Philosophical approach to population modeling

This chapter describes how we can use models, and how complex models should be. It begins with the difference between strategic and tactical population models. It describes the logic underlying both the scientific and the practical use of models, which corresponds with implementing deductive and inductive logic, respectively. Both approaches demand the ability to compare the structure of the model to the real world, that is, realism. Providing realism requires precisely defining the state of a system, that is, the information necessary to project the state of that system from one time instant to the next. This is the basis for having models with age, size, stage, and spatial structure. Additionally, there are different levels of ecological integration in biology, and each level tends to explain the next higher level. Population dynamics depend on the survival and reproductive rates of individual organisms.