Preview - Modeling Ecosystems Computationally

Zooming out

Right now, our ecosystem is very small, with only a handful of moose and wolves.  In order for it to be more useful for studying places like Isle Royale, we need to make the ecosystem bigger.  Open the NetLogo code tab and make the changes need to transform your basic NetTango model into a model that shows interactions on much wider scale.

 

Questions

Please answer the questions below.

To make this ecosystem more realistic, we need there to be more animals in it.  Try to make the model start with 20 wolves and 100 moose.  How did you change the number of wolves or moose that start off the model?

When there are a lot of animals, it is hard to see them all when they are so big.  Try to make the wolves and moose smaller.  How did you change the size of the wolves and the moose?

Why do you think having a bigger ecosystem is important for studying wolf and moose populations?

Notes

These notes will appear on every page in this lesson so feel free to put anything here you'd like to keep track of.