The MESODROME focuses on aquatic ecosystems, where environmental problems co-occur, such as eutrophication, pollution, and flooding. It is a large-scale aquatic mesocosm facility that bridges the gap between microscale laboratory experiments and the macroscale natural environment by providing controlled, semi-natural systems with large water volumes. This enables the study of environmental and biological processes at an ecologically relevant scale of complexity, space, and time, while allowing precise manipulation of conditions.
The MESODROME consists of four complementary installations. The Flume is a 20 m long, 2 m wide experimental river in which hydrology, water quality, sediment characteristics, and biota can be manipulated; both flow speed and water level are adjustable. The Experimental Ponds (16 units, 2m diameter) provide replicated, semi-natural standing water systems for studying ecosystem processes, community dynamics, and biogeochemical cycling. The Raceways (four 4 m experimental rivers) are flexible flow-through systems that combine lotic and lentic features; they can be sealed off and used as swimming flumes or respirometers, with control over water composition, aeration, flow, and temperature. Finally, a recirculating Aquaculture system supports controlled experiments with fish and other organisms.
Together, these facilities enable integrated assessment of pollution and climate-driven hydrological changes on linked biotic and abiotic ecosystem components.
The MESODROME is part of AnaEE-Belgium, the national branch of the European infrastructure AnaEE (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems). If you like to make use of the MESODROME facility, please contact Lotte Oosterlee.
AnaEE installations in Belgium (Video credits: AnaEE-Belgium)
