On operad structures of moduli spaces and string theory

We construct a real compactification of the moduli space of punctured rational algebraic curves and show how its geometry yields operads governing homotopy Lie algebras, gravity algebras and Batalin-Vilkovisky algebras. These algebras appeared recently in the context of string theory, and we give a simple deduction of these algebraic structures from the formal axioms of conformal field theory and string theory.