Talk:Ecosystem model

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[edit] Good article

Hi, in my opinion this article has potential to grow to a good article status. I have to complement Plumbago on his achievement here. Although I'm not an expert in this particular field, I think this article could benefit from some more examples, historie, theoretical background and some pictures would be nice. Maybe also a link to Systems ecology. As I said I'm not an expert here so pleace correct me if I'm wrong. - Mdd 22:02, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The scope of this article

I was quite impressed half a year ago by this article and it's clear language and I still am. I wonder though if the scope of this article is correct. What I mean is if the title and the content of this article are corresponding. The first sentence is quit clear:

  • Ecosystem models, or ecological models, are mathematical representations of ecosystems.

I wonder, an this is why I started this argument in the first place is, if this is completely true. For example I searched in google books for: What is "Ecosystem model" and found:

  • Sharon L. Hanks, Sharon La Bonde, Ecology and the Biosphere: Principles and Problems pag 52, see here.

The introduce here "a simplified ecosystem model using odum's energy language". It seems to me this is a grafical and not a mathematical representations of an ecosystem. based on this, the first sentence can be changed into:

  • Ecosystem models, or ecological models, are conceptual, graphical and or mathematical representations of ecosystems.

And in the line of this change of scoop, this article can clear some more about conceptual and graphical Ecosystem representations? -- Mdd (talk) 14:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with this addition, though we should be clear that modern ecosystem models are typically different in form (if not intention) than historical models. Historically, building up a diagrammatic food web that linked components could be described as an ecosystem model, but these days most people mean a quantitative description of the components of an ecosystem and the relationships between them. Going further, ecosystem models presently in the scientific literature are typically systems of difference equations or ordinary differential equations that represent major ecosystem components (e.g. plants, animals, dead material), and that have mathematical functional response relationships linking them (e.g. primary production, grazing, mortality).
Going back to your previous message about this page (which, unfortunately, I missed at the time — sorry), I'm keen to expand it in the ways you suggest. I've been meaning to add images to show things like simulation output from a Lotka-Volterra model, food web diagrams, etc. I've been rather busy in the past 6 months or so, and haven't gotten around to this. But I'd be happy for anyone else to advance it too.
Anyway, thanks for your interest. Cheers, --Plumbago (talk) 15:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I am running the WikiProject Systems and from that perspective I want to contribute to the improvement of all systems theory related content in Wikipedia. If you interested I like to work with you in the further improvement of this article. More on the general, coneptual and grafical part. I think there are multiple things we can do:
I think we can create a larger audience for this article. Last month this article was viewed 1300 times and the ecosystem article 67726 times. Some more of the people who looked at that article should come and take a look here. These are just some of my ideas. -- Mdd (talk) 01:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)