Abstract:
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Modelling is perceived as a way of dealing with real life activities. The aim of this work is to compare two approaches to
study forest dynamics, namely discrete individual-based and continuous population-based models, in order to contribute to
an improvement in their use among researchers. An analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the
two different approaches, jointly with a mention of the state-of-the-art, allows us to illustrate this discussion. We will also
provide a bridge or connection between these two modelling methodologies. This link will be developed in detail in a
particular study case. Firstly, an individual-tree based model to deal with dynamics of forests is presented. Secondly, this
model is scaled up to a system of partial differential equations, which represents the limiting behaviour of the individualbased
model. |