Abstract: Aquatic ecosystem mesocosm refers to an artificially constructed near-natural simulation facility in aquatic ecosystem. With aquatic ecosystem mesocosms, experiments on the responses of biological communities can be conducted by controlling physical, chemical and other habitat conditions. Mesocosm experiments can bridge the gap between laboratory experiments and field experiments. Laboratory experiment can only simulate a small number of simple factors, whereas field experimental systems are complex and difficult to conduct controlled experiments. By resear-ching into global long-term mesocosms, we classified them into four types, i.e. flowing type mesocosm, enclosure, land-based simulation pool and mobile experimental tank. The meoscosms gene-rally include physical-biological simulation system, automatic control system, monitoring and analysis system, and central control system. In recent years, aquatic ecosystem research in China has gradually changed from a single environmental factor to the whole ecosystem. We suggest that the construction of the mesocosms in China’s aquatic ecosystem should increase the structural complexity and be combined with field in situ monitoring to support large scale simulation.

Key words: mesocosm, aquatic ecosystem, simulation facilities