Bill Silvert wrote: > Someone asked for the Starfield citation, he has written quite a few books > and papers, but his classic is: Starfield, A.M. and A.L. Bleloch. 1991. > Building Models for Conservation and Wildlife Management. Second edition, > The Burgess Press, Edina, Minnesota. It's hard to find and the title is > awful, but it's a really good book. I particularly like his concept of > "frames" which offers a way to deal with discontinuities such as > metamorphosis.
Thanks Bill! > I guess I'll put in a plug for one of my own papers, Silvert, William. 2001. > Modelling as a Discipline. Int. J. General Systems 30: 261-282. A Polish > translation was published in the "Projektowanie i Systemy" volume XVII in > 2004, and the PDF (of the English version) is on the web at > http://bill.silvert.org/pdf. Goodness ... excellent website! Have you tried ecosystem modeling using "system dynamics"? One advantage of this method is that it enables the modeler to capture nonlinear relationships, and the simulate ecosystem behavior over time. This circumvents the need for assuming linear relationships that do not make sense ecologically, though you give up the elegance of a mathematical solution in closed form. I believe system dynamics is the most versatile modeling method for complex ecological systems. May I suggest the following as an example: Ecocosm Dynamics Ltd. http://www.ecocosmdynamics.org Take care, Luis -- Luis T. Gutierrez, Ph.D., P.E. Quality, Productivity, and Sustainability Consulting http://pelican-consulting.com Solidarity & Sustainability Research Newsletter http://pelican-consulting.com/solisust.html [EMAIL PROTECTED]
