Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Cellular Automata in Ecological Modelling
Broder Breckling, Guy Pe'er, and Yiannis G. Matsinos
The chessboard is the world;
the pieces are the phenomena of the universe;
the rules of the games are what we call the laws of Nature.
T. H. Huxley (1870)
Abstract Cellular Automata (CA) are models that generate large-scale pattern from
small-scale local processes. CA deal with spatially extended dynamics using a grid
structure. Successive states of cells, which are arranged on a grid, are calculated
according to a set of rules. State transitions depend on the state of the single cells and
the state of the cells in the local neighbourhood. Cellular Automata are applied as a
modelling approach in many scientific disciplines and are used in ecology as one of
the most popular model types to study spatially extended dynamics. The chapter
starts with a brief historical overview about CA. It describes how CA function, and
for which types of problems they can be employed. We present simple theoretical
examples, followed by a more detailed case study from plant competition and
grassland community dynamics. As an outlook, we discuss major fields of applica-
tion with a special focus on the ecological context. Finally, we provide a brief
overview and recommendations on the use of some of the software specialized in
the field of CA modelling.
8.1
Introduction and Historical Background
Cellular Automata were conceptually developed by the Austro-Hungarian mathe-
matician John von Neumann (1903-1957) during the 1950s. He was interested in
simulating self-reproducing patterns. Instead of continuous approximations, he
