Date of Submission
Spring 2017
Academic Programs and Concentrations
Mathematics; Environmental and Urban Studies
Project Advisor 1
John Cullinan
Project Advisor 2
Elias Dueker
Abstract/Artist's Statement
In this project I am modelling the predator-prey relationship between California sheephead and purple sea urchin populations, respectively, in kelp forests off the coast of southern California. The Lotka-Volterra equations explain predator-prey relationships in their most basic form. These equations incorporate a set of biological assumptions that can be unrepresentative of many ecological systems. I will consider alternate models that incorporate variations of the Lotka-Volterra model which may better represent the biology of the purple sea urchins and California sheephead. Using biological characteristics of both species in kelp forests, I will set possible and likely parameters and solve for unknown parameters. After constructing the models, I will fit each model to the population data. Once I have fit each model to the data, I will compute various error estimations using four possible objective functions and determine the model of best fit.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Williams, Olivia Rachel, "Modeling purple sea urchin and California sheephead populations in southern California kelp forests" (2017). Senior Projects Spring 2017. 355.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017/355
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
