UA News

The University of Arizona is celebrating the completion of a tremendously successful first year of managing Biosphere 2.

On May 28, 2006, the New York Times reported the possibility of the iconic Biosphere 2 facility in Oracle, Ariz. being razed. Today, about a year after The University of Arizona took over management of the building and surrounding campus, Biosphere 2 is a thriving research and public outreach enterprise, introducing new ways to answer the big questions in science.

The convergence of the world’s largest environmentally-controlled growth chamber and a world-class research institution addressing some of the society’s most pressing environmental issues is a combination unlike any other on the planet.

The UA’s management of the facility officially began on July 1, 2007. Grants by the Philecology Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas, and other organizations are supporting the University’s research programs and the costs of operating the facility.

Biosphere 2’s research arm, dubbed B2 Earthscience, is led by Travis Huxman, UA associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. Using the 3.14-acre controlled-environment facility, faculty and student researchers are tacking some of the most pressing issues facing the scientific community – including global climate change, the fate of water and how energy travels through Earth's ecosystems.

The B2 Institute, led by Pierre Meystre, Regents’ professor of physics and optical sciences at the UA, is focused on addressing scientific grand challenges whose solutions require the combined expertise of a broad range of scientific fields and diverse interdisciplinary talents.

In addition, the UA also operates tours and educational programs for visitors, and has already seen a 35-percent increase in public visitation in its first year.

“The Biosphere's first year has been nothing short of remarkable,” said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the UA College of Science. “Travis Huxman has been amazing at developing an outreach program that should make us all proud. Pierre Meystre has been able to build the B2 Institute into a credible entity that allows for thoughtful meetings.”

On the research side, Ruiz added that, “The experiments that have begun at Biosphere 2 will yield important information on consequences of global climate change.”

One of the UA’s flagship research experiments at Biosphere 2 is addressing the interactions between plants and water – requiring the development of three hill slopes. Huxman said the approach to designing and building reflects “a different way of doing science.”

Scientists from all over the world were invited to Biosphere 2 to contribute their ideas toward the design of the experiment. “We told them that ‘if you help us design it, we would build an experiment that would answer many people’s favorite question, not just our favorite question,’” Huxman said.

One of the most significant achievements at Biosphere 2, according to Huxman, has been the development of research experiments that are open for public viewing, which has transformed the glass-enclosed facility into a living laboratory.

In February, the Brazilian rain forest biome at Biosphere 2 opened to the public for the first time.

A $2.5 million grant from the Partnership for International Research and Education-Amazonia, or Amazon-PIRE, funded a project that uses the Biosphere 2 rainforest to study how global climate change affects Brazil's Amazon rainforests.

Visitors from the general public have enjoyed the opportunity to see and interact with students as they conducted experiments within the tropical forest.

”What we are trying to do is to have very few barriers between the scientists and the public that visits,” Huxman said. “The two-way communication between the scientist and the public changes the way that science is done.”

Students have spent a year working on several small experiments at Biosphere 2, in front of the public. “The feedback was great,” Huxman said. “People like to interact with the students and they tend to learn a lot.”

While hopes were always high for the B2 Institute, it was discovered quickly as a premier venue for scientific retreats, conferences and training events. Occupancy at Biosphere 2’s conference and residential facilities is three times higher than projected in its first year.

A likely area of growth for the B2 Institute, according to Huxman, is in events offering training to K-12 science teachers.

Both Huxman and Ruiz agree that the long-term future for Biosphere 2 is bright.

”Biosphere 2 perfectly complements the intellectual strengths of the University in water, environmental and climate research,” Ruiz said. “I have no doubt in my mind that the Biosphere 2 will crystallize to the rest of the world the intellectual power of our institution.”

“In the long run, we hope that this is a new way of doing science at a public research institution,” Huxman said. “It’s cutting out the middle man, scientists asking questions that people directly care about, and having short feedback between them.”