ECOTWIN

WHAT IS ECOTWIN?

Ecotwin is an open-source agent-based ecosystem simulator that runs on the game engine Unity. It includes models of inanimate objects like mountains and lakes, and living objects like animals and plants. Features of Ecotwin include:

• Three-dimensional terrain models

• Terrestrial and marine ecosystems

• Generic models of animals and plants

• Genotypes and phenotypes

• Sexual and asexual reproduction

• Sexual reproduction based on physical encounters

• Nervous systems modeled by multiple neural networks

• Individual and lifelong reinforcement learning

• Generic model of reward

• Positive and negative reflexes

Our latest publications:

Exploring local effects of economic activities using agent-based ecosystem models (Jan 2023)

Ecosystem Models Based on Artificial Intelligence (July 2022)

Source code (open source)

applications

Biology only offers partial insights into the mechanisms that govern ecosystem development. Thus, the ecosystem models that we have today are necessarily far from perfect. Nevertheless, relatively realistic ecosystem models might contribute substantially to sustainable decision-making. Potential uses of such ecosystem models include:

• Consequence analysis of human interventions in real ecosystems via fishing, forestry, agriculture, and urbanization

• Theoretical biology, including evolution and ethology

• Game theory and behavioral economics

• Video games

• Robotics

The goal of the Ecotwin project is to build a relatively realistic ecosystem simulator by including several features of ecosystem development that are sometimes omitted in other ecosystem simulators.  In particular Ecotwin includes terrain models, genetic models, and behavioral models.