11 | 11 | Real ecosystems are more complicated than the mass-balance fluxes of biomass in Ecopath, however large the number of functional groups we include in our models. Real ecosystems also have dynamics far more complex than represented in Ecosim. The issue to consider, when evaluating the realism of simulation software, is, however, not how complex the software and the processes are that are represented therein. Rather, the question is which structure allows a representation of the basic features of an ecosystem, given a limited amount of inputs. On such criterion, it was obvious that a major deficiency of the Ecopath with Ecosim approach was its assumption of homogenous spatial behaviour. This has been remedied through the development of Ecospace (Note that in Walters et al., 1999 Eq. 13, the sign for the T' factor was reversed by mistake.), a dynamic, spatial version of Ecopath, incorporating all key elements of Ecosim. |