Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A biological system that contains the physical features and organisms of an ecosystem but is restricted in size or scope for use in conducting scientific experiments.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any system larger than a
microcosm but smaller than amacrocosm
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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A big trend today is mesocosm experiments where hectare size environments are used as outdoor laboratories.
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A big trend today is mesocosm experiments where hectare size environments are used as outdoor laboratories.
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However, mesocosm studies on the effect of high initial ambient CO2 (750 μatm) on coccolithophore assemblages have shown an increase in POC production [20].
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CO2 conditions during the PeECE III mesocosm field study in a Norwegian fjord.
HAnsen and Schmidt: Predicting the Past – Continued « Climate Audit 2006
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A combination of lab and mesocosm experiments provides further insight to biogenic calcification of coccolithophores.
HAnsen and Schmidt: Predicting the Past – Continued « Climate Audit 2006
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This will be done in the mesocosm studies by adding minute amounts of the tracer pair sulphur hexafluoride and
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A research assistant will participate in the design and implementation of outdoor mesocosm and field experiments designed to evaluate the effects of biodiversity losses on amphibian disease.
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The problem is that this style of lab or mesocosm experimentation doesn’t tell you much about landscape-scale responses in the field.
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Due to these divergent observations, plus the fact that most of what we know about the topic "stems largely from short-term laboratory and mesocosm experiments," as Doney et al. describe them, the latter scientists conclude that the ultimate long-term response of "individual organisms, populations, and communities to more realistic gradual changes [in atmospheric CO
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Emmerson et al. showed, using mesocosm experiments with soft bottom intertidal invertebrates, that effects of species richness on ecosystem function, in this case flux of nutrients (specifically ammonia, NH
she commented on the word mesocosm
n., An enclosed and essentially self-sufficient (but not necessarily isolated) experimental environment or ecosystem that is on a larger scale than a laboratory microcosm.
September 3, 2008