DYNAMICS OF DENSE RAIN-FOREST COMMUNITIES - DIALOGUE BETWEEN ECOLOGISTS, EXPERIMENTATORS AND MODELERS

The dialogue took place at the intersection of three complementary poi nts of view: the ecologist's standpoint which emphasizes theoretical a nd applied ecology (structure of the forest mosaic, dynamics, function ing, management of dense rain forests); the biometrician's point of vi ew which focuses on metrology, on the planning of observations and exp erimentations and on the optimal use of existing data; the standpoint of biomathematician who develops new computer, statistical and mathema tical methods for modelling forest dynamics. The problems related to t he choice of relevant spatial and temporal scales were at the very cor e of the discussion and built a permanent methodological framework. Sh ort and medium-term perspectives were drawn from the emergence of two categories of new tools: (i) multi-agent systems, this approach based on object-oriented programming languages was proposed by computer scie ntists with the aim of progressively integrating the knowledge of the naturalists; (ii) cellular automata, they were proposed by mathematici ans and correspond to a more phenomenological and theoretical approach intended to identify the basic principles that generate the sustained diversity and heterogeneity of the rain forests. Quantitative archite ctural models, which can be viewed as a sub-category of multi-agents s ystems, were also discussed as a powerful tool for describing tree mor phology and investigating spatial tree-to-tree interactions.