mesocosm/microcosm

[cmungall]

I would like to request the terms mesocosm and microcosm.

Both meso- and microcosms are 'containers' for the purpose of experimentation and are man-made. There is an issue of scale and of the complexity of variables - i.e. the microcosm if more tighly controlled with less potential variablility/factors while the mesocosm is larger and tends to begin to approach a 'natural environment'.

These are most akin to vivarium in the current EnvO so could be placed under:

/environmental feature/mesoscopic feature/abiotic mesoscopic feature/anthropogenic abiotic mesoscopic feature/

They could be children of vivarium (along with aquarium) or perhaps there is merit to having a class that describes manmade abiotic containers designed for the sake of experimentation? (glass houses, animal houses, insectaries, etc?)

As for definitions, these are actually hard to find on the web, but one of the scientists (Ian Joint) we collaborate with on a mesocosm study provided this definition for the aquatic versions:

!A microcosm is a small enclosure - something that you can keep in the laboratory (for aquatic systems, usually from a few 100ml to a few litres).

A mesososm is a larger enclosure that attempts to include most of the components of the ecosystem under study (for aquatic systems several thousand litres).

There must be equivalent definitions for terrestrial systems."

Ian

I think Norman had some general definitions in mind?

Original comment by: dawnfield

[pbuttigieg]

A superclass like closed ecological system seems appropriate. I think the biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic subclasses of mesoscopic physical object should be removed and qualities used instead. This is relevant here as meso- and microcosms have both biotic and abiotic parts.

For now, I've defined vivarium and its children and added closed ecological system, mesocosm, and microcosm under vivarium. Defs below:

• mesocosm A mesocosm is a vivarium that is embedded within a natural environment and is used to place a relatively small part of that environment under experimental control for the purposes of scientific investigation.
• microcosm A microcosm is a vivarium within which a simple ecosystem is artificially established and used to simulate and predict the behaviour of natural ecosystems under controlled conditions.

[pbuttigieg]

PS: closed ecological system can be populated by inference if we have some quality like "materially self-contained" in PATO. Some mesocosms/microcosms will be closed ecological systems and others won't depending on how strongly material transfer is restricted.