scholarly journals Simulating Species Richness Using Agents with Evolving Niches, with an Example of Galápagos Plants

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall B. Boone

I sought to evolve plant species richness patterns on 22 Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, as an exploration of the utility of evolutionary computation and an agent-based approach in biogeography research. The simulation was spatially explicit, where agents were plant monocultures defined by three niche dimensions, lava (yes or no), elevation, and slope. Niches were represented as standard normal curves subjected to selection pressure, where neighboring plants bred if their niches overlapped sufficiently, and were considered the same species, otherwise they were different species. Plants that bred produced seeds with mutated niches. Seeds dispersed locally and longer distances, and established if the habitat was appropriate given the seed's niche. From a single species colonizing a random location, hundreds of species evolved to fill the islands. Evolved plant species richness agreed very well with observed plant species richness. I review potential uses of an agent-based representation of evolving niches in biogeography research.

Ecoscience ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 394-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fábio S. Albuquerque ◽  
Miguel Á. Olalla-Tárraga ◽  
Daniel Montoya ◽  
Miguel Ángel Rodríguez

2017 ◽  
Vol 130 (5) ◽  
pp. 829-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumar Manish ◽  
Maharaj K. Pandit ◽  
Yasmeen Telwala ◽  
Dinesh C. Nautiyal ◽  
Lian Pin Koh ◽  
...  

Flora ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 208 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Krömer ◽  
Amparo Acebey ◽  
Jürgen Kluge ◽  
Michael Kessler

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (14) ◽  
pp. 3567-3577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonios D. Mazaris ◽  
Joseph Tzanopoulos ◽  
Athanasios S. Kallimanis ◽  
Yiannis G. Matsinos ◽  
Stephanos P. Sgardelis ◽  
...  

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