troph” meaning “nourishment,” which hey! Fits above doesn’t it? Well, there are more than one type here!
Phototrophs
In case the house dwellers have never noticed it, THERE IS A GIANT BRIGHT THING IN THE SKY! It is called the sun and is a star. Stars give off a lot of light in the form of photons. Hence phototroph! Phototrophs take in light and turn that into energy that they can use. Another word commonly used is photosynthesis, and it refers to the chemical process of turning a photon into chemical energy. This is today the most common method to introduce new low entropy energy into the biosphere.
Chemotrophs
While phototrophy may be the most common form of autotrophy today, chemotrophy is the oldest one that exists. It is generally believed that the first autotrophs were chemotrophs because phototrophy is much more complicated than grabbing whatever molecule that happens to float around and jack it for energy. Oh yeah, chemotrophy is about taking chemicals, which can be metals, organic molecules, really anything as long as it can be oxidised to generate energy.
You don’t need to oxidise where molecules (generally) react with very electron hungry atoms/molecules (like oxygen, the similarity in name is not a coincidence), you can reduce it instead, where it reacts with molecules that are eager to give away electrons. Again, roughly, a simple way to think about it, but by no means entirely accurate, is that oxidation is with oxygen, and reduction is with hydrogen.
Radiotrophs
This is the latest one to actually evolve! Well, we are not 100% certain on this one, but it seems like there are actually fungi that can do this! What is this? RADIATION BABY! Instead of getting cancer and death, you get life and nourishment! The fungus on earth seems to grow toward radioactive sources and use melanin to absorb gamma rays. For obvious reasons, this one is not the easiest or most common as high radiation sources are generally rare and very much a double-edged sword. It can give energy but also wreck havoc on your DNA! But given there are bacteria that love to live in nuclear reactors at full blast, the last one can be dealt with!
Hypothetical
And that is it for what is on earth, although these might also be here and we just haven’t discovered them yet:
Thermotrophy: Organisms use temperature gradients to generate available energy; stirling engines do this.
Osmotrophy: Organisms use a difference in concentration of some molecule or ion. This is ripe to harness energy as concentrations want to even out.
Electrotrophy: Organisms use a difference in electric charge between areas to generate energy.
Magnotrophy: If magnetic monopoles are a thing, organisms can use this.
Kinetotrophy: Organisms use kinetic energy, where things are moving; streams, falling, wind, etc.
Imagined
These ones do not exist, and as far as we can say, cannot possibly exist in any way shape or form, but hey, that hasn’t stopped good fiction, has it?
Magitrophy - Organisms use a magic gradient of some sort. Check up on Anne’s magical diseases, as they can tie together.
Phlebotitrophy - You have some made up matter, particle, or whatever, and organisms use it.
And that I think pretty much covers most alternatives as those groups are HUGE! An insane one I came up with is “Chronotrophy,” which goes on the idea of a gradient of time being used, and time is moving forward because similar to concentrations, it tries to even out so that there is equal amount of time. So life finds a way to use this to generate energy. Does it make any sense at all physically? No, but it is cool as fuck, and definitely energy from nothing.
Heterotrophy
This one is the most common among all life: eating other life. Hetero- meaning other, and, yeah, the rest you know. It means eating others for nourishment. Why is this one so popular? Because the others require so much WORK! You need all these biochemical pathways of long ass work and evolution to get any of it working! It is expensive to maintain and keep in your DNA on top of the standard machinery to sustain life… but if you eat other living things, you only need your standard stuff! You eat them, they contain the same basic stuff you do anyway, so energy galore! They take off the pesky job of getting low entropy energy into the biosphere; you then gobble them up and live your life!
If you checked my old post, on alien biology, you saw this image there too, and it's a damn good one for heterotrophs! But I will be going through what all of these mean, one by one for your edumucation! A fun fact if you notice is that -vore and -phage are divided nicely along the horizontal line! Honestly, -troph, -vore, -phage, all pretty much deal with what you consume for nourishment, but you know, why make it easy? Also do not look up -vore without it being a suffix! These terms are primarily meant for animal heterotrophs but can still be applied to many, especially the olophage part.
Totivore
Totivores are, well, “Gatherers,” that means that they actively look for and gather the food they need to eat no matter what it is.
Herbivore
Herbivores are tortivores that are not all too picky about what they eat, as long as it cannot run away and is a plant! It is a soft leisure of a life without much worry or thinking.
Victivore
These herbivores are slightly more picky! The thing gotta be alive! At least until the victivore kills them to eat.
Lectivore
Lectivores are also picky, but they don’t wanna deal with the whole thing of a plant being alive, it is better dead!
Carnivore
Meat eater, is there more to say about this? They eat animals and are happy doing so.
Bestivore
They like to hunt and kill their food before eating!
Carcasivore
You know the problem that bestivores face? Their food doesn't want to become eaten! So you know, if it is already dead, it ain’t gonna run away!
Scavenger
Scavengers in their true sense don’t care as long as they don’t have to deal with the thing being alive. If it's dead, plant or animal, that is their dinner! Or they can care if it is an animal or plant, but it's still a scavenger.
Cropper
Croppers like a bit of a challenge, they like their stuff alive! But aren’t picky on if it is a plant or animal. Same here, they might be picky and still be a cropper.
