Stress Response Modeling at IceLab guest researcher Ken Haste Andersen will give a talk in IceLab titled 'Adaptive macro-ecology: from first principles to global ecosystem models' on May 26th at 13.00, in IceLab and on Zoom.
With global change pushing ecosystems beyond their current limits, ecological modelling faces the challenge of projecting ecosystems into unknown future conditions. However, ecosystem models are generally tuned to historical or present conditions. In this way, the models are conditioned towards stability, which make them ill-suited to represent abrupt changes or tipping points where the system undergoes a hysteresis.
Here I will argue for the value of basing models as far as possible on “first principles”. First principles are those universal relations stemming from fundamental geometry, physics (e.g. mass and energy conservation, hydrodynamics, diffusion), chemistry (reaction kinetics, metabolism, and stoichiometry), and evolutionary optimization.
Here, I formulate a predictive macro-ecological modelling framework, inspired by theoretical physics, based on representing biological diversity via traits and with trade-offs rooted in first principles. A provision is that the scale of prediction is sufficiently large, e.g., global, and that the predictions are on a high level, e.g., general ecosystem structure and function. Predictive macro-ecological models combine dynamic optimization at the level of individuals with a trait-based description of demographic dynamics to predict structure and flows at the community and ecosystem-level.
As an example, I use unicellular planktonic ecosystems but generalise to multicellular plankton and fish. Adaptive macro-ecological models based on first principles have the generality and predictive power to make credible predictions of global-scale ecosystem structure and function under climate change.
Drop in to IceLab (find using mazemap) or join via Zoom: IceLab Living Room Zoom 612 568 7586
Ken Haste Andersen is a professor in theoretical marine ecology (http://ken.haste.dk), originally educated as a theoretically physicist with a PhD from the Niels Bohr institute at Copenhagen University. For the last 20 years he has developed models of everything living in water, from bacteria to whales, to understand how ecosystems respond to perturbations such as fisheries or climate change.
Professor in theoretical marine ecology at AQUA, DTU. Deputy chair in the Centre for Ocean Life.
Stress Response Modeling at IceLab Guest Researcher