Portland

The owner of Biosphere 2 — an experiment to build a carefully controlled ecosystem in a massive Arizona greenhouse — is suing Columbia University in New York over its plan to withdraw support from the facility.

Decision Investments Corporation, a company controlled by the Texan billionaire Ed Bass, who built Biosphere 2, filed a lawsuit against the university in Arizona's superior court on 21 March. Two months ago, the company was notified that Columbia wanted to get out of its ten-year, $20-million contract to manage the facility until 2010, by June (see Nature 421, 466; 2003).

The conflict arises as Biosphere 2 takes steps towards attaining the scientific credibility it has sought since its construction 15 years ago. Earlier this year, for example, chemists there demonstrated that elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could offset negative air-quality effects associated with planned forests (T. N. Rosenstiel et al. Nature 421, 256–259; 2003).

The lawsuit alleges that Columbia is in breach of contract by abandoning plans for new education programmes, an extra lab and the recruitment of half-a-dozen senior researchers at Biosphere 2. “For years, Columbia has affirmed that the education and science tracks were proceeding with much success, and then, out of the blue, they want to cease funding the project they designated as their 'western campus' three years ago,” says Martin Bowen, vice-president of Decision Investments. A spokeswoman for Columbia declined to comment on the lawsuit.

A statement by Decision Investments ascribed Columbia's move to a recent change of leadership — economist Jeffrey Sachs took over last April as director of Columbia University's Earth Institute. But Sachs says the institute will maintain its commitment to ecological research, and that any speculation to the contrary is “totally unfounded and completely misinformed”.

Biosphere 2 managers say they plan to keep operating the facility and to find alternative sources for its annual operating costs of about $1.5 million. They say that European researchers, including groups from Jena, Germany, and Edinburgh and remain committed to the experiment.

Joe Berry, a Biosphere 2 ecologist based at the Stanford University branch of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, says he thinks that the facility could one day sustain itself through grants if a critical mass of good-quality scientific output is reached.