What does this have to do with ecological modelling?

Most people try to solve this puzzle the same way that they solve ecological problems - they start calculating. Let's see - there is me, and the man with seven wives, and his seven wives, and so on - that must be 1 + 7⁰ + 7¹ + 7² + 7³ + 7⁴.

So they proudly add up powers of seven and get the wrong answer. And yet, even a dummy who doesn't know that seven times seven is forty nine can get the correct answer if he thinks about the problem for a few minutes before trying to solve it.

The moral of this story? Being able to formulate a problem correctly can be a lot more important than knowing how to write down equations and solve them.

So if you added up the powers of seven correctly, that shows that you think in the way that most ecological modellers do, and that you are capable of making the same mistakes. If you came up with the answer "one", you may or may not have the mathematical skills to build complex ecological models, but the ones that you build will probably be correct.