ARTIFICIAL ECOLOGY

ACAL Artificial Ecology Track

Editors: Alan Dorin & Kevin Korb

This track will address the use of ALIFE to inform ecology and ecology to inform ALIFE. We invite submissions that may help us to answer such questions as:

Should ALIFE reflect ecological modelling principles?
Should ALIFE examine purely abstract systems alone?
How can ALIFE contribute to ecology?
How should ecological ALIFE simulations be validated?
What is the proper role of evolution in artificial ecosystem simulation?
To what extent does A-Life overlap with Systems Ecology?

ALIFE has tended to focus on the evolutionary process in-silico, whereas individual-based modelling in ecology has focussed on the dynamics of non-evolutionarily populations (often single species), and their interactions with the abiotic environment through energetic and chemical transformation of matter --- two aspects seldom addressed by A-Life models. We are especially interested in promoting work which might bring evolutionary ALIFE techniques to ecology and new ecological modelling techniques and concerns to ALIFE.