Relating individual behaviour to population dynamics

Authored by DJT Sumpter, DS Broomhead

Date Published: 2001

Sponsors: United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Defence Evaluation and Research Agency

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

How do the behavioural interactions between individuals in an ecological system produce the global population dynamics of that system? We present a stochastic; individual-based model of the reproductive cycle of the mite Varroa jacobsoni, a parasite of honeybees. The model has the interesting property in that its population level behaviour is approximated extremely accurately by the exponential logistic equation or Ricker map. We demonstrated how this approximation is obtained mathematically and how the parameters of the exponential logistic equation can be written in terms of the parameters of the individual-based model. Our procedure demonstrates, in at least one case, how study of animal ecology at an individual level san be used to derive global models which predict population change over time.

Tags

models ecology Chaos complex dynamics Colonies Single-species populations Bee apis-mellifera Mite varroa-jacobsoni Brood Cerana