Does an EcoFrame actually change the ecological outcome?
A custom agent-based simulation of bees, butterflies and generalist pollinators moving through a fragmented urban landscape. Instead of treating an EcoFrame as an instant energy “refill”, the model links movement, resource depletion, flowering, nesting, weather, disturbance, microclimate, mortality and reproduction.
Interactive experiment
Population & connectivity trajectories
Population over time
Cumulative successful crossings
Resource availability at EcoFrames
Ecological trap risk
What the model is actually doing
Each pollinator has energy, age, species-specific resource preferences, movement cost, thermal tolerance, disturbance sensitivity and a probability of reproduction.
Habitats and EcoFrames carry dynamic nectar, host-plant, nesting, shelter and water resources. Resources replenish and are depleted through use.
Pollinators choose the next node based on resource quality, distance, disturbance, microclimate and remaining energy instead of simply teleporting between hubs.
Flowering, rainfall, maintenance, heat and disturbance change resources; resource availability changes survival, reproduction and movement; population pressure feeds back into depletion.
Which design variables matter most?
A simple local sensitivity sweep perturbs each parameter while holding the others constant. This is not a causal statistical model; it is a way to expose which assumptions are doing most of the work in the simulation.
How to use this
Prioritise field measurement or expert validation. If a small change strongly shifts the result, you should not treat that parameter as a casual assumption.
The result is comparatively robust to that assumption within the tested range. It may be lower priority for early calibration.
Compare Core, Pollinator and Smart configurations under identical landscape conditions to show how added ecological functions change outcomes.
Replace assumed response functions with measured visitation, plant survival, water use, microclimate and maintenance data as the physical prototype matures.
Research-informed, explicitly provisional
This page explains how the simulation connects to your project evidence without pretending that a classroom model is a validated ecological forecast.
Mechanisms represented
| Layer | What is represented | How to calibrate later |
|---|---|---|
| Landscape | Gap distance, background green cover and disturbance | GIS, site survey, traffic/noise measurements and existing greenery mapping |
| Resources | Nectar/pollen, butterfly host plants, nesting, shelter and water | Plant inventory, flowering phenology, habitat occupancy and irrigation logs |
| Movement | Distance cost + resource attraction + disturbance + energy budget | Observed visitation and movement between tagged/observed nodes |
| Microclimate | Temperature, shade/humidity and weather scenario effects | Sensor data from prototype vs control pillars |
| Population | Survival and simplified reproduction | Observed abundance, occupancy, life-stage observations and repeated counts |
| Operations | Maintenance quality, water demand and module burden | Actual maintenance hours, water use and replacement records |
Why nectar + host plants are separate
Butterflies are not supported by flowers alone. NParks explains that nectar plants provide food for adult butterflies, while host plants provide food and habitat for caterpillars. The simulation therefore gives butterflies two separate resource channels. This means a module can look “flower-rich” but still have low reproductive support if host-plant provision is poor.
Bees are represented as a broad guild, not a species. Singapore has documented more than 130 bee species, with diverse urban habitat use. The model therefore avoids claiming one universal bee flight range and instead uses a configurable energy/travel budget that can be calibrated later for particular target species.
Evidence anchors
Official overview of how Nature Ways use multi-tier planting to facilitate wildlife movement between parks and nature reserves.
Open source ↗Provides Singapore-relevant examples of butterfly host plants and reinforces the distinction between adult nectar resources and larval host plants.
Open source ↗Records more than 130 bee species in Singapore and describes their use of urban parks and gardens.
Open source ↗Reports positive associations between butterfly diversity and nectar-floral diversity / vegetation structural complexity, and a positive landscape-scale association with greenness at ≥500 m; traffic density was negatively associated with butterfly diversity.
Open source ↗What this simulation cannot prove
- It cannot prove that real bees or butterflies will use EcoFrames at the predicted rates.
- It does not currently use species-level movement data for a particular Singapore bee or butterfly.
- It does not calculate real aerodynamic or structural effects of the MRT viaduct.
- It does not model every predator, parasitoid, pathogen or plant–insect interaction.
- Its population dynamics are deliberately simplified and should be calibrated against field observations before quantitative claims are made.