Lutra Interactive AB has developed EcoWeb, an interactive experience that turns ecological research into a hands-on simulation. Visitors can add or remove species and watch the consequences move through a food web. Removing a predator, for example, may affect herbivores and plants, while losing one species can have unexpected effects elsewhere in the network.
The project is built around a simple point: biodiversity is more than a count of species. It also depends on the complex web of interactions connecting them. Those connections, especially indirect effects, are difficult to convey through conventional exhibits, diagrams or lists of threatened species. EcoWeb aims to make these processes visible and explorable.
From three species to large networks
EcoWeb combines ecological science, dynamic simulation and playful interaction. It does not rely on simplified or fictional ecosystems. Instead, it uses empirical food-web data drawn from published ecological research, systematic literature reviews and species occurrence data. Its model includes both bottom-up and top-down effects, so changes can spread through a network rather than only affecting species directly connected to the one altered.
Visitors meet the complexity in stages. They start by building simple three-species food chains and seeing what happens when species are added or removed. They then move on to larger food webs and different types and strengths of ecological interactions. The final stage involves complete networks with more than 100 species and over 1,000 interactions. Users can select individual species to reveal their connections, examine threatened species, and in the Swedish forest ecosystem move from recently cleared land to old-growth forest to see changes in both biodiversity and the network.
Four ecosystems, one framework
EcoWeb currently covers four contrasting ecosystems: the Serengeti savanna, the Swedish boreal forest, an agricultural landscape and Lake Bolmen, one of Sweden’s largest lakes. The same underlying concept can be applied across these settings while retaining locally relevant species, data and environmental challenges.
The experience has been designed with scientists and educators and has moved beyond prototype into real-world use. It has been installed as a touchscreen experience at Universeum in Gothenburg, Curiosum in Umeå and Visualization Center C in Norrköping. It is also accessible through the web for WWF Sweden. Observations from these installations show visitors spending time exploring species and their connections. Use with school groups has prompted discussion and reasoning about extinction, indirect effects and trophic cascades.
Biodiversity loss as a system
EcoWeb addresses biodiversity loss, which the project identifies as a central sustainability challenge. Protecting biodiversity, it argues, requires more than knowing that species are disappearing. It requires understanding why species matter and how ecosystems depend on relationships between them.
Rather than telling visitors that biodiversity is important, EcoWeb lets them experiment with ecosystems themselves. The aim is to turn complex sustainability science into something tangible, memorable and engaging, creating a bridge between ecological research, public understanding and awareness of the consequences of human impact on nature.