Daisyworld

[citation needed] In the original 1983 works, Daisyworld made a wide variety of simplifying assumptions, and had white and black daisies as its only organisms, which were presented for their abilities to reflect or absorb light, respectively.

[citation needed] Wood and colleagues, in a 2008 review citing the two 1983 Lovelock primary research papers on Daisyworld (still Daisy World or the same in lower case, at that point),[2][3][6] describe it as being formulated in response to early criticism of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, specifically, being a model "invented to demonstrate that planetary self-regulation can emerge automatically from physically realistic feedback between life and its environment, without any need for foresight or planning on the part of the organisms",[4]

Lovelock sought to demonstrate the stability of Daisyworld by making its sun evolve along the main sequence, taking it from low to high solar constant.

Daisyworld was designed to refute the idea that there was something inherently mystical about the Gaia hypothesis that Earth's surface displays homeostatic and homeorhetic properties similar to those of a living organism;[citation needed] specifically, thermoregulation was addressed.

[citation needed] These criticisms were countered by Timothy Lenton and James Lovelock in 2001, who argued that including further factors can improve climate regulation on later versons of Daisyworld.

[11][non-primary source needed] Later versions of Daisyworld, identifying the research area as "tutorial modelling of geosphere–biosphere interactions", introduced a range of grey daisies, as well as populations of grazers and predators, and found that these further increased the stability of the homeostasis.

[11][5][non-primary source needed] More recently, other research, modeling real biochemical cycles of Earth, and using various types of organisms (e.g. photosynthesisers, decomposers, herbivores and primary and secondary carnivores) also argues to have produced Daisyworld-like regulation and stability, in support of ideas related to planetary biological diversity.

[citation needed] This enables nutrient recycling within a regulatory framework derived by natural selection amongst species, where one being's harmful waste becomes low energy food for members of another guild.

[citation needed] For instance, research on the Redfield ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus suggests that local biotic processes might regulate global systems.

[14][page needed] Daisyworld simulations where environments were stable gradually became less diverse over time; in contrast gentle perturbations led to bursts of species richness, lending support to the idea that biodiversity is valuable.

[14][page needed] This finding was supported by a 1994 primary research report on species composition, dynamics, and diversity in successional and native grasslands in Minnesota by David Tilman and John A.