Loading...
 

Biotron Biomes

Name
Biotron Biomes
Conceptual only
No
Start Date
End Date
Location
Ontario
Crops
The Biomes are designed to allow multi-disciplinary teams to create and simulate integrated ecosystems including plants, insects, soil microbes, fungae, and algae.
Human Capacity
0
Max Closed Duration
Base area
20m2
Volume
88m3
Strengths
6 large (6.0 m x 3.4 m x 4.3 m) custom-designed, environmentally controlled Biomes with enhanced Level 2 containment, completely sealed units. The Biomes are constructed using glass walls allowing natural sunlight to pass through; shading systems can be activated to control levels of sunlight. Each biome is equipped with a rain simulator, two irrigation zones, soil temperature probes, HPS lighting, PAR light sensors, sunshades, and a fogging system.

Weaknesses
The chambers are equipped with artificial lighting and an array of micro-sensors and computer systems to enable strict analysis and control over factors such as CO2, temperature, UV radiation, light intensity, wind, and precipitation.
Lessons
The Biomes allow researchers working at the molecular level to scale up experiments to the mini-ecosystem level. They also allow ecologists to scale down experiments performed under variable field conditions to environmentally controlled conditions. Thus, the Biomes allow researchers to design and simulate pertinent environmental scenarios in order to assess the impact of an array of environmental factors on organisms, including accelerated climate change scenarios, plant-soil-insect-microbe interactions, and biorisk assessment of emerging technologies and pollutants.