Erich Foster
An Agent- Based Pollen Model

Abstract
Pollen is the mechanism by which plants pass there genetic material from one generation to the next. The two main modes of transporting pollen from one plant to another are abiotic or wind dispersal, and biotic such as bee pollination. Pollen dispersal studies for both these modes have focused primarily on purely random diffusion processes, while this may be a good assumption for species pollinated mainly by abiotic means, such as wind and gravity, it is most likely an over simplification for species that are pollinated by biotic means. Movement of animals across a landscape, while carrying pollen, may not be a purely random process and therefore would not diffuse in a purely random fashion. We will discuss an agent-based model to describe pollen movement as a correlated random walk. Where the strength of correlation can be used to describe the tendency of an animal to move in a more deterministic fashion.


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