A Socio-Ecological Test Bed

A test bed simulation is described, composed of an individual-based simulation where species co-evolve on a 2D grid. This can generate, in a bottom-up manner, complex ecosystems of individuals. This test bed is designed so that the kind of ecological complexity observed is exhibited in order to be able to assess the longer-term complex dynamics that might occur if humans with different cultural characteristics are introduced. This is compared to Hubbell's ‘Neutral Theory’. A sensitivity analysis is shown. Then an example where “human agents” are introduced half way into the simulation is described. A comprehensive exploration of the impact of introducing ‘human-like’ agents is beyond the scope of this paper, but some indicative results shown, showing both the high impact humans have, but also some of the complexity of the human-ecosystem interaction