Application of Modeling in Ecological Network Analysis

Ecological network analysis (ENA) is a new systematic approach that studies the structure and dynamics of ecological systems such as food networks. It is also able to evaluate ecosystem function and make it possible to compare ecological systems. The application domain of this approach has been wide and nowadays expanded to ecological risk assessment. There are many ecological models and the method of network analysis has been significantly improvedin recent years. Among these models, Ecopath and Inverse modeling are great for investigation of relationships in food webs. Some of the challenges users face when applying these models include the need to characterizing an entire ecosystem flows, data on the amount of each component and data accuracy. Determining the allowable exploitation amounts of natural resources and prediction of human effects on natural systems are some of the important applications of ENA. This approach has long been considered in environmental studies to solve various environmental problems, however, studies of this kind in Iran are few. Therefore, this study was performed to introduce ENA and especially food models and its applications on harvesting systems, which warrants more attention of researchers and managers in the field of environmental sciences.