Getting ``results'': The pattern-oriented approach to analyzing natural systems with individual-based models (Q2783641)

Individual-based models (IBM) are useful to simulate natural resources and their response to management and exploitation. Here the author presents an approach to the use of IBM's in a hypothesis-testing framework for drawing conclusions about the characteristics of the individuals and the system-level properties that emerge from individual characteristics. He describes the model referred to as a pattern-oriented approach, and then he applies it to test model rules for selection of habitat by fish among patches varying in survival probability and food intake.