SEMINAR

Slow plants in a fast forest - a cellular automaton apporach to landscape modeling

Department of Biological Sciences
University of Southern Mississippi

ABSTRACT

Ecology, like all modern sciences, is highly numerical, and a great variety of models have been applied in developing ecological theory. The recent development of Landscape Ecology, which explores spatial relationships among organisms, has prompted use of new classes of models with explicit spatial components. In my work, I have used a cellular automaton in the form of a square lattice to explore the consequences of forest fragmentation for wildflowers. The project is novel in representing separate dynamic processes for both the forest ecosystem and the inhabiting wildflower populations. Exploration of the model shows that species of limited mobility will gradually become extinct in a dynamic landscape even though substantial amounts of habitat may remain. High-mobility species will survive in a dynamic landscape through a stepping stone effect. Results suggest a managment policy of identifying and protecting isolated old-growth forest stands. In the future, the model should be expanded to include nonrandom landscape elements.

WHERE: TEC 205

WHEN(day): Friday, Setpember 8th, 2000

WHEN(time): 2:00pm

EVERYBODY IS INVITED