Ecological Cycle Optimizer (ECO)

Ecological Cycle Optimizer: A novel nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm for global optimization

The Ecological Cycle Optimizer (ECO) is a novel nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm inspired by energy flow and material cycling processes in ecosystems. ECO draws an analogy between the dynamic process of solving optimization problems and ecological cycling. To enhance the balance between exploration and exploitation processes, unique update strategies are designed for three key components: the producer, consumer, and decomposer, enabling ECO to efficiently search for global optima. ECO simulates the dynamic evolution of an ecological system, striving toward stability and balance, making it a powerful tool for solving complex global optimization problems.

For implementation, the provided MATLAB code demonstrates the structure of ECO and how it can be applied to various optimization tasks. The code is designed to be flexible and can be customized to suit different problem domains.

Boyu Ma†*, Jiaxiao Shi†, Yiming Ji & Zhengpu Wang. (2025). Ecological Cycle Optimizer: A novel nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithm for global optimization. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.20458