Ecology as a Modern Science

摘要

Mathematical or theoretical modeling has gained an important role in ecology, especially in recent decades. We tend to consider that various ecological phenomena appearing in each species are governed by general mechanisms that can be clearly or explicitly described using mathematical or theoretical models. When we make these models, we should keep in mind which charactersitics of the focal phenomena are specific to that species, and extract the essentials of these phenomena as simply as possible. In order to verify the validity of that modeling, we should make quantitative or qualitative comparisons to data obtained from field measurements or laboratory experiments and improve our models by adding elements or altering the assumptions. However, we need the foundation of mathematics on which the models are based, and we believe that developments both in modeling and in mathematics can contribute to the growth of this field.