Macroevolution in an isolated room

Imagine a large room, perhaps 50 metres in length and 35 in width, with its ceiling 40 metres above the floor. On this ceiling, there are LED lights, rendering the brightness of the room to look something like this:

On the floor, there's a large pool, stretching 10 metres deep below the floor, and occupying about 60% of the floor area. The remaining 40 percent is covered in a few-inches-thick layer of dust. Now, imagine that the lights on this room would somehow stay turned on for all eternity, and the walls would never break. Some kind of device regulates the gases in the room, so that it stays 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and the remaining 1% of Earth's other current gases.

If we were to deploy a strain of aquatic bacteria into this hypothetical room, and waited billions of years, would it be feasible for things like sexual reproduction, complex multicellularity, and eventually air-breathing fauna to evolve? The major differences here from the real world are:

• The confined space
• The lack of change (Same space, same light, same air etc.)

So, do these prohibit the likes of bacteria evolving into as complex organisms as we see on our Earth? Can extremely complex ecosystems exist in a 40 m x 35 m x 50 m space? A further clarification: imagine this room is on Earth, so the gravity will be Earth-like.

Bonus question: could macroscopic flying animals evolve in such a small, windless, thermal-less place? Feel free to ask more questions on the conditions of the room if I've left any out.

EDIT: the founding bacteria will be photoautotrophs, and once they have reached a stable population, heterotrophic ones will be introduced.

posted about 6 years ago

SealBoi‭

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