Research ecologists Chris Swanston, left, and Erik Lilleskov, Michigan Tech adjunct faculty members who also work for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, are pictured here earlier this fall at the construction site of the mesocosm, a new underground research facility being built near MTU's School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. (Photo courtesy Michigan Tech University. Reprinted with permission.)It's the only one of its kind for northern forest research and one of very few anywhere in the country.
A mesocosm is an experimental enclosure designed to simulate natural conditions while environmental factors are manipulated. Its name refers to its size: It's larger than a microcosm or miniature model but smaller than a macrocosm or large-scale representation of reality.
In their first mesocosm research project, research ecologists Erik Lilleskov and Chris Swanston, will be tracking what they call "the ecosystem engineers" of the forest floor. Swanston and Lilleskov, who work for the USDA Forest Service, also are adjunct faculty members at Michigan Tech. Their research will be a uniquely integrated analysis of the impact of invasive earthworms on the ecology of northern forests....
Read the whole story by Jennifer Donovan on the MTU Web site.
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