  What has perhaps the greatest potential for altering the shape of ecology is the advent of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which enables the detailed spatial representation and rapid manipulation of geographical data on computers. GIS came along at a time when ecologists had already begun to explore the role of spatial structure on the dynamics of populations, communities, and ecosystems. Within spatial ecology these were represented as entities having spatial relations with each other, besides the traditional ecological relations defined by their interactions. However, before GIS, tractable models required the idealization of uniform geometries (even in IBMs). The advent of GIS allowed the replacement of this idealization with more veridical spatial relations. Since philosophers of science have so far paid little attention to the history or implications of GIS technology, the discussion here will be somewhat more detailed than the treatment of other aspects of ecology.