Ecological modeling – Lessons from ecological informatics and modeling research of Harvard Forest - LTER site

The biggest challenge of conservation is the availability of current data about the state of populations, communities and ecosystems. Ecological modeling is considered one of the powerful approaches to quantify and predict the patterns and processes of ecosystems. Thus we can gain great insights for further management and conservation strategies. This presentation aims to direct the attention towards the importance of ecological modeling as long term monitoring technique through some successful stories from ecological informatics and modeling research at Harvard Forest (HF) - LTER site.

The approach of this study based on the analysis of the publications related to ecological informatics and modeling research of HF during the period of 1988 – 2011. Specifically, the number of publications per year, relevancy to ecological topics (themes of HF), spatial scales (coverage level), number of variables, modeling method(s) that applied. In addition to most important findings, long term Implications and future directions (number of publications of theme / year).

The findings showed that the total number of modeling publications 114 publication written by 54 authors, among those 7 researchers have contributed significantly by publishing about 41% out of total . During these modeling scenarios, 377 variables were employed to make such quantifications. All HF ecological research themes were detected at this analysis. Greatest number (29%) of modeling approach focused on Eco physiology and population dynamics issues, followed by Forest – Atmosphere Exchange research (18%) whereas topics like biodiversity studies, invasive species and watershed have recoded least number(4%) of modeling publications.

Application of such modeling took four spatial scales namely are; forest (28%), state (16%), country (47%) and glob (9%).in addition to more helpful statistics about models types, implications and future directions.