jhpoelen
commented
8 years ago @agruss2 suggest to document this in our wiki. Rather than a request for a new feature or description of a bug, this is more like a OSMOSE documentation snippet. I took a first stab at it here osmose wiki and feel free to edit.
Functional groups rather than individual species are considered in OSMOSE. Species of a given functional group exhibit similar life history traits, body size ranges, diets and exploitation patterns. Some individual species constitute their own group, as they are emblematic to the modeled ecosystem and of high economic importance. Typically, one distinguishes between: (1) “high trophic level functional groups” or "HTL groups", which are explicitly considered in OSMOSE; and (2) “low trophic level groups” or "LTL groups", which are implicitly considered in OSMOSE and simply serve as potential food source (e.g., phytoplankton and zooplankton groups, low-trophic level benthic groups). Currently, a new paradigm is being introduced in the OSMOSE modeling approach. This new paradigm distinguishes between: (1) “focal functional groups”, which are explicitly considered in OSMOSE; and (2) “background functional groups”, which are implicitly considered in OSMOSE and simply serve as potential food source; This new paradigm was introduced by Dr. Caihong Fu from DPO Nanaimo (Canada), and I strongly defends it, because: (1) it turns out that, in some OSMOSE applications, some "LTL groups" have a higher trophic level than some "HTL groups"; and (2) forage fish (e.g.,, anchovies, sardines) are often referred to as "LTL groups" in the ecological literature, while they belong to the HTL groups in OSMOSE applications. Talking about "focal" and "background" functional groups better reflects the distinction that is being made between marine organisms in OSMOSE: some are considered explicitly (their whole life cycle is modeled), while the others are considered implicitly (fields of biomass for these groups are used to force OSMOSE models).