Welcome to SIMPDEL Homepage |
SIMPDEL is an individual-based ecological model, standing for Spatial-explicit Individual-based simulation Model of Florida Panther and white-tailed Deer in the Everglades and Big Cypress Landscape. SIMPDEL is being developed to predict and compare the effects of different environmental impacts on the distribution and abundance of white-tailed deer and Florida panthers. SIMPDEL has been developed by the Institute for Environmental Modeling at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with support from the National Park Service through Subagreement #8 to Cooperative Agreement #CA-5460-0-9001 with the University of Tennessee, and with support from the National Biological Service under Cooperative Agreement Number 1445-CA09-95-0094. Support for parallelizationefforts of this model comes from the National Science Foundation under Grant BIR-9318160 to the University of Tennessee (Summary report is here. SIMPDEL is one of the models included in the ATLSS (Across Trophic Level System Simulation) modeling effort coordinated by the National Biological Service to be applied in South Florida. ATLSS Summary is here. The currently applied White-tailed Deer Breeding Potential Index Model is described here.Current applications of this model are at the ATLSS ftp Site.
The authors of the sequential SIMPDEL model are: E. Comiskey, L. Gross , D. Fleming, M. Huston, H-K. Luh and Y. Wu. The authors of various parallel implementations of the SIMPDEL model are: C. Abbott, M. Berry, E. Comiskey, L. Gross , and H-K. Luh
The current geographic-based information ( vegetation and hydrology) used in SIMPDEL covers a large portion of South Florida, including parts of Lake Okeechobee, Big Cypress Swamp, Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. The current implementation is limited to the region over which the hydrology models are parameterized, although the model is planned to be expanded to larger areas in the future.
The SIMPDEL model has four main components: hydrology, vegetation, deer and panthers. The hydrology model is derived from the South Florida Water Management Model (SFWMM) which simulates both natural hydrological patterns of the unmanaged ecosystem (the Natural Systems Model) and present day hydrology with all the control structures (the Control Model). Both hydrology models make use of historical rainfall data as inputs. The vegetation model provides spatial and temporal variation in available forage for the deer population. The deer model simulates each individual of the deer population based on its behavioral and physiological characters. Similarly, the panther model simulates each individual Florida panther based on its behavioral and physiological characters.
A set of slides from the presentation of SIMPDEL at the First Annual Walt Dineen Society Conference, at Florida International University, on May 22-24, 1997 is here
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SIMPDEL homepage is maintained by Lou Gross.