Word: ecosystem
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...scientific tour de force. In December eight people will be sealed inside for two years, getting nothing from the outside but information, electricity and sunshine. Along with 3,800 plants and dozens of species of invertebrates, mammals and other living organisms, they will form the largest self-sustaining ecosystem ever built...
Designed as both a prototype space colony and a laboratory for understanding the earth, Biosphere II is the largest self-sustaining ecosystem ever built...
...body," he says. Biologists and botanists speak in more scientific terms. They say the ancient forest is more than an aggregation of trees. To them the ancient forest's rotting trunks, decrepit firs and deep debris represent not waste, but vital nutrients in a vastly complex ecosystem...
...preserving them in reforested tracts, both widen the owls' habitat and open the way for a resumption of timbering on a selective basis. But the owl is not alone in the forest. As an "indicator species," its well-being is a measure of how other creatures and the ecosystem as a whole are faring. "The spotted owl is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg," says the Forest Service's Franklin. "There are probably dozens of other species just as threatened...
...courage to act, the harder it is to find a solution. After years of industry obstructionism and governmental acquiescence, the Forest Service is finally experimenting with requiring more selective harvesting of trees, rather than clear-cutting. But many environmentalists fear that such half measures will not preserve the forest ecosystem...