"An ecosystem model is an abstract, usually mathematical, representation of an ecological system..."
The use of mathematical and computational models to study ecological systems and predict the effects of environmental change.
Ecological Concepts and Principles: Understanding the basic concepts and principles of ecology such as ecosystem structure and function, nutrient cycling, food chains and webs, trophic levels, ecological succession, biogeochemical cycles, and biodiversity.
Data Concepts and Techniques: Methods for collecting, processing, and interpreting ecological data, statistical analysis, spatial and temporal data, and modeling tools such as GIS and remote sensing.
Population Dynamics: Understanding the dynamics of populations, including growth, mortality, recruitment, population regulation, and demographic modeling.
Community Ecology: The study of interactions among species in communities, including competition, predation, mutualism, and trophic cascades.
Ecosystem Ecology: The study of biotic and abiotic components of ecosystems, their interactions, and the flow of energy and matter through ecosystems.
Landscape Ecology: The study of the relationships between spatial patterns of habitat and ecological processes and processes.
Environmental Ethics and Policy: The study of ethical and policy issues in environmental management and decision-making.
Ecological Modeling Techniques: Modeling techniques including statistical modeling, simulation modeling, and individual-based modeling.
Ecological Modeling Applications: Applications of ecological modeling in ecology, conservation biology, and environmental management.
Climate Change: The study of the effects of climate change on ecosystems and the development of models to predict future climate change impacts.
Population Models: These models are used to study how the population dynamics of a species are affected by various factors such as birth rates, death rates, immigration, and emigration.
Metapopulation Models: These models are used to study a set of spatially separated populations that are linked by migration. The models assess the impact of habitat loss, fragmentation, and other changes on the metapopulation dynamics.
Food web models: These models are used to understand the complex interactions between different species in an ecosystem. They describe how energy and nutrients flow between various trophic levels, and the impact of the removal of one or more species on the entire food web.
Landscape Models: These models focus on understanding the effects of landscape configuration and structure on biodiversity and ecosystem services provision.
Biogeochemical models: These models are used to examine the cycling of nutrients and energy through different compartments of an ecosystem.
Ecosystem Models: These models simulate the interactions of a variety of organisms and their physical environment to understand the functioning of entire ecosystems.
Species Distribution Models: These models use environmental data to predict the distribution of a species in space and time. They are commonly used to predict the impacts of climate change on species ranges.
Top-Down Models: These models investigate the impact of predators or other higher trophic level organisms on lower trophic levels. They help understand the role of predators in shaping community structure and dynamics.
Bottom-Up Models: These models simulate the impacts of various environmental factors such as nutrient availability and temperature on primary productivity and subsequently on the entire food web.
Individual-Based Models: These models are used to simulate the behavior and life history of individual organisms in response to various environmental factors. They are especially useful in understanding the effects of changes in environmental conditions or population management scenarios.
"...to better understand the real system."
"Using data gathered from the field, ecological relationships—such as the relation of sunlight and water availability to photosynthetic rate, or that between predator and prey populations—are derived..."
"...make predictions about the dynamics of the real system."
"Models enable researchers to simulate large-scale experiments that would be too costly or unethical to perform on a real ecosystem."
"They also enable the simulation of ecological processes over very long periods of time."
"Applications in a wide variety of disciplines, such as natural resource management, ecotoxicology and environmental health, agriculture, and wildlife conservation."
"Ecological modeling has even been applied to archaeology with varying degrees of success..."
"the relation of sunlight and water availability to photosynthetic rate" and "the relation between predator and prey populations"
"Often, the study of inaccuracies in the model (when compared to empirical observations) will lead to the generation of hypotheses about possible ecological relations that are not yet known or well understood."
"...applications in natural resource management..."
"...applications in ecotoxicology and environmental health..."
"...applications in agriculture..."
"...applications in wildlife conservation."
"Often, the study of inaccuracies in the model (when compared to empirical observations)..."
"...simulating a process that takes centuries in reality can be done in a matter of minutes in a computer model."
"...combining with archaeological models to explain the diversity and mobility of stone tools."
"...to explain the diversity and mobility of stone tools."
"Often, the study of inaccuracies in the model (when compared to empirical observations) will lead to the generation of hypotheses about possible ecological relations that are not yet known or well understood."
"These model systems are then studied in order to make predictions about the dynamics of the real system."