Document Type
Honors Thesis
Abstract
Relationships between interacting organisms generally have several key variables that describe the dynamics of their specific relationship. And the results from those symbiotic relationships are important in that both species are affected in a significant, observable way. With this in mind, it is found that the characteristic actions of each of the two species affect the population size of both species. This effect, caused by the species' actions and interactions is qualitatively noted and is further interpreted and quantized. The complicated relationship between a predator and its prey is broken down and analyzed to give better insight to the projected dynamics of their differential growth patterns in a specific environment with respect to time. Many mathematically extreme, but biologically relevant scenarios are considered to showcase the wide scope of plausible outcomes that can be predicted by the constructed model. These rare, but possible scenarios are scrutinized to verify the model's validity in predicting the results of many scenarios instead of just a particular common situation. This enhances the level of trust that the model can be given in predicting important results. The relationship between a protist species, the predator in question, and a bacterial species, the protists' prey, is put under scrutiny with this model that features facets of common organism interplay. The model that has been constructed for this scenario has an intrinsic balance in its foundation in that it is complex enough to accurately depict the population dynamics of this specific predator-prey relationship with a high degree of detail, but also maintains a simplistic structure that can be easily manipulated to adjust for differing situations that also may be of interest to others.
Publication Date
12-1-2014
Language
English
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Le, Matthew, "INTERACTIONS OF PROTIST AND BACTERIA: A MATHEMATICAL MODEL" (2014). 2014 Fall Honors Capstone Projects. 6.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/honors_fall2014/6