Biocubes: Life in One Cubic Foot

What can scientists discover in a single cubic foot? As it turns out, a whole lot. Biocubes are hollow one-foot-cubic frames that can be placed almost anywhere and have been used to study mussel beds, rivers, trees, fields, coral reefs, and even sections of the ocean. The life captured within in a cubic-foot sample over a single day can capture enough variation to allow researchers to explore and understand whole ecosystems. 

Life in One Cubic Foot, a new exhibition at the Natural History Museum, examines how the small worlds of biocubes can uncover amazingly complex relationships among species and important lessons for the future of the planet.

The One Cubic Foot project was developed in 2008 by photographer David Liittschwager as a means to convey the amazing diversity found in ecosystems around the world. For a National Geographic article on his work, Liittschwager partnered with Christopher Meyer, a research zoologist at the Natural History Museum, to document a cubic foot of a coral reef in French Polynesia. That led to a collaboration with Meyer and other Smithsonian researchers and educators, who now build programming and educational resources around the one-cubic-foot concept.

Meyer discusses the ongoing work of the innovative project, how biocubes became a powerful scientific tool, and how focusing on a cubic foot of space can reveal that the ordinary life around us is, in fact, extraordinary.

David Liittschwager used his first biocube to help capture images of the biodiversity found within a lagoon on Mo'ore'a, an island near Tahiti. Scientists had already identified around 3,500 species in its ecosystem, but the photographer’s project uncovered 22 more. Liittschwager’s work is featured in the Life in One Cubic Foot exhibition. Learn more about it at Smithsonian.com.

Young scientists in your family can carry out their own biocube research guided by the Natural History Museum’s Q?rius website.