Vegetation and Disturbance - Environmental Modelling: Finding Simplicity in Complexity - page 239

and infiltration processes) can be added to look at their
effect on spatial patterns of plant communities (Rietkerk
et al ., 2002), the production of phytotoxic metabolites
(for instance, autotoxic compounds from plant litter
decomposition) can be integrated in a model to assess the
effects on tree diversity (Mazzoleni et al ., 2010).
In conclusion, there is good evidence that these new
modelling environments can be considered revolutionary
in their flexibility and their capacity to power to rep-
resent complex systems and to integrate across scales.
The traditional gap between 'field' ecologists and math-
ematically minded or computer-programming modellers
seems to have been closed by some of the newly available
modelling technologies. It is now time to build up banks
of models to be used as elementary building blocks for
larger scale dynamic systems. These banks should enable
the development of truly process-based models that are
more robust, with greater generality, and with behaviour
that better resembles the real world.

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14.6 Acknowledgements

The development of the modelling system used in the
simulation exercise has been largely supported by the EU-
DG.XII ModMED research projects (ENV4-CT97-0680).

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