The Eco Lab Model

The Eco Lab model is but one model implemented using the Eco Lab software. This section documents the model itself, and may be skipped if your intention is to use Eco Lab for other models.

We start with a generalised form of the Lotka-Volterra equation

$$\dot{\mbox{\boldmath {$n$}}} = \mbox{${\bf r}$}*\mbox{\boldm... ...dmath {$n$}}*\mbox{\boldmath {$\beta$}}\mbox{\boldmath {$n$}}.$$ (1)

Here $n$ is the population density, the component $n_i$ being the number of individuals of species $i$, ${\bf r}$ is the difference between reproduction and death, $\beta$ is the interaction matrix, with $\beta_{ij}$ being the interaction between species $i$ and $j$, * referring to elementwise multiplication and mutate is the mutation operator.