TY  - JOUR
A1  - Berger, Uta
A1  - Piou, Cyril
A1  - Schiffers, Katja
A1  - Grimm, Volker
T1  - Competition among plants : concepts, individual-based modelling approaches, and a proposal for a future research strategy
N2  - Competition is a key process in plant populations and communities. We thus need, if we are to predict the responses of ecological systems to environmental change, a comprehensive and mechanistic understanding of plant competition. Considering competition, however, only at the population level is not sufficient because plant individuals usually are different, interact locally, and can adapt their behaviour to the current state of themselves and of their biotic and abiotic environment. Therefore, simulation models that are individual-based and spatially explicit are increasingly used for studying competition in plant systems. Many different individual-based modelling approaches exist to represent competition, but it is not clear how good they are in reflecting essential aspects of plant competition. We therefore first summarize current concepts and theories addressing plant competition. Then, we review individual-based approaches for modelling competition among plants. We distinguish between approaches that are used for more than 10 years and more recent ones. We identify three major gaps that need to be addressed more in the future: the effects of plants on their local environment, adaptive behaviour, and below-ground competition. To fill these gaps, the representation of plants and their interactions have to be more mechanistic than most existing approaches. Developing such new approaches is a challenge because they are likely to be more complex and to require more detailed knowledge and data on individual-level processes underlying competition. We thus need a more integrated research strategy for the future, where empirical and theoretical ecologists as well as computer scientists work together on formulating, implementing, parameterization, testing, comparing, and selecting the new approaches. (c) 2008 Rubel Foundation, ETH Zurich. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
Y1  - 2008
SN  - 1433-8319
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grimm, Volker
A1  - Berger, Uta
A1  - Bastiansen, Finn
A1  - Eliassen, Sigrunn
A1  - Ginot, Vincent
A1  - Giske, Jarl
A1  - Goss-Custard, John
A1  - Grand, Tamara
A1  - Heinz, Simone K.
A1  - Huse, Geir
A1  - Huth, Andreas
A1  - Jepsen, Jane U.
A1  - Jorgensen, Christian
A1  - Mooij, Wolf M.
A1  - Mueller, Birgit
A1  - Piou, Cyril
A1  - Railsback, Steven Floyd
A1  - Robbins, Andrew M.
A1  - Robbins, Martha M.
A1  - Rossmanith, Eva
A1  - Rueger, Nadja
A1  - Strand, Espen
A1  - Souissi, Sami
A1  - Stillman, Richard A.
A1  - Vabo, Rune
A1  - Visser, Ute
A1  - DeAngelis, Donald L.
T1  - A standard protocol for describing individual-based and agent-based models
JF  - Ecological modelling : international journal on ecological modelling and engineering and systems ecolog
N2  - Simulation models that describe autonomous individual organisms (individual based models, IBM) or agents (agent-based models, ABM) have become a widely used tool, not only in ecology, but also in many other disciplines dealing with complex systems made up of autonomous entities. However, there is no standard protocol for describing such simulation models, which can make them difficult to understand and to duplicate. This paper presents a proposed standard protocol, ODD, for describing IBMs and ABMs, developed and tested by 28 modellers who cover a wide range of fields within ecology. This protocol consists of three blocks (Overview, Design concepts, and Details), which are subdivided into seven elements: Purpose, State variables and scales, Process overview and scheduling, Design concepts, Initialization, Input, and Submodels. We explain which aspects of a model should be described in each element, and we present an example to illustrate the protocol in use. In addition, 19 examples are available in an Online Appendix. We consider ODD as a first step for establishing a more detailed common format of the description of IBMs and ABMs. Once initiated, the protocol will hopefully evolve as it becomes used by a sufficiently large proportion of modellers. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW  - individual-based model
KW  - agent-based model
KW  - model description
KW  - scientific communication
KW  - standardization
Y1  - 2006
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2006.04.023
SN  - 0304-3800
VL  - 198
SP  - 115
EP  - 126
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -