Ecosystems as Agent Societies, Landscapes as Multi-Societal Agent Systems

Abstract

Landscape ecology concerns the analysis, modeling and management of landscapes and their component ecosystems, mostly in view of the effects of the anthropic actions that they may suffer. As such, landscape ecology is well amenable to be supported by agent-based computational tools. In this chapter, we introduce the concept of “multi-societal agent system”, a formal architectural model for distributed multi-agent systems, and we interpret it in ecological terms, to serve as an agent-based theoretical foundation for computer-aided landscape ecology. More specifically, we introduce the “ecosystems as agent societies” and “landscapes as multi-societal agent systems” approaches to ecosystems and landscapes, together with the core elements of the agent-based architectural models that support such approaches. The elements of those architectural models are then used to formally capture the main organizational and functional aspects of ecosystems and landscapes.