Biotron climate‑research super‑lab in Ontario and unrelated local wildlife release controversy

FRONTLINES world that will allow researchers to re-create and study how a com- plete ecosystem, such as Arctic tundra or boreal forest, responds to climate change. The Biotron, Hiiner says, is “as close as you can get to nature [in a lab].” The Biotron will help integrate biology into the scientific study of global warming. Existing climate change models, says Hiiner, are tore about physics than biology; moreover, they describe changes that are happening to the planet. rather than to particular habitats, species, or individuals. Scientists haven't been able to create pre- dictive models, for example, of how changes in rainfall and researchers tested in two sepa- rate “missions” whether humans could live sustainably in a sealed, self-contained environment as a precursor to colonizing outer space. The Biotron, scientifically speaking, is in a different league. The superlaboratory is a joint project of the University of Western Ontario, the University of Guelph, Ontario, and Agricul ture and Agri-Food Canada, a federal agency. The nondescript five-story building, located in the agricultural heartland of south- western Ontario, is an engineer- ing marvel, yel a bargain al just U.S. $28 million. Inside are state-of-the-art fa- cilities that support research into microorganisms, insects, and plants, afl of which can be geneti- cally modified to suit research- ers’ needs. Temperature in the Researchers will vie for access to the Biotron much as physicists compete to use the world’s few particle : accelerators or astronomers the latest and biggest optical telescopes temperature will affect soybean yields in the U.S. grain belt or butterflies in the Amazon basin, because, with a few exceptions, they haven’t had the tools to measure the impact of climate change on living organisms. Now there’s a place where whole ecosystems can be scrupu- lously re-created and organisms scrutinized, from their DNA to their interaction with other organ- isms. With more complete data, scientists will be able to make better predictions—and their ex perimental findings could better inform policy makers, who might, for example, provide subsidies for crops thatrespond well to emerg- ing climate patterns. The Biotron may call to mind Biosphere 2, the large artificial habitat plopped down 20 years ago in the Arizona desert, where 14 onearth WINTER 2008 Biotron’s climate chambers can be varied from —40 degrees Fahr- enheit to 122 degrees, to simulate anything from the Arctic winter to a tropical rainforest. On the reof of the building are six “biomes”——air- locked, preenhouselike structures that have been custom designed to precisely control environmental factors such as ternperature, UV radiation, light intensity, wind, pre- cipitation, and CO;, Each biome is large enough to house trees more than 30 feet tall and to allow for the re-creation of complex biologi- cal communities that can extend from the highest tree canopies to underground soil layers. If the possibilities seem end- less, they nearly are. The plan is for the world’s leading scientists to rotate in and out of the lab space, and the biomes will be regularly reconfigured. One such setup will use cross sections of Arctic perma- frost, transported from northern Canada, so researchers can study how it reacts to rising tempera- tures: As the permafrost thaws, how much methane gas will be released? How will bacteria and overwintering insects be affected by changing freeze-thaw cycles? Scientists will design and study more temperate ecosystems, as well, to learn how changes in temperature and CQ» affect the growth of photosynthetic organisms, including crops and boreal forest, Biotron researchers will also be able to study the benefits and risks of biotechnology in agriculture, forestry, and medicine by examin- ing the basic biology of genetically modified organisms: What is the rate of gene transfer from trans- genic plants to wild ones? Can plants be engineered to manufac ture medicinal compounds that will benefit humans? The Biotron will be equipped with a sophisticated imaging and analysis system—a virtual control room—that will expand its reach globally, allowing researchers anywhere to manage and moni- tar experiments remotely over the Intemet in real time. A scien- tist in India studying the impact ot climate change on rice could instruct the Biotron to raise the temperature or CO, concentra- tion in a biome set up to simulate a South Asian rice paddy. Then he or she could monitor the impact of this change through images and other data automatically col- lected and stored in a supercom- puting network. Researchers will vie for access to the Biotron in much the same way that physicists compete te use the world’s few particle accel- erators or astronomers the latest and biggest optical telescopes. Like them, itis a place for frontier science, where old models will fall and new and unexpected ones will arise—excenpt that the goal is not to understand our cosmic origins but to influence our destiny. afps uanoid uaeg JOU anDY JOY] ApIDp spoIiiuaya ZZ 01 pasodxa $1 piIYa uNdIIdawYy asddany ay] ‘sjonpoud aipa poUuOssad YSENOLY J, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019445 Far From Nirvana NEW YORK CITY'S AMITABHA Buddhists are full of good intentions. Last summer members of the group baught hundreds of eels, frogs, and turtles from the city's China- town markets and released thern inta New Jersey's Pas- saic River to save them fram the dinner table. The problem: the state's Department of Environmental Protection has strict rules for the release of animals into its watersheds, and the group now faces fines for illegally introducing inva- sive species. To make matters worse, the animats may not survive, ADAM SPANGLER They Didn’t Mean That IN OUR FALL 2007 ISSUE, Howard Frumkin of the Centers warned that global warming was “perhaps the largest looming public health chal- lenge that we face.” On October 23, Frumkin’s boss, CDC director Julie Gerberding, testified about climate change ta the Sen- ate Environment and Public Works Cammittee. By the time Bush administration officials were done review- ing her 12-page draft, it had been slashed to six. Among the statements cut: “The COC considers climate change a serious public concern.” or Disease Control AGOWE ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE WACKSMAN RIGHT PHU LOGRAPH FOR OME4ATH BY LOU MICKOMS; SQURTE FOR VAEMICALS PACT ENVIANKMENTAL WORKING GROUP