Model simplification - Three applications

This paper explores the possibility of model simplification in the context of ecological models. The techniques of simplification have arisen in a variety of disciplines and have received only limited attention in ecological studies. We applied some of these techniques in three instances and report our results in this paper. All of our simplification exercises were successful in the sense of making the models under scrutiny less complex. We present our results here as a demonstration of some of these simplification techniques and to generalize about the applicability of simplification to ecological models.