Simulator that predicts the fate of all life on Earth

Now researchers are hoping they can do the same for ecology by creating an ambitious model that simulates entire ecosystems, anywhere in the world.Researchers at Microsoft and the UN are hoping the model could provide a better understanding of how the planet's fragile ecosystems fit together.Dubbed the Madingley model, the simulation captures the growth, migration and lives of creatures as their food chain.Ecologists have spent the past two years developing the simulation which uses real data on changes in, for instance, animal migration.They hope it will eventually lead to something known as ‘General Ecosystem Models’, or Gems, to capture the entire structure and function of any ecosystem in the world.Applied to African savannas, for instance, Gems could be used to model the total biomass of all plants, the grazing animals that feed on them and the carnivores that feed on the grazers.This would map the flows of energy and nutrients within the food chain over time. Using the model, ecologists could explore how these measures of health might change in response, for example, to climate change or poaching.‘As recently as five years ago people were saying it would be impossible to build a global ecosystem model because there were too many complexities and uncertainties,’ Stephen Emmott, head of the Cambridge lab told the Financial Times.‘But now we have done it, and we are about to publish scientific papers giving our results.’Modelling every organism within an ecosystem is impossible as it would require too much computing power. But the researchers say they can obtain valid results by applying rules about the way creatures behave in groups.‘The Madingley Model could help address key environmental issues, in particular, the effects of human pressures such as habitat loss,’ the researchers write on their website.The current version is a prototype designed to encourage other scientists to become involved in the project.‘We are releasing the model as open source code, allowing anyone to inspect the current version of the model or develop it further,’ said the researchers.The model, however, has so far proved controversial. Some ecologists believe that nature is simply too complex to model in this way.Others argues that the outputs from the models are too uncertain to be the basis of important decisions, such as where to place protected areas or how best to run fisheries.But the creators of the Madingley Model believe that ecologists must at least try to model ecosystems, if we are to understand and ultimately save them.‘The model is likely to throw up new scientific questions that were not evident before it was built,’ they said.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az