WHY INDIVIDUAL-BASED MODELING AND ECOLOGY?
Modeling attempts to capture the essence of a system well enough to address specific questions about the system. If the systems we deal with in ecology are populations, communities, and ecosystems, then why should ecological models be based on individuals? One obvious reason is that individuals are the building blocks of ecological systems. The properties and behavior of individuals determine the properties of the systems they compose. But this reason is not sufficient by itself. In physics, the properties of atoms and the way they interact with each other determine the properties of matter, yet most physics questions can be addressed without referring explicitly to atoms. What is different in ecology? The answer is that in ecology, the individuals are not atoms but living organisms. Individual organisms have properties an atom does not have. Individuals grow and develop, changing in many ways over their life cycle. Individuals reproduce and die, typically persisting for much less time
