The Montreal Biodome () is a museum of enclosed ecosystems located at Olympic Park in the Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough of

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, that allows visitors to walk through replicas of four ecosystems found in the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

. It is one of two large-scale enclosed ecosystem structures in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...

, the other being

Biosphere 2 University of Arizona Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and i ...

Tucson Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. However, unlike the latter, the Montreal Biodome was designed primarily as a museum, resembles but is fundamentally different from a

closed ecological system Closed ecological systems or contained ecological systems (CES) are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system. The term is most often used to describe small, man-made ecosystems. Such systems can potentially ...

such as Biosphere 2. The building was originally constructed for the 1976 Olympic Games as a velodrome (cycling stadium) with 2,600 seats. It hosted both

track cycling Track cycling is a Cycle sport, bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles. History Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its i ...

and

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, combat sport, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyc ...

events. Renovations on the building began in 1989 and in 1992 the indoor nature exhibit was opened. The Montreal Biodome is one of four facilities that make part of the largest natural science museum complex in Canada, Space for Life, which also includes the Montreal Insectarium, Montreal Botanical Garden, and Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium. It is an accredited member of both the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the

Canada's Accredited Zoos and Aquariums Canada's Accredited Zoos and Aquariums (CAZA; ) is an accreditation and advocacy organization representing zoos and aquariums within Canada. The organization states that its member zoos and aquariums care for more than 100,000 individual animals ...

association (CAZA).

History

The building was designed by French architect Roger Taillibert as part of his larger plan for an Olympic park that included the Montreal Olympic Stadium and the

Olympic pool An Olympic-size swimming pool is a swimming pool which conforms to the regulations for length, breadth, and depth made by World Aquatics (formerly FINA) for swimming at the Summer Olympics and the Swimming (sport), swimming events at the World A ...

. The venue was a combined velodrome and

facility. Construction of the building began in August 1973, and the facility was officially opened in April 1976. The velodrome, along with the accompanying Olympic pool, inspired Tallibert's later designs for Luxembourg's National Sports and Culture Centre. In 1988, a feasibility study was conducted for converting the velodrome into a biodome. Construction started in 1989, and the facility was opened to the public on 18 June 1992 as the Montreal Biodome. In the summer of 2003, the Biodome installed an audio guide system that lets visitors get information about what they are viewing, and also provides statistics to the facility about what the visitors find most interesting. Visitors can rent a receiver programmed to receive French, Spanish, or English for adults, or French or English for children.

Exhibits

The facility allows visitors to walk through replicas of four ecosystems found in the Americas: * The Tropical Forest is a replica of the

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

n rainforest. * The Laurentian Forest is a replica of the

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

n wilderness. * The Saint Lawrence Marine Eco-system is an

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...

habitat modelled on the

Gulf of Saint Lawrence The Gulf of St. Lawrence is a gulf that fringes the shores of the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, in Canada, plus the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, possessions of France, in ...

. * The Sub-Polar Region is a habitat that is divided into

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

and

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

. All the exhibits are housed inside the former velodrome that was used for the cycling and judo events of the

1976 Summer Olympics The 1976 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Montreal 1976 (), were an international multi-sport event held from July 17 to August 1, 1976, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal ...

, with each of the four environments taking up a portion of the stadium. A variety of animals live in each simulated habitat, ranging from the

macaw Macaws are a group of Neotropical parrot, New World parrots that are long-tailed and often colorful, in the Tribe (biology), tribe Arini (tribe), Arini. They are popular in aviculture or as companion parrots, although there are conservation con ...

s in the Tropical Forest, to the

lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

in the Laurentian Forest, to the

penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

s in the Antarctic and the different kinds of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

that inhabit the waters of the Saint Lawrence River. As well, two new species have been discovered living in the Biodome: the acarian ''Copidognathus biodomus'' in the simulated estuary in 1996, and the

bacterium Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the ...

''Nitratireductor aquibiodomus'' in the water reprocessing system in 2003.

Renovation

In October 2015, it was announced that both the Biodome and the Insectarium would be closing their doors to the public from September 2016 to December 2017, in order to be renovated, as part of the city of Montreal's 375th anniversary; however, in August 2016, the mayor of Montreal cancelled the contract to renovate the Biodome, because the bid results received by the city were much higher than the initial estimates. The facelift project went back to a bidding process. The Biodome closed for renovations on 2 April 2018. The reopening was pushed back from September 2019 to December 2019, and then to the spring of 2020 due to a shortage of supplies and specialized labourers. The

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

caused additional delays, and the Biodome finally reopened to the public on 31 August 2020. A

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

was also released, offering augmented reality features and more in-depth information about the different plants and animals.

Gallery

Image:MontrealOlympicTowerAndBiodome1.jpg, The Biodome, in front of the

Olympic Stadium ''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports ...

Image:Biodome.jpg, View from above Image:Biodome 1.jpg, Inside the Biodome (Gulf of St. Lawrence area) Image:Penguin in Captivity.JPG, Some

s in the polar area

References

External links

*
Space for Life Foundation home page

''The Glass Ark''
a

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...