Spatio-temporal ecological models

An ecological model is a mathematical statement of the rules governing ecosystem changes. Traditional models based on system dynamics approach provide a useful way to represent and comprehend changing behaviors in time, but it does not adequately represent spatial processes. Although Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) are powerful tools for spatial analyses, they maintain an inherently static view of the world and fail to capture dynamics of system. Ecosystem is a system that evolves both with time and space, thus development of spatio-temporal ecological models is necessary. The paper starts from system dynamic models and extends to spatio-temporal models. Finally, it focuses on spatially-explicit and individual-based models. Both continuous and discrete formulations in time, space and state variables are addressed as well. Applicability and advantage of different modelling paradigms are discussed.