There are five separate biomes in the biosphere – Rainforest, Ocean, Mangroves, Savannah and Desert. We walked through each and were introduced to recent or current experiments taking place in each. In the rainforest section a carbon-cycle experiment was carried out to measure how and where carbon is recycled through the plant growth process.
Research into plastic eating microbes was carried out in the Ocean section with the aim of finding a way to tackle the Pacific Garbage Patch.
In the Mangrove area, among the plants growing there, blue tubs were used to test equipment and plants to be used in the LEO project outlined further down.
The desert area is currently home to experiments on the interaction between rocks and plants as described on one of the pictures below (if you understand it, can you explain it to me?)
The Landscape Evolution Observatory project is focussing on the water cycle. Large amounts of volcanic rock has been ground to a sand and is placed on these tilted platforms. Water will be rained onto them and by constantly weighing the platforms measurements can be taken on how much of the water is retained in the rock, how much runs down the tilt and how much evaporates. It has been built in the buildings which had housed the agricultural crops while biospherians lived inside and could be connected to one of the lungs if at any point the scientists wanted to close it into a sealed system,
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