Omnivore
The least picky of them all! Omnivores will eat anything they don’t believe will make them sick! Dead, alive, plant, animal, all goes omnomnom by the omnivore!
Olophage
These move around maybe for a part of their life but once they find a food source, they settle and become essentially sessile and enjoy the food from the lifeform they are with now.
Phytophage
You stick it to a plant, and it goes suck suck! Or something, it might be nibbles, I don’t know. It sticks to plants and eats them and isn’t picky about whether it's alive or not!
Zontanophage
This is a phytophage, but it only wants living plants. Can you blame them? I like my stuff fresh too! Especially screaming plants!
Thanatophage
Despite plants not moving while alive, they still have this nasty habit of wanting to get rid of you when you stick to them! So a dead one is easier than a live one.
Zoophage
Olophage that eat animals somehow.
Sarcophage
The animal you’re stuck to is alive! Big benefit; it keeps living so you can keep suckling it for nutrients and life! If you only can trick the immune system…
Necrophage
If you don’t wanna bother with a pesky immune system, necrophage is for you! These are olophages that only deal with dead animals.
Parasite
A parasite is simply an olophage that takes nourishments from something alive, plant or animal. You know the deal, they get energy and stuff, the host loses energy, and sometimes much worse!
Saprophage
As long as it eats dead stuff and is an olophage, it is a saprophage.
Additional
Those are just large divisions for the categories because in carnivore, for example, there are A LOT of subdivisions. Here are some:
Insectivore - Insects
Corallivore - Corals
Molluscivore - Molluscs
Piscivore - Fish
Sanguinivore - Blood
Songivore - Sponges
Avivore - Birds
Oophiophagy - Snakes
And here are some for herbivores:
Folivore - Leaves
Frugivore - Fruits
Graminivore - Grass
Mucivore - Plant juices
Nectarivore - Nectar
Palynivore - Pollen
Granivore - Seeds
On top of that, we have Mycovore, Fungi, which doesn’t fit in above but is still something! There are more of all kinds, so here comes EVEN MORE!
Coprophagy - Faeces
Geophagy - Dirt
Hematophagy - Blood, just another for blood don’t ask me why
Lepidophagy - Scales of fish
Mucophagy - Mucus
Myrmecophagy - Termites or ants
Osteophagy - Bones
Ovophagy - Eggs
Placentophagy - Placenta
Point of it all
What is the point of all of these divisions? Well, besides showing that they exist, and also now pointing out this model is slightly flawed because it only does animal and plant despite there also being fungus, the point is to broaden your horizons! Remember my rules? No? Go back and read them! It is to show that there are MANY ways for animals, and thus creatures in general, to feed themselves. You can create very peculiar creatures in your world, or even people! Imagine a species that is entirely ovophagy? Imagine their farms and more! It would be very interesting for an intelligent people!
Making up your own
There are many ways you can do this, and let’s start with the easiest one. As many of the last ones essentially boil down to eating a specific group of creatures–piscivore, avivore, etc.–if your world has some group of animals that can be a good target for a general eater to go to town on, you can take that type of animal’s name and slap on “-vore” at the end. Or “-phagy,” because snakes had to be different. Same goes with different plant morphologies or fungus morphologies and so on.
Any unique part that can exist in enough quantities to regularly be eaten, or ENTIRELY eaten, as in nothing else, is a niche evolution will try to fill.
Now for that which is a bit more creative: fantasy! The options are endless, so let's move on away… or not! Gotta come with some ideas! We have some that can tie into the illnesses post; for example, what if you have parasites like mana/magic eaters? Or whatever magical creatures can be targeted by two different kinds of trophs? One targets the meat, another targets the magic! That would be interesting. Imagine if they always team up to take down the same prey, then split the food as they eat? What a fascinating symbiosis!
For scifi, it is similar. If it is phlebotinum that lies around, you can be just as creative there with various things. You can, of course, make new organs and things for space exploration and aliens, which of course will be lots of fun! Imagine if an organism has two highly nutrient-rich fluids, so it has blood plus something else, and then a species specialises on this second fluid to not compete with the blood suckers! Is it entirely possible? Probably not, but still cool and plausible enough to be the novum that scifi needs.
Summa summarum
What is today's lesson? I want chopped cheese, all this talk about eating has gotten me hungry! But besides that, autotrophs are what really sustain an entire biosphere, and without them, no life is possible. But even here, we can be creative in the type used. In one side project I am working on, I have radiotrophs be just as abundant as phototrophs because it is a highly radioactive world.
The other group is heterotrophs which make up the bulk of all life, and even here there is huge diversity among multicellular life. Animals alone make up a ton, and it can be split up even more if we start doing all the kingdoms! I might try at some point making something a bit more complete to include fungi and such; if I do, it will be a practicum and probably include stuff from my universe too.
In the end, when it comes to all of this, one can be very creative, like how what people had available in eating formed their cultures and behaviours, since what species must eat informs their behaviours, especially in sapient species. Imagine the aforementioned ovophages having like 900 types of omelette in their culture. You humans already have enough; imagine how many they would have! Anyway, I hope this will spark some new ideas for what creatures will eat, and with that, new relationships to people and stories!
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Copyright ©️ 2024 Vivian Sayan. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as the term troph as well as descriptions of autotrophs, heterotrophs, and subgroups are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific language and exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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