The purpose in ecological modeling is often systems analysis, an approach that attempts to understand fundamental attributes of ecosystems with the goal of predicting behavior. Or a model could be purely descriptive, a way of discovering the mechanisms that explain the structure or behavior of an ecosystem. The process of modeling often identifies areas where information or data is inadequate or entirely lacking. Simulation analysis can determine sensitive or controlling parameters that might otherwise be overlooked, thought unimportant, or completely ignored. Models provide a tool to aid both current and future research by directing the effort to fill data gaps and providing better understanding of controlling parameters and interactions.
Models serve as an important hypothesis-generation tool.