Microbial biospherics: A framework for studying closed ecosystem function and evolution
By
Janis Antonovics
The kind of bagel that ruins lesser bagels for you.
Summary
This article introduces a framework for "microbial biospherics" — the experimental study of matter-closed, energy-open ecosystems at a microbial level. It argues that while the study of self-supporting ecological systems (biospherics) has historically been a fringe area connected to life support engineering and space travel, it deserves a renaissance as a legitimate ecological and evolutionary research tool. The authors propose using microbial ecosystems as model systems to study ecosystem function and evolution in controlled, closed environments.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledAwareness that our planet is a self-supporting biosphere with sunlight as its major source of energy for life has resulted in a long-term historical fascination with the workings of self-supporting ecological systems.
However, the studies of such systems have never entered the canon of ecological or evolutionary tools and instead, have led a fringe existence connected to life support system engineering and space travel.
We here introduce a framework for a renaissance in biospherics based on the study of matter-closed, energy-open ecosystems at a microbial level (microbial biospherics).
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