TUD - Professur für Forstliche Biometrie und Forstliche Informatik - ABM-IBM Course

Course in Individual- and Agent-Based Modeling

Bad Schandau, 20.7.-2.8.2008

Objective

Individual/Agent-based modeling is a computational approach to analyzing complex systems in many disciplines, including ecology, geography, economics, and systems biology. The basic idea of agent-based models (ABMs) is to model the essential traits and behaviors of adaptive agents (plants, animals, humans, institutions) and investigate the individual- and system-level properties that emerge as the agents interact with each other and their environment. Individual behavior and system-level patterns are mutually dependent and ABMs are a powerful tool for understanding this relationship. The course will introduce the basic concepts and methods of agent-based modeling through lectures, exercises, and independent projects. The software platform „NetLogo“ will be used.

TUD - Professur für Forstliche Biometrie und Forstliche Informatik - ABM-IBM Course

'Linear features' hurt caribou, moose

 

Boreal forest researchers refer to both roads and hydro transmission lines as "linear features," but to some forest-dwellers they might simply be called bad news.

"The more of these you build, the more negative effects you'll get in the system," said Stan Boutin, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta.

Boutin said in Alberta, whitetail deer and coyotes are using linear features to expand north into the boreal forest, where they never lived before.

The deer, especially, have a negative effect on moose and woodland caribou, because wolves are attracted to the high number of deer.

winnipegsun.com - Canada News - 'Linear features' hurt caribou, moose

Elephant biltong in Zimbabwe? - Article

 

The Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of Zimbabwe plans to produce biltong from elephant meat to sell in retail outlets throughout the country "as part of sustainable utilisation of the animals," the Herald online said.

Parks director-general Dr Morris Mtsambiwa said the project began last year after the Ministry of Environment and Tourism permitted the authority to experiment with the "resource".

"It is in our plans. We plan to start this year. We tried it last year and we found that we did not have the proper infrastructure for the purpose," he reportedly said.

The Times - Article