Individual-based population models: linking behavioural and physiological information at the individual level to population dynamics

The development of individual-based computer simulation models of populations and communities provides a means for including large amounts of behavioral information in population and community models, something that traditional models cannot do. Individual-based models can project the effects of organisms behaviour to the community level. The advantages of this approach have been exploited in many problems; competition for or occupation of space, transmission of diseases or disturbances across populations, movement and feeding patterns and their effects at the population level, and heterogenous demographic characteristics. Examples of these model types are described.