Testing the adaptive value of behavioral traits in virtual environments

R. Potting

Department of Entomology, University of Wageningen, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Individual-based simulation of behavior is becoming a popular tool to study the large-scale consequences of local interactions of members of a population and to study the adaptive value of individual behavioral traits. In these simulations individuals might represent animals in ecosystems, vehicles in traffic or humans in crowds. In an individual-based model behavioral traits and information processing rules of individuals are specified to simulate the behavioral decisons, movements and interactions of individuals in a specified virtual environment. An overview is given on the applications of individual-based models in biology and ecology and artificial human societies.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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