Workshop MMVW03 — Measures and Representations of Interactions

The study of interactions among living entities covers broad scientific domains, ranging from molecules and cells through individual organisms and groups to species, populations and communities. Common to all domains is the need to quantify the presumed interactions at the relevant spatial and temporal scales. While no formal theory exists in the literature, there exist different approaches that aim to construct a mechanistic representation of how individuals interact with each other as well as how to measure such interactions, but in most cases such approaches are specific to the problem at hand. The common factor among the existing approaches is their intention to represent the sequential nature of how organisms interact, first acquiring information from their surroundings, then processing that information and subsequently selecting a movement response.

By cross-fertilising different ideas and techniques in animal ecology and cell biology we aim to gain a more realistic perspective on measurement and representation of organism interactions, revisiting existing concepts, and permitting new discoveries and insights.