Define Historical example for scaling from individual to ecosystems?

Biological oceanographers have long utilized physiologically based models like the Droop model, which reduces maximum growth rate relies on the internal nutrient concentration within plankton cells, to scale biogeochemical dynamics up from the functioning of single foraging plankton to the biogeochemical balances of whole ocean cells; these are then embedded in three-trophic level, nutrient- phytoplankton-zooplankton (NPZ) models and incorporated into large-scale computational mixing models to ascertain the temporal and spatial patterns of global biogeochemical fluxes.

Although debate over the suitable level of model complexity carries on (plankton dynamics are complicated by biochemical variation between different plankton guilds and by successional changes in size distribution) the simpler models are routinely embedded in large-scale climate models to predict the influences of plankton growth on atmosphere-ocean carbon balances, and have currently been adapted to study phytoplankton blooms (Sommer 1991, Hurtt and Armstrong 1999, Huppert et al. 2002).