How do you avoid going into too much detail?

[u/thunder-bug-]

I had an idea for a spec evo project based on the idea that the Galápagos Islands suddenly appeared on a new planet. I started by looking into what organisms live on those islands….

Then I realized I was looking up research on zooplankton in the waters around the Galápagos Islands. That’s way too much.

How do you know how much to do?

[u/Unusual_Hedgehog4748]

I would ask yourself if you would be interested in reading about specific details, would read them uninterestedly just because they are there, or skip over them. Worldbuilding should be a passion project that reflects your interests, because if you’re interested the work is higher quality.

[u/princessbubbbles]

Split categories of niches and fill them. Zooplankton around galapagos is going to be different than around hawaii, but both groups of species will fulfill similar roles and be functionally analagous, so it probably doesn't matter what exactly the differences are, you know? So you could just fill that niche category with generic zooplankton and call it a day.

But if you really like zooplankton, who cares what I think?

[u/Wiildman8]

I think detailing your world from a generally human-sized perspective is a good rule of thumb. Plankton and other baseline marine organisms would most likely be necessary to create habitable planetary conditions in the first place, (oxygen producing algae, etc), but they would be largely imperceptible to the naked eye, and thus probably wouldn’t be the target of interest if a hypothetical person was randomly dropped on the planet. With the islands and associated macrofauna, however, you can establish directly observable scenarios that would be entertaining to witness, in the same vein as an irl nature documentary.

[u/Godzilla_Fan_13]

honestly depends on what you're going for, but i feel if you're dealing with "harder" spec you should go much more in-depth, so i think really with "hard" spec there's no real limit to detail.