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Functional programming through deep time: modeling the first complex ecosystems on earth

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Emily G. MitchellAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 46, Issue 9

Pages 28 - 31

https://doi.org/10.1145/2034574.2034779

Published: 19 September 2011 Publication History

Abstract

The ecology of Earth's first large organisms is an unsolved problem in palaeontology. This experience report discusses the determination of which ecosystems could have been feasible, by considering the biological feedbacks within them. Haskell was used to model the ecosystems for these first large organisms - the Ediacara biota. For verification of the results, the statistical language R was used. Neither Haskell nor R would have been sufficient for this work - Haskell's libraries for statistics are weak, while R lacks the structure for expressing algorithms in a maintainable manner. This work is the first to quantify all feedback loops in an ecosystem, and has generated considerable interest from both the ecological and palaeontological communities.

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References

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N. J. Butterfield. Macroevolution and macroecology through deep time. Paleontology, 50: 41--55, 2007.

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J. Gehling and G. Narbonne. Spindle-shaped Ediacara fossils from the Mistaken Point assemblage, Avalon Zone, Newfoundland. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 44 (3): 367--387, 2007.

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Cited By

Mitchell EWallace MSmith VWiesenthal ABrierley A(2021)Bayesian Network Analysis reveals resilience of the jellyfish Aurelia aurita to an Irish Sea regime shiftScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-021-82825-w11:1Online publication date: 12-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82825-w
Mitchell EHarris S(2020)Mortality, Population and Community Dynamics of the Glass Sponge Dominated Community “The Forest of the Weird” From the Ridge Seamount, Johnston Atoll, Pacific OceanFrontiers in Marine Science10.3389/fmars.2020.5651717Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.565171

Index Terms

Functional programming through deep time: modeling the first complex ecosystems on earth
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 46, Issue 9

ICFP '11

September 2011

456 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/2034574

Issue’s Table of Contents

ICFP '11: Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming
September 2011
470 pages
ISBN:9781450308656
DOI:10.1145/2034773
General Chairs:
Manuel Chakravarty
University of New South Wales, Australia
,
Zhenjiang Hu
National Institute of Informatics, Japan
,
Program Chair:
Olivier Danvy
Aarhus University, Denmark

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 19 September 2011

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 46, Issue 9

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Cited By

Mitchell EWallace MSmith VWiesenthal ABrierley A(2021)Bayesian Network Analysis reveals resilience of the jellyfish Aurelia aurita to an Irish Sea regime shiftScientific Reports10.1038/s41598-021-82825-w11:1Online publication date: 12-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82825-w
Mitchell EHarris S(2020)Mortality, Population and Community Dynamics of the Glass Sponge Dominated Community “The Forest of the Weird” From the Ridge Seamount, Johnston Atoll, Pacific OceanFrontiers in Marine Science10.3389/fmars.2020.5651717Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.565171

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