Modelling Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of (Ecological) Animal and Plant Populations

Oct 05, 2023

Education

I participated in the course “Modelling Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Ecological Populations” led by Johannes Wessely and Bernd Lenzner. As a colleague at the Biodiversity Centre, it was great learning from our groups senior researchers such as Johannes and Bernd, who build this course to bridge ecological theory with practical computational skills. We started by exploring what ecological models actually represent: simplified abstractions of complex biological systems. Models don’t replicate every detail of reality; instead, they capture essential dynamics needed to address specific ecological questions clearly. The course encouraged us to formulate ecological hypotheses and then translate these ideas into the correct mathematical representations and finally implementing and running a toy model of our own creation.

Course Highlights

I learned practical coding skills in R, including proper script organization, naming conventions, and documentation, all of which are important for creating reproducible and understandable models.

My personal highlight was the final project, which allowed participants to apply the concepts learned throughout the course. Our project focused on modeling the reintroduction of the harpy eagle in southern Costa Rica, where we examined factors like the number of released pairs, dispersal behavior, and habitat suitability.