IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v20y1988i1p99-109.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Of Mice and Men: What Rodent Populations Can Teach Us about Complex Spatial Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • H Couclelis

    (Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA93106, USA)

Abstract

Models of complex systems need not be themselves complex, let alone complicated. To illustrate this important point, a very simple cellular automaton model of rodent population dynamics is used to generate a wide variety of different spatiotemporal structures corresponding to different forms of equilibrium, cyclical, quasi-cyclical, and chaotic system behavior. The issue of complexity as it pertains to a number of different contemporary scientific fields is then discussed, and in particular its implications for prediction. The discussion ends with some general reflexions about modeling in human geography.

Suggested Citation

  • H Couclelis, 1988. "Of Mice and Men: What Rodent Populations Can Teach Us about Complex Spatial Dynamics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 20(1), pages 99-109, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:20:y:1988:i:1:p:99-109
    DOI: 10.1068/a200099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a200099
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a200099?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Xiaoping & Li, Xia & Shi, Xun & Wu, Shaokun & Liu, Tao, 2008. "Simulating complex urban development using kernel-based non-linear cellular automata," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 211(1), pages 169-181.
    2. Jose I. Barredo & Carlo Lavalle & Valentina Sagris & Guy Engelen, 2005. "Representing future urban and regional scenarios for flood hazard mitigation," ERSA conference papers ersa05p147, European Regional Science Association.
    3. Charles Perrings & David Stern, 2000. "Modelling Loss of Resilience in Agroecosystems: Rangelands in Botswana," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 16(2), pages 185-210, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:20:y:1988:i:1:p:99-109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.