microcosm

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microcosm
1. A late nineteenth-century American term encompassing essentially the same ideas as the word ‘ecosystem’.

2. (micro-ecosystem) A small-scale, simplified, experimental ecosystem, laboratory- or field-based, which may be: (a)derived directly from nature (e.g. when samples of pond water are maintained subsequently by the input of artificial light and gas-exchange); or(b)built up from axenic cultures until the required conditions of organisms and environment are achieved.

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