Overview

We’ll now be shifting focus to how artificial life can be used to study groups of organisms interacting in the subfield of artificial ecology. Today will be focused on getting familiar with some of the vocabulary and classic results in this field, so you are ready to build on it.

Basic Learning Objectives

Before class, you should be able to:

  • Define what ecosystem means
  • Explain the idea of the Daisyworld model
  • Explain the idea of Lotka-Volterra equations
  • Explain how individual-based/agent-based models differ from equation-based models

Advanced Learning Objectives

After class, you should be able to:

  • Use Empirical’s World class to create a basic predator-prey individual-based model

Resources

You should read/watch the following:

Checks

Go to the Data Lab and pull down the starter code and make sure everything compiles (Exercise 1) so that you’re ready to get started in class.

Submit answers to the following on Moodle:

  • What is one example artificial ecology project in artificial life and what kind of ecological interaction does it contain?
  • How do agent-based models differ from equation-based models? What are the pros and cons of each?