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Simulation of Vegetable Populations Dynamics
Based on Cellular Automata
Stefania Bandini and Giulio Pavesi
Dept. of Computer Science, Systems, and Communication
University of Milan-Bicocca
Milan, Italy
{
bandini,pavesi
}
@disco.unimib.it
Abstract.
Modeling the dynamics of vegetable populations is an ex-
tremely challenging problem. The evolution of a vegetable population,
that is, of all the weeds, plants and trees that grow in a given area, is
mainly influenced by the resources available on the territory (i.e. sun-
light, water, substances present in the soil), and how the single indi-
viduals compete for them. Traditional models for this case study are
continuous and based on differential equations. However, most of the
data needed to provide reliable parameters for these models are usually
scarce and di
+
cult to obtain. The model we present is instead based on
two-dimensional Cellular Automata, whose cells, arranged on a square
grid, represent portions of a given area. Some resources are present on
the area, divided among the cells. A cell can host a tree, represented in
the model by a set of parameters defining its species, its size (that is,
the size of its parts such as limbs, trunk, and roots), the amount of each
resource it needs to survive, to grow, and/or reproduce itself (that is,
produce fruits). The model has been applied to the simulation of popu-
lations consisting of robiniae (black locust), oak, and pine trees on the
foothills of the italian alps, with encouraging results reproducing real
conditions.
1 Introduction
Modeling the dynamics of vegetable populations, that is, of all the weeds, plants
and trees living in a given area, is an extremely challenging problem [1].The
main di
"
culty lies in the acquisition of data for the definition of the parameters
of the models, that must cover very long time periods, especially in the case of
perennial plants.Such data must include the resources available on the territory,
and those needed by plants to sprout, survive, grow, and reproduce themselves.
In fact, the evolution of a vegetable population is mainly influenced by the
resources available (i.e. sunlight, water, substances present in the soil), and how
the different individuals compete for them.Traditional models are continuous
and based on differential equations [2,3,4], and usually model the evolution of the
system with global parameters such as the total number of trees and their overall
biomass.More recently, Cellular Automata have been introduced to study this
