Genesis : an ecology simulator

Abstract

The study of ecological systems is an important task in biology. Understanding how nature maintains balance between different species or organisms by their complex interactions gives important insight in identifying what controls an ecology. The relationships between creatures may be represented as a lattice. This lattice has been tampered with several times during the course of human history, often with disastrous results. Using a simulator which models an ecology to as large an extent as possible would allow biologists to study nature by mimicking the processes which take place in nature. Current ecological studies do not have this luxury and any changes to the environment are carried out on the real thing. In a simulation the difficulties posed by the environment itself would be surmounted, and time constraints would be eliminated, making it possible to project results on a large timescale. By performing long-term simulation, one would also be able to see potential scenarios in which evolution of the species occurs. Being a simulation, one would also be able to "tamper" with the ecology artificially and study the effects. This would be instrumental in avoiding catastrophes in the future. It would also allow the analysis of currently unbalanced ecologies in order to select the best remedy to the situation. Simulation is a very difficult task as it is computation intensive. However, with recent advances in graphics technology and computer processors significant improvements are possible over previous simulators.