Artificial biospheres as a model for global ecology on planet Earth

Artificial biospheres of the scale and complexity of Biosphere 2 can only work with coordinated rigorous design at each level of ecology: biospheres, biomes, bioregions, ecosystems, communities, patches, phases, physical-chemical functions, guilds, populations, organisms, and cells (both eucaryotic and procaryotic). This article reviews these theoretical concepts and provides examples of how this structure was applied to the design and development of Biosphere 2. In addition to this ecological engineering design, the addition of humans as inhabitants in the closed system required design of ethnological patterns and of technical and cybernetic systems for meeting specifically human requirements of labor efficiency, climate, nutrition, wastewater recycle, and pure air and water. Ecological levels of biospheric complexity can be directly applied to studies of the Earth's biosphere and, in fact, must be used to understand complex biospheric processes.