Recently, computational modelling became a very important research tool that enables us to study problems that for decades evaded scientific analysis. Evolutionary systems are certainly examples of such problems: they are composed of many units that might reproduce, diffuse, mutate, die, or in some cases for example communicate. These processes might be of some adaptive value, they influence each other and occur on various time scales. That is why such systems are so difficult to study. In this paper we briefly review some computational approaches, as well as our contributions, to the evolution of ecosystems and language. We start from Lotka-Volterra equations and the modelling of simple two-species prey-predator systems. Such systems are canonical example for studying oscillatory behaviour in competitive populations. Then we describe various approaches to study long-term evolution of multi-species ecosystems. We emphasize the need to use models that take into account both ecological and evolutionary processes. Finally, we address the problem of the emergence and development of language. It is becoming more and more evident that any theory of language origin and development must be consistent with darwinian principles of evolution. Consequently, a number of techniques developed for modelling evolution of complex ecosystems are being applied to the problem of language. We briefly review some of these approaches.
NEMF is a novel network-based ecosystem modelling framework. It is a flexible and easy-to-use tool for modelling ecosystems with low- to intermediate complexity. It is designed around the idea of visualizing an ecosystem through a network that implicitly defines a set of differential equations. These equations are then solved numerically and can also be inverse modelled. The framework offers the functionality to handle non-equilibrium, non-linear interactions.
The concentration of the population in coastal regions, in addition to the direct human use, is leading to an accelerated process of change and deterioration of the marine ecosystems. Human activities such as fishing together with environmental drivers (e.g. climate change) are triggering major threats to marine biodiversity, and impact directly the services they provide. In the South and Southwest coasts of Portugal, the deep-water crustacean trawl fishery is not exemption. This fishery is recognized to have large effects on a number of species while generating high rates of unwanted catches.…
In this paper we provide a model to describe the dynamics of the species of the ecosystem after it has been raided by a bad competing specie. The competing specie invades the native plants for nutrition, carbon dioxide and space. This affects the population of the native species of the ecosystem. The effect of the bad biomass on the ecosystem is examined by considering it's equilibrium points as well as its stability. An optimal control system is developed by using Pontryagin's maximum principle to construct a Hamiltonian function which minimizes the spread of the bad biomass. Numerical simula…
The state of the art of epidemic modelling in terrestrial ecosystems is the compartmental SIR model and its extensions from the now classical work of Kermack-Mackendrick. In contrast, epidemic modelling of marine ecosystems is a bit behind, and compartmental models have been introduced only recently. One of the reasons is that many epidemic processes in terrestrial ecosystems can be described through a contact process, while modelling marine epidemics is more subtle in many cases. Here we present a model describing disease outbreaks caused by parasites in bivalve populations. The SIRP model is…
The reduction of computational costs for marine ecosystem models is important for the investigation and detection of the relevant biogeochemical processes because such models are computationally expensive. In order to lower these computational costs by means of larger time steps we investigated the accuracy of steady annual cycles (i.e., an annual periodic solution) calculated with different time steps. We compared the accuracy for a hierarchy of biogeochemical models showing an increasing complexity and computed the steady annual cycles with offline simulations that are based on the transport…
The reduction of the computational effort is desirable for the simulation of marine ecosystem models. Using a marine ecosystem model, the assessment and the validation of annual periodic solutions (i.e., steady annual cycles) against observational data are crucial to identify biogeochemical processes, which, for example, influence the global carbon cycle. For marine ecosystem models, the transport matrix method (TMM) already lowers the runtime of the simulation significantly and enables the application of larger time steps straightforwardly. However, the selection of an appropriate time step i…
Plasticity-led evolution is a form of evolution where a change in the environment induces novel traits via phenotypic plasticity, after which the novel traits are genetically accommodated over generations under the novel environment. This mode of evolution is expected to resolve the problem of gradualism (i.e., evolution by the slow accumulation of mutations that induce phenotypic variation) implied by the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis, in the face of a large environmental change. While experimental works are essential for validating that plasticity-led evolution indeed happened, we need compu…
