Learning to learn ecosystems from limited data -- a meta-learning approach
<|reference_start|>Learning to learn ecosystems from limited data -- a meta-learning approach: A fundamental challenge in developing data-driven approaches to ecological systems for tasks such as state estimation and prediction is the paucity of the observational or measurement data. For example, modern machine-learning techniques such as deep learning or reservoir computing typically require a large quantity of data. Leveraging synthetic data from paradigmatic nonlinear but non-ecological dynamical systems, we develop a meta-learning framework with time-delayed feedforward neural networks to predict the long-term behaviors of ecological systems as characterized by their attractors. We show that the framework is capable of accurately reconstructing the ``dynamical climate'' of the ecological system with limited data. Three benchmark population models in ecology, namely the Hastings-Powell model, a three-species food chain, and the Lotka-Volterra system, are used to demonstrate the performance of the meta-learning based prediction framework. In all cases, enhanced accuracy and robustness are achieved using five to seven times less training data as compared with the corresponding machine-learning method trained solely from the ecosystem data. A number of issues affecting the prediction performance are addressed.<|reference_end|>
@article{zhai2024learning,
    title={Learning to learn ecosystems from limited data -- a meta-learning
  approach},
    author={Zheng-Meng Zhai, Bryan Glaz, Mulugeta Haile, and Ying-Cheng Lai},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.07368},
    year={2024},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    eprint={2410.07368},
    primaryClass={q-bio.QM cs.LG nlin.CD}
}