Individual-based modelling of the population dynamics of Metridia lucens

• Main Authors: Harold P. Batchelder, Robert Williams
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1995
• Subjects: Arctic; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.528.5498; http://www.smast.umassd.edu/CMMS/Documents/EcoModel/Batchelder_1995.pdf

An individual-based population dynamics model (IBM) was used to examine the effect of different behavioral, bioenergetic, and physiological assumptions on individual growth and development of the copepod, Metridia lucens, in the North Atlantic Ocean. Both intrinsic (nutritional condition, feeding history, size) and extrinsic (temperature, food resources) factors that might determine individual growth and development rates were examined. An advantage of an IBM is that it allows for inter-individual variability, and can thereby provide an indication of the range of responses that might arise from natural variation in environmental conditions. The model is a refinement of an earlier model that successfully reproduced the observed stage structure and abundance of Metridiu pacifica in the sub-arctic Pacific (Batchelder and Miller, 1989). Consequently, parameters for the ingestion and metabolic functions were set initially to those found appropriate for M. pucifzcu from previous model studies. Extrinsic forcing variables used to drive the population model were depth-specific temperature and chlorophyll a concentration. The model was run in two modes: chronological and individual. In the former mode