Systems Analysis in Paleoecology

Abstract

Extrapolation from a simulation model which mimics some ecologic complex to an analogous paleoecologic situation offers hitherto unavailable opportunities for the reconstruction of ancient environments. Systems analysis will not give a single correct answer to a particular problem, but instead yields a set of answers, some of which will be more plausible and better descriptive of the situation being studied. Experiments with models cannot substitute for experiments with real systems and that any finding based on models should be tested against real experiments. Nevertheless, inability to construct a model in agreement with a given theory may be evidence against that theory. A computer model has the undeniable strength, that it is able to organize large bodies of material into a workable whole. Thus, in paleoecology, a mass of ecologic information becomes accessible in quantitative form, that otherwise would not have been retrievable data.