The Basics of Ecological Modeling

Snapshot of Ecopath with Ecospace (EwE) modeling interface. This is where we write all the information about the animals and their interactions with animals and the environments to generate information about future (or past) scenarios.

This week, the first official week of truly explaining my new research projects, I want to focus on some of the basics of ecological modeling. When I started this blog and posted about microplastics and meiofauna, I took a lot of time to explain the fundamentals so that you could learn about my work at a reasonable pace. I want to use the same method for my current work, especially since I may find it more difficult to find suitable pictures for the weekly blogs.

So let's start with some basics. Ecological modeling is the process of using mathematical equations to describe relationships between organisms and their environment. Usually the goals with ecological modeling are to understand complex relationships/processes or to predict future scenarios. Sometimes we can link ecological models to social or economic models to also evaluate how changes in ecosystems affect human perspectives or the value of goods and services.

How do we make these models? Well, to start, it's not easy. If we consider an ecosystem like the Gulf of Mexico (where I'm working), there are many different layers and compartments to the system. For instance, there are a lot of factors regarding water, including flow velocities, directions, salinity, temperatures, tides. Now imagine that scientists have to consider factors about water, sediment, air (perhaps), the animals and plants, and these factors often include time components (temporal) and spatial components. A scientist could, for instance, track changes in ocean temperature per month and use data for 20 years to build a portion of their model. Additionally, often these models are linked together, so that multiple scientists are working at once. For the projects I am working on, I am part of the biology team working on the food web and the fauna tolerance portions of these models. Other scientists working on the hydrodynamics (water) and sediment portions of the model will send their work to us when they finish and we can link it to our model. 

Once we have determined and input all of the mathematical relationships, we can start running the model simulations to learn about what we expect to happen in new scenarios. This ecological forecasting can help inform conservation efforts, climate legislation, or may inform other aspects of culture based on the presence of social or economic models.

Next week I will talk about how we generate these mathematical formulas for our models and a little about what happens when the math isn't perfect, so stay tuned!

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