{"id":1353,"date":"2014-10-16T16:26:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T16:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=1353"},"modified":"2016-08-10T01:29:34","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T01:29:34","slug":"life-boils-down-to-five-rules-or-so-says-the-madingley-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/life-boils-down-to-five-rules-or-so-says-the-madingley-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Life boils down to five ‘rules’ … or so says the Madingley Model"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James Smith<\/a><\/p>\n

It may sound overly simple, but just five processes can define us as animals: eating, metabolism, reproduction, dispersal and death.<\/p>\n

They might not seem like much, but, thanks to a mathematical model from scientists at Microsoft Research<\/a>, we know that these five processes are the key to all ecosystems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called the Madingley Model<\/a>, and is the first time scientists have simulated ecosystems across the globe using a single set of biological rules.<\/p>\n

When these rules are combined with your body mass at birth and your body mass at maturity, they are enough to define your role in an ecosystem. In fact, they are enough to define any organism\u2019s role (for plants, substitute \u201ceating\u201d with \u201cphotosynthesis\u201d).<\/p>\n

The Madingley Model is a global ecosystem model (GEM). While it is not the only ecosystem model around (we\u2019ve been able to simulate ecosystems in terrestrial<\/a> and marine<\/a> environments for a while), the Madingley Model is the first to go global \u2013 linking land and sea \u2013 which is kind of a big deal.<\/p>\n

A visualisation of the Madingley Model.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first iteration of the Madingley Model was made available<\/a> this year, and it works basically like this:<\/p>\n