Spatially explicit models of group foraging by herbivores: What can agent-based models offer?

Abstract

Spatially explicit models of herbivore foraging can increase the knowledge of ethologists by enabling the prediction of the evolution of complex systems and revealing underlying behavioural mechanisms. We first show how spatially explicit models that do not distinguish between individuals imply making assumptions which violate some basic biological principles. Next, we describe how the main behavioural processes that determine herbivore foraging have already been incorporated in spatially explicit individual-based models of foraging. We then discuss how the use of agent technology promotes the inclusion of social oriented cognition in individual-based simulations, emphasising the emergence of macro-phenomena from the local interactions between individual organisms. This approach makes agent-based models particularly suited to simulate the behaviour of groups of foraging herbivores. We discuss how agent-based models can help to investigate conditions that are not easily amenable to experimentation, such as the effects of differences in memory capacity or in sociability, and how they are adapted to integrate the experimentally-demonstrated laws, processes and theoretical frameworks developed in herbivore foraging.