The Closed Equilibrated Biological Aquatic System: general concept and aspects of botanical research

The Closed Equilibrated Biological Aquatic System (CEBAS) consists of four subcomponents which form a closed (artificial) aquatic ecosystem initially designed to study the long-term influence of space conditions on several successive generations of aquatic organisms. Teleost fishes and water snails in the zoological component produce CO2 ammonium ions and waste compounds which can be utilized after ammonium is oxidised in a microbial component by the botanical component consisting of a rootless, aquatic higher plant species which eliminates ions, i.e. nitrate, and produces oxygen for animal respiration. An electronic component serves as a data-acquisition and regulation device for temperature and oxygen-dependent illumination of the plant chamber. A comprehensive interdisciplinary research programme, focused around the CEBAS, is especially well developed in the field of zoology. It covers a ground laboratory and preparations for two scheduled space flight projects, as well as aspects of combined animal-plant food production modules for human nutrition in bioregenerative space life-support systems and for terrestrial production sites. In the botanical research programme, morphological investigations on Ceratophyllum demersum L. performed with light and electron microscopy have demonstrated a gas lacuna system which, in addition to starch grains in the plastids, might regulate the buoyancy of the plant and/or serve as a 'gas skeleton'. Also, a remarkable symmetry in the arrangement of tissues was observed in stems and older leaves. The photosynthetic capacities of Ceratophyllum in the CEBAS-MINI MODULE proved to be more than sufficient for life support, and experiments on nitrate uptake into the plants showed their capacity to utilize ions from the water.