Bio 481 - Problem Set 6 - Cellular Automata

General Note: a^b stands for a raised to the b power.

1. Take a look at the cellular automata with the default paramter values. What is the long-term behavior of this system? Does this make sense to you?
   
   
2. Can you find parameter values for which the system goes extinct? (HINT: You may have to start with different initial proportions.)
   
   
3. Why can this model never exhibit 'true chaotic' or even 'true oscillatory' behavior? Is this a characteristic of all cellular automata or just this particular one?
   
   
4. Play around some with the parameter values and find some systems where all three types are persistent. How would you go about analyzing this system? How could you describe the behavior of it?
   
   
5. Find two parameters that seem to affect how quickly the population goes extinct (so the population will have to go extinct :) ). Make a graph of time to extinction as a function of this parameter.
   
   
6. What is the effect of the size of the grid upon the dynamics of the system? Also, look at this near a 'bifurcation' value. What does this tell you about interpreting results from cellular automata?
   
   
7. Think of what this model represents. What might be some biological questions you might ask of the system? Can you approach some of these with this model? Come up with some questions that can be addressed and look at one of them.
   
   

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