Help with Tree of Life. Stuck at e34 species

I’ve been having trouble with the Species layer. Reaching a significant amount of species above e18 takes days, and switching to easy mode hasn’t quite solved this issue. Surely I must be missing something.

At the moment I have 4.5e34 species with 2 Chromosomeless, 2 Nucleusless and 1 Energyless completions, 7.3e215,451 genes, 2,018 chromosomes, 88 nuclei and 129,065 tokens II.

Maybe I could try a different animal achievement button combination for challenges.

I waited through this barrier, got stuck at about e58 species, tried getting to the same point on extreme mode (and beat it, as it ends on animals), loaded the closest built-in save and got back to the grind.

Nullifying the genes seems to give a slight boost, but it’s not enough.

Nullifying after switching to “gain 10x animals” and back gives a better boost.

Whatever. I’ve been stuck long enough by now, so I’ll just skip to the next built-in save.