Courses/CS 461/Winter 2006/Jesse Zwerling/Homework 4
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Homework 4: Ocean2.nlogo
This week's homework was a re-working of my project from last week.
Last week we discussed the math behind the wolf-sheep predation model, as well as the variations on the model, including the immortal sheep. For this week, I tried to add more constraints to the model, the goal being a stable eco system without the kelp (grass).
Goal
My model has three breeds of fish: goldfish, redfish, and sharks. It can be set so that each fish only feeds on the next smallest, or so that the shark can feed on the goldfish. The user can also set the maximum age, reproductive rate, and energy-from-food from each breed. There is also a setting eat-all-in-patch. If this is on, the predators will eat all the prey in their patches. I was hoping that this, in addition to the maximum-age, would make the death rate less linear. As discussed last week, in the wolf-sheep model, the birth rate is exponential, but the death rate is linear.
Conclusion
I was unable to achieve a stable ecosystem without the kelp (grass). I was unable to control the exponential birth rate of the goldfish without the constraint of having to eat kelp. As in the wolf-sheep model, if the kelp (grass) is off, there is no penalty to energy for movement, so the goldfish will not die from exhaustion/starvation.
Code
