Home

Welcome to the predator_prey_gui wiki!

Contributing authors to this wiki are Twyla Keating, David Garvey and Tyesn Barley.

Objectives and Methods:

The model of the population dynamics in an ecosystem with a predator, prey, and scavenger, developed by Jansen and Gorder, was initially aimed at understanding the Arctic ecosystem, composed of polar bears (predators), seals (prey), lemmings (resources), and foxes (scavengers) along with the amount of dead seals (quarry) for the foxes. The model was designed in hopes of predicting fluctuations in population sizes based on the interactions between the ecosystem’s inhabitants. This model serves as an extension to the work of Lotka and Volterra, whose work primarily focuses on systems involving only predators and prey.

The Scavenger project looks to develop a relatively simple user interface in which a user may specify any initial predator, prey, or scavenger population count, along with other initial conditions, and have returned the Jansen and Gorder model according to these specifications. The graphical user interface (GUI) will consist of 11 boxes for initial conditions and other variables, one box for time, and one button to calculate the model. The returned model will be presented in three subplots based on figures 2 and 3 in the Jansen and Gorder article, Dynamics from a Predator-Prey-Quarry-Resource-Scavenger Model. The calculations to return the model will primarily be done with a function that uses the system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) derived from Jansen Gorder’s work and MATLAB’s ode45 solver to solve for the input conditions, and returns the three subplots.

An additional objective is to consider Jansen and Gorder’s model with seasonal variability factored in, using function m-files to solve the corresponding system of ODE’s and replicate figures 6 and 7 in the article. The utilization of this interface and code would make predictions of population and environmental effects on an ecosystem much easier to calculate and visualize.