Evolution and Sustainability on the Computer [REPOSITORY]

These models let us explore what happens when agent behaviors have outcomes for their reproductive success.
We can observe how evolutionary processes of variation, selection based on accumulated resources, and reproduction and inheritance, change the agent population and the sustainability of the social-ecological system.

More abstract version

This model is a more abstract version of the previous model, where patches contain resources and the amount of resources are visualized through patch color.

Evolution of harvest rate and influence of efficiency

This model introduces another important factor in the evolutionary dynamics of resource use - the efficiency of resource use in terms of costs required for the use of resources. 

Rather than setting the harvest rate of agents, the harvest rate of the agent population itself evolves, based on the efficiency of resource use (i.e. the living costs that agents need to pay for their harvesting behavior) and other parameters.

The model lets students reflect on the role of diminishing returns and increasing resource use efficiency (e.g. through technologies in the course of human history) in the sustainability of social-ecological systems.