Introduction to Individual/Agent-Based Modeling

Datum: 24.09.2018
Uhrzeit: 09:00 - 17:00
Vortragende(r): Dr. Marius Somveille + Dr. Adriana Maldonado-Chaparro
Marius is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Yale Center for Biodiversity Movement and Global Change, based at Yale University. His research aims to use a macroecological approach to study animal movements, so far particularly focusing on analyzing bird migrations at large scale. Adriana is a Biologist from Colombia doing a postdoc at the Farine lab at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Konstanz, Germany. Adriana is interested in phenotypic plasticity and how variation in social behavior can drive changes in the emergent properties involving population dynamics and ecological interactions.
Ort: MPIO Möggingen
Raum: MaxLounge
Gastgeber: IMPRS for Organismal Biology
Kontakt: mhieber@orn.mpg.de

Individual or Agent-Based Modeling (IBM/ABM) is increasingly used in many fields of science to study a wide range of phenomena. This modeling approach explicitly represents individuals (or agents) with their own characteristics and ability to make decisions based on behavioral rules. IBM allows to design computer-based experiments to study how the interaction of agents with each other and their environment lead to emergent phenomena such as swarming or epidemics.

In this workshop, we will describe the nature and rationale of individual-based modeling, give an overview of the methodology for designing, building and evaluating IBMs, and discuss how can IBMs be used to answer complex questions in organismal biology. The workshop will also allow participants to build a simple individual-based model in NetLogo – an accessible programming language specifically designed for IBM, and provide the opportunity to discuss how can an IBM approach be used and applied in your study system.