Individual Based Modelling of Planktonic Organisms

In the last decades, numerical modelling has gained increasing consensus in the scientific world, and particularly in the framework of behavioural and population ecology. Through numerical models it is possible to reconstruct what is observed in the environment or in the laboratory and to get a more in-depth comprehension of the factors regulating the phenomena under examination. Numerous approaches have been developed in this framework, but probably one of the most promising is the individual-based modelling. With this type of approach it is relatively straightforward to investigate aspects related to the ecology of a population starting from the characterisation of processes taking place at the scale of the individual organism. This contribution is intended to provide a general view of the main features of the individual-based models and of their peculiarities in comparison to other modelling strategies. Special emphasis will be given to applications in the field of phyto- and zooplankton ecology and behaviour, and results from the available literature on this topic will be used as examples