Sooto is a tropical planet. The weather is predominantly warm and
humid. Rainfall is common throughout the year. The atmosphere consists
mainly of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. There are traces of methane
and argon. There are two giant continents on Sooto. Life began in
the ocean on the continental shelves.
Early life forms consisted mainly of procaryotic life forms. The first bacteria
were endospore forming bacteria. These bacteria can withstand harsh conditions,
even lack of nutrients over an extended period of time by going dormant. They
are revived under optimal environmental conditions. These procaryotic life forms
feed on organic carbon that is free in the environment. They undergo oxidative
respiration.
Another
early life form is cyano bacteria. They are aquatic in nature, produce oxygen,
photosynthesize, and reduce atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia. Ammonia can
be readily taken up and used to make amino acids and proteins.
Some procaryotic life forms moved onto the land and adapted to greater
temperature fluctuations and a drier environment. Others adapted to colder
environments such as those found near the poles. Some adapted to living
under the planets crust closer to the hot magma which gave them heat energy.
Others adapted to living in anaerobic environments and learned to use methane
as a an energy source instead of oxygen.
One commonality among all of these organisms was binary fission.
In binary fission the chromosome is copied and attached to the cell membrane
and then the cell membrane pinches itself in half, dividing into two cells
in the process.
One procaryote behaves much like a virus, injecting it's DNA into another
organisms DNA and thereby making copies of itself within a host cell.
Dormancy-ability to shut down life processes until favorable conditions
arise
Mutation-ability to adapt to a new or changing environment
Ability to sense humidity or water content in the environment.
Ability to seek out other organisms and take over their DNA.