Context-oriented model validation of individual-based models in ecology: A hierarchically structured approach to validate qualitative, compositional and quantitative characteristics

The context oriented approach accounts for the specificity of individual-based models - i.e., the dynamic self-organisation of model outcomes from biologically underpinned individual interactions without an inherent determination of properties on higher hierarchical levels - and extends the potential of the validation process qualitatively, as it allows to assess complex structural and causal relations and multi-level feedback processes of the developed models.