9317971 Cohen Current scientific and resource policy problems revolve around the spatial dynamics of ecosystems and landscapes. For example, global climate change will not be equal everywhere and the responses of ecosystems to it depend in their distribution relative important spatial components include seed dispersal, which determines migration of plant species across the landscape, and habitat structure for birds which disperse those seeds. Until recently, computational tools for analyzing spatial dynamics have been lacking. Recent developments in supercomputers and video display technology make the interfacing of population, ecosystem, and landscape models feasible, thus providing solutions to large-scale ecological problems. We propose to incorporate mechanisms of seed dispersal and bird habitat suitability into an existing forest ecosystem model, develop visualization techniques for two and three dimensional display of simulated landscapes, and further develop mathematical techniques for analyzing model output. This work takes advantage of the new power in supercomputing and will develop tools for use on parallel architecture's. Software will be made available through Internet, workshops, etc. This award is being jointly supported by programs in Ecosystems Studies and Computational Biology.
