Noted: To do this in the ocean itself is trickyâ??the sea is vast and there are lots of variables to contend with. What is required, then, is a model to aid understanding. Steven Carpenter and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have found one: lakes. A lake is a good place to study ecological changes because it is small, as ecosystems go, and has clear boundaries. Since mid-2008, therefore, Dr Carpenterâ??s team have been monitoring the health of six lakes in Missouri in order to try to understand how ecosystems suddenly flip from one state to another.
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