Individual Based Models in Ecology: An Evaluation, or How Not to Ruin a Good Thing

Background: What are now increasingly called individual based models (IBMs) have been used in ecology since the 1970s when theoretical ecology began in earnest. The best known examples from that time include the forest computer simulation model (named JABOWA) of Daniel Botkin (Botkin et al 1972) and the computer simulation model of Donald DeAngelis (DeAngelis et al 1991) for a freshwater fish cohort. These were identified with the systems ecology school of theoretical ecology and the approach was anticipated to offer a unifying theoretical framework for ecology (Huston 1988), a goal whose possibility is still being debated (Roughgarden 2009, Vellend 2010). Since then hundreds of IBMs have been published in ecology. Moreover, IBMs are being actively developed in other disciplines, especially the social sciences, and dozens of software environments have been created to facilitate IBM research (Allen 2010, Borrill and Tesfatsion 2012). This talk reviews progress for IBMs in ecology, details several remaining difficulties, and suggests clarification where needed.