The Ecology exhibition looks at how living things interact with one another and their environment to form thriving communities. The exhibition is sponsored by British Petroleum.
Near the entrance to the exhibition you will see a series of large spheres representing air, earth, water and the sun's energy, the essential ingredients of life.
A display representing the Serengeti Plain in the dry season follows. Ecology is the study of connections - how do the Serengeti creatures survive the long dry period? What links acacia trees, impala and vultures? Ecology fits these different pieces of information together to build a whole picture.
Water is one vital link. Without it, life could not exist. A vast video wall enables you to follow the water cycle - vapour rises from the oceans, clouds form, rain falls to the land below, plants and animals take in the life-giving liquid, and rivers carry it back downstream, bearing nutrients to the ocean. Few people realize how important trees are to climate, recycling massive amounts of water back into the atmosphere.
Because essentials such as sunlight and water are available in different amounts across the globe, communities take different forms. In the oceans, light and nutrients decide how a community forms, whereas on land the kind of plant and animal life depends on the climate, as you'll see in our Stonehenge-like display.
The energy for life comes from the sun. It is filtered by the atmosphere, then plants turn some of that energy into food. (Step into the giant leaf to discover how.) The struggle for energy now begins: plants are eaten by herbivores which are in turn eaten by carnivores. Waste and remains are consumed by scavengers and decomposers. In this way, the elements of life are recycled in the environment. You can trace some of the paths taken by one of these essential elements - carbon - in a computer game.
Ecology also looks at how communities change - the most dramatic changes of all are being caused by human beings. Our species is bulldozing its way across the planet, destroying organisms whose value we do not even know. Is there a way for us to live in the world without destroying it? Can we preserve Earth's greatest treasure - its wealth of natural variety? It is the responsibility of each of us to respond to this challenge where we can.
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