Provenance-enabled simulation of complex biological behavior: Reproductive searching behavior of Nereis succinea
Abstract
Computer simulation of pre-nuptial behavior of male and female marine worms was developed to test the effect of different female swim patterns and the use of a pheromone on the frequency of mating encounters. The simulation application is modeled after the principles of a scientific workflow system, which enables testing the behavior with a wide range of parameters. In addition, a data provenance system facilitates replay of simulation runs to further analyze the effects of response variables on the outcomes. These systems were developed from scratch, and the former versions of the program were converted to C# to facilitate their eventual incorporation into a formal scientific workflow system, namely VIEW. Results are determined from the average behavior of hundreds of thousands of individual trials simulating different relative start positions, orientations, pheromone concentrations, and movement patterns of the interacting animals. Since each trial is independent, parallel computing architectures may enable shortening total runtimes. With respect to the domain specific application, the simulation demonstrated that the adaptive advantage of using pheromone depended both on the swim patterns of the females releasing it as well as the concentration released. With straight female swim paths, males could follow pheromone trails at low concentrations; whereas, with females swimming intermittently in circles, higher concentrations of pheromone enabled females to trap males. Both the method of modeling and the specific biological principles investigated may have application to inter-individual interactions not only in mating behavior of marine worms, but also in other interactions in humans and other animals.
Recommended Citation
Scotia Meeshan Roopnarine,
"Provenance-enabled simulation of complex biological behavior: Reproductive searching behavior of Nereis succinea"
(January 1, 2009).
ETD Collection for Wayne State University.
Paper AAI1462269.
http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/dissertations/AAI1462269
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