2.2 Individual Based Models

The increase in computer performance has allowed modelers to take the notion of stochasitic model futher. Rather than stochastically modeling the behavior of a population, we can now model the behavior the individuals that make up the population--this type of model is known as an Individual Based Model (IBM).

By giving each individual a set of unique characteristics, which we can vary to reflect the individual differences in actual populations. With this information, we can model the effect of individual variations in a population which will allow us to produce more accurate results.

There are a number of research groups that are approaching this problem, including the Unofficial Gorilla Home Page at the University of Kent at Canterbury, Yale's Gecko Simulator, and the Sage Grouse model from the University of Illinois.