PHYSICS OF STAMP-COLLECTING - THOUGHTS ON ECOSYSTEM MODEL DESIGN

Models are artifacts, products of design. They are artificial reconstr uctions of nature, for a purpose. Once the purpose of the planned mode l has been clearly established, it is generally assumed that the job o f ecosystem model designers limits itself to deciding which processes to include, which data to use, and how to fill gaps in fundamental und erstanding with empirical relationships. But are things that simple? T he increasing importance of models as policy instruments and the curre nt new emphasis of physics on the study of emerging phenomena indicate that they are not.