Modelling of socio-ecological systems and management of common property resources in artisanal fisheries. Population dynamics of coastal marine invertebrates exploited by artisanal fisheries.

Network ABMS in solar technology adoption in households

The particular focus of the research is the development of a spatial and Agent-Based Model to capture the motivations underlying the decision making of the various actors towards the investments in the quality of land and institutions, or other aspects of land use change. Inductive models (GIS and statistical based) can extrapolate existing land use patterns in time but cannot include actors decisions, learning and responses to new phenomena, e.g. new crops or soil conservation techniques. Therefore, more deductive (‘theory-driven’) approaches need to be used to complement the inductive (‘data-driven’) methods for a full grip on transition processes. Agent-Based Modeling is suitable for this work, in view of the number and types of actors (farmer, sedentary and transhumant herders, gender, ethnicity, wealth, local and supra-local) involved in land use and management. NetLogo framework could be use to facilitate modeling because it portray some desirable characteristics (agent based and spatially explicit). The model develop should provide social and anthropological insights in how farmers work and learn.

-Use of models, including agent-based models, in understanding the formation of surface archaeological deposits in arid Australia
-Individual-based modelling of resource use on marginal islands in Polynesian prehistory
-Individual-based modelling of the influence of serial voyaging events on body proportions in Remote Oceania
-Discrete event simulation of early horticultural production in New Zealand

I am interested in the dynamics of cultural transmission, especially in diffusion of religious innovations (concepts and practices) across a population. In my dissertation, I am targeting this issue while studying and modelling the development of Christian meal practices in the first four centuries CE across the Roman Mediterranean.

Evolutionary Dynamics, Public Good Games, Emergence of Cooperation.

My research focus is on the economic analysis of agri-environmental policy instruments as means to navigate ecosystem service trade-offs in multifunctional landscapes. In this context, I am particularly interested in identifying policy instruments and instrument mixes allowing to align societal preferences with biophysical potential of landscapes to provide multiple ecosystem services. Here, the mutual relationship between regulatory and incentive-based instruments is of much interest. Using agent-based modelling, but also more qualitative approaches, I look at the emerging landscape-level patterns that result from various policy mixes given realistic descriptions of farmers’ behaviour and institutional settings.

urban ecology, socio-ecological systems, human-environment interactions, landscape ecology