The glass ball appearing in Qin Lan's photo is called an Eco Ball, a popular small fresh decoration before the disaster.
The thod is straightforward: just find a transparent glass container, lay a layer of fine sand inside, fill about two-thirds with water, then put in small fish and shrimp, and seal the entire container.
Such an Eco Ball can maintain ecological balance for about two months. Although it needs daily sunlight to ensure proper lighting, and the ratio of fish, shrimp, and algae has to be controlled, it's quite significant that such a simple object can maintain ecological balance for two months.
In fact, ever since the Eco Ball was invented by two scientists, it has been a very aningful research project.
If we liken the Eco Ball to a miniature Blue Star, then the small red shrimp represent humans.
Therefore, the Eco Ball can be related to today's Blue Star, where the natural ecological environnt is constantly being damaged. If this continues without improvent, all life could be threatened.
The concept behind the Eco Ball serves as a reminder to humans about the importance of maintaining ecological balance for life, and makes people think of the interconnected relationships and mysteries among various species on Blue Star.
At the sa ti, before the disaster, aerospace research institutions also studied the Eco Ball, aiming to build a self-sustaining ecological environnt within spacecraft, space stations, and extraterrestrial colonies to ensure human survival.
This coincides with Chen Xin's current goals and offers him considerable reference.
"I used to see these small Eco Balls displayed in Qingyan's bar. Are you really interested in them, Xin?" Qin Lan curiously asked, noticing Chen Xin's interest in the Eco Ball.
Although they saw each other every day, Qin Lan's main job was assisting in designing Titan. Besides, she's not the type to constantly ask Chen Xin about his work, so she only had a general idea of what he was doing.
Chen Xin nodded and explained to Qin Lan, "Recently, I've been researching ecosystems. This Eco Ball holds significant reference value."
"Ecosystem, is it like the ecological cycle we learned in biology textbooks?" Having passed the civil servant exam and becoming a special police officer, Qin Lan certainly wasn't a poor student; she understood things taught in middle school.
"Yes, that ecosystem. The natural ecosystem has now collapsed, so I'm planning to build an artificial one. But so far, it's challenging to maintain its balance and existence. It always collapses after a few years, not as stable as these Eco Balls." Chen Xin wore a wry smile, not out of self-deprecation, but because artificial ecosystems were indeed less stable than Eco Balls.
Such Eco Balls, while small and simple, might last only two or three months. However, if well-managed, one can last two to three years, or even five to seven years for larger ones, and the longest can persist for over a decade.
This is evidently more stable than the ecological spheres constructed by Chen Xin and his team.
Of course, this is mainly due to the complexity difference between the two. The Eco Ball's internal environnt is very simple, with few species, naturally resulting in fewer variables affecting its balance, making it relatively easy to maintain.
After all, it only has algae and small fish and shrimp, and the only factors that can affect its ecological balance are light and temperature. Controlling these two variables is enough to ensure the Eco Ball's ecological balance until the algae or fish and shrimp's lifespan runs out.
As for reproduction, that's impossible because such Eco Balls are very limited in space and do not support the reproduction of fish, shrimp, or an increase in algae.
However, changing to a larger space could improve this aspect.
Thinking of this, Chen Yu suddenly felt he could try a different approach.
He excitedly stood up, kissed Qin Lan on the cheek, and then hurriedly dashed toward the holographic imaging room.
Qin Lan watched Chen Xin's hurried deanor, feeling sowhat puzzled and a bit helpless, but she just smiled and continued sorting through the photos in front of her.
In the holographic imaging room, Chen Xin input his new idea into the device constructed from nano-molecules on his wristwatch and projected it within the holographic space.
This ti, Chen Xin did not use the thod of initially adding everything to construct the ecosystem, nor did he only use plants, nor directly use Do City as the base environnt. Instead, he chose one plant, one animal, and, like making an Eco Ball, only delineated a small space, then put the two species inside.
Besides this, what Chen Xin provided for this "Eco Ball" was only soil, light, and sufficient water resources.
The plant Chen Xin placed was just the most ordinary and common grass, while the animal was a rabbit.
The rabbit eats grass, then excretes waste, which bacteria decompose into nutrients absorbed by the grass to supply its growth, forming a cycle. If there's no problem, it should be a stable running system.
Of course, if the rabbit population increases beyond the environnt's carrying capacity, it will still lead to the ecological system's collapse.
However, since this was only a simulation experint, Chen Xin simply allowed controlled rabbit reproduction to maintain the population without letting it proliferate uncontrollably.
Since he understood the dire consequences of rabbit overpopulation, Chen Xin managed the numbers with care.
With the rabbits' numbers controlled, the cycle remained unbroken. Once rabbit numbers reached the environnt's carrying capacity, it stabilized and, according to program calculations, could cycle indefinitely.
Chen Xin was not surprised by this result, as many variables were ignored. The entire cycle was only a simple simulated test, barely an ecosystem, plus Chen Xin made adjustnts. If it collapsed under such conditions, there was no point in pursuing it further.
With this initial foundation, Chen Xin could proceed with further testing.
This involved no longer controlling the rabbit population manually but introducing predators to naturally regulate rabbit numbers.
Of course, adding predators ant that the "Eco Ball" size beca cramped, so alongside predator introduction, Chen Xin enlarged the "Eco Ball," enhancing environntal capacity and its upper limit.
Regarding the predator introduced into the "Eco Ball," Chen Xin chose the equally common wolf.
Rabbits eat grass, wolves eat rabbits, and finally, the bodies and waste of the wolves and rabbits decompose, returning to the earth as nutrients for the grass, thus completing the cycle.
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