10,000 Years Post-Establishment

above: four examples of early canary diversity. From top clockwise: insectivore, herbivore, egg-eater, seed-eater.

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One hundred centuries have amassed since the day the canaries were released into their new world. Upwards of seven thousand generations of the songbirds have come and gone. In this time, their world has changed already in large ways.

The explosion in diversity in the canary was almost instant. Without predators, their numbers exploded as each pair produced, with luck, 15 or more offspring each year. Food in the form of the seeds of grasses, shoots of flowering plants, and soft-bodied insects fueled an incredible population boom. Already a noticeable diversity of forms has arisen from the multicolored domestic bird imported here 10,000 years ago; though almost all could likely reproduce with one another if situations required, few still do so given a choice, as one species has split into several hundred. Here on the plains of Anciska, while plump, solitary individuals colored gray and white crack away at the husks of a tall clumping sunflower's almond-sized seeds, a small, brilliantly red bird gathers in small flocks to strip the shoots not of their seeds, but of the large, fat slugs that gather to rasp at the plant's stalks, snapping them from their holdings with a beak already considerably longer and thinner than their ancestor's. Hopping haphazardly through the undergrowth, a fumbling quail-like specimen several times larger than either other bird hops awkwardly between the stems of grasses and clovers, nipping their tender buds and shoots. Were this 10-inch-tall specimen still on Earth, she'd be utterly grounded, her wings having not grown with her body. Thanks to Serina's reduced gravity, she retains the ability to flutter sufficiently to perch in the flower's branches during the eternally-twilight nights, bathed in planetary glow, but her nest is but a crude gathering of sticks set in plain sight upon the soil - their habitat all but lacking in trees or bushes and nest raiding small animals, among the very first habits among many canaries to develop would be the construction of the nest upon the bare ground. Until recently, this would have been as safe a place as ever - so long as the mother could guard her young from the occasional advances of ants - but already a nest-robber is evolving; this hen returns from her forages to find her eggs destroyed, the shells crushed and the yolks lapped away. As the thief takes flight and dips down again just meters away in the tall grass, her pointed, downward-curved bill is still sticky with her most recent meal. The egg-eating canary, however, has needs of her own to provide for, and has simply discovered a particularly nutritious meal to help her - nothing is quite so good to help produce eggs, than someone else's eggs. A time of naivety is coming to a close - no longer will everyone's young be so infallibly safe.

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Changes are occurring within habitats now too. For the first time in its history, Serina is beginning to get its own forests. Within one hundred years of colonization, isolated thickets of Bamboo - the only native plants to somewhat keep a tree-like growth habit - initially seeded only in the far northern temperate zone began to spread towards the equator. In a natural environment, the growth of these most grand of grasses is kept in check by the presence of other large shading plants. Without the influence of competition, their spread across Serina's sunny, nutrient-rich plains was unstifled. Within 500 years tracts hundreds of miles in size had spread to reach southern Anciska. Within 1,000 years, the plants had bridged the equator. Today bamboo forests extend from pole-to-pole on every landmass, growing wherever sufficient moisture is present to allow their incredible natural growth rates of up to 34 inches per day. Without large herbivores to browse them, they are a boon to thousands of different insects and invertebrates - without any competition for these resources, for a brief time it is the gastropod's time to shine. Growing up to 20 inches long and weighing close to four pounds, giant land snails become the largest land animals. Their days are numbered, however, as already their young begin to fall prey to the largest-billed of the ground-canaries which having evolved their large crushing beaks for a wholly different purpose begin to put them to other use and seek additional protein to supplement their seed-based diets. Never again will the gastropods flourish as they will continue for the next million years, foraging at complete leisure in a world where carnivory has yet to catch up to the grazers - this is a brief, fleeting, time of prosperity for the snails, but not one that may continue forever.

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In the waters of Serina, an even greater boom of diversity has been undergone in the live-bearing fishes introduced to a few inland freshwater habitats. Tens of thousands of generations of the fishes have spread across the globe wherever the seasonal rains and rivers could carry them. Without notable predators they number in the tens of billions, filling every pond and river with life as they gather in shoals of thousands, picking at algae and small invertebrates with only the occasional crayfish to fear - crayfish which, equally blessed by the supply of small fishes, may now weigh close to a pound. In the open sea, the guppies and swordtails have already adjusted to the high salinity, and for the first and only time in history gather in swarms with little fear of active predators in a sea eerily devoid of seabirds, sharks, or larger fishes. The largest sea creature at this time, and one of their only concerns, are the box jellyfish that may grow over 20 feet in length, ensnaring dozens of the tiny fishes each day - far more than they could eat - and making no dent in a still-rising population. Moving like strange neon-colored ghosts, the sea-slugs lurk below the action - enormous writhing beasts that now grow as large as a man's fore-arm. Similarly to distant land relatives, these molluscs experience their own brief dominion of the sea, browsing great swaths of coastal algae. One day, more significant predators will infiltrate this temporary marine Eden - but today, it is a land of plenty for all.