The Virtual Eelgrass Meadow: Simulating growth, resource allocation, and clonal growth in Zostera marina

Experimental efforts to determine the biological and physical variables that affect seagrass growth have been successful in providing a general idea of how environmental parameters, such as light, may affect productivity.
Some of these results have been used to support numerical models of seagrass growth that include outputs of shoot density or standing stock biomass.
Fewer experimental studies have addressed the larger scale proceses that influence population dynamics and landscape level changes in seagrass
meadows and any models of these processes rely on constant or forced growth rates.
She will present a mechanistic model of eelgrass growth that predicts rhizome elongation rates and new lateral shoot production in two dimensions.
Simulation rules that govern biomass allocation to leaves, rhizomes, and new lateral shoots link the physiology occurring at the cellular level with landscape level dynamics.