We ran up against a small point over on the biomes: Biodiversity.
For those of you too lazy to google it,
Biodiversity:
1) diversity among and within plant and animal species in an environment.
2) the existence of a wide variety of plant and animal species in their natural environments, which is the aim of conservationists concerned about the indiscriminate destruction of rainforests and other habitats.

Also used to describe the number of niches in an environment, how specialized they are, etc. as well as the number of species represented.

The problem: Comparatively, the "criteria" we've been using for biodiversity in the biome thread doesn't mean squat in the game. What, exactly is "high" biodiversity? How much of this biodiversity can we represent in-game without melting our eager laptops into non-recyclable slush, or at the very least requiring a cooling pad and a new graphics card?

The purpose of this thread is a) to figure out what biodiversity means in the context of the game (Such as: how many niches can we program into a biome? Especially given our computing power?) and b) to set some quantitative and qualitative standards for it.

Have at it.

Lowest biodiversity means one species per niche type max. As we go up on the scale, more species can occupy one niche type. (a niche type is a "niche" defined in the Biome description. More than onse species can have the same definition for their niche. For instance, you can have two tiny carnivores in an ecosystem.)
I'd say as biodiversity goes up, we build up number of species per niche from bottom trophic levels and upwards. This means to have two top predators, you'd have to have an extremely biodiverse environment.

No, that's by biomass and energy. The amount of biomass required to sustain a quatrenary consumer is
1,111 to one, because you have to take each step into account meaning that it's pretty darn impossible to actually have something that is only a quatrenary consumer. Tertiary is about as high as you actually get, though obviously not all food sources are laid out so neatly.
If a snake eats a mouse, then is eaten by an eagle, which is then eaten by a human this does not make humans quatrenary consumers. We eat far more beef (as a secondary consumer) and other meats of grain or grass-eating animals. Basically, nothing can survive solely as a quatrenary consumer - too much energy is lost.

So any quaternary consumer must have links to secondary and tertiary? that seems good.

Additionally, we're going to have to figure biodiversity by the presence/amount of consumers which occupy at least one tertiary slot in the food chain.
I may post a pic for visual learners if I ever bust out Gimp this week.