garlic-mustard

GARLIC MUSTARD MODEL

PURPOSE This model was designed to represent the spread of the invasive Garlic Mustard plant on a simplified landscape in Wisconsin.

ENTITIES, STATE VARIABLES, AND STATES The model has two agents, garlic mustard plants and wildflowers, and landscape patches of full sun, shade, or water. Our landscape patches are characterized by their color: -yellow: full sun -light green: shade -blue: water Our garlic mustard agent is characterized by its color and location Our wildflower agent is characterized only by its location The simulation lasts until a stable state has been reached (garlic mustard takeover or eradication) or is ended by the user

PROCESS OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULING On each time step, each garlic mustard plant spreads once. If sun-shade is turned on, each garlic mustard plant will update their health. Afterwards, each wildflower will update their health once.

DESIGN CONCEPTS This model revolves around the interaction between garlic mustard plants, wildflowers, and the corresponding landscape. Garlic mustard grows well in the shade, and is not commonly found in sunny habitats. The spread of garlic mustard progresses along the banks of rivers, lakes and streams. Garlic mustard is a rapidly spreading woodland weed that displaces native woodland wildflowers in Wisconsin. (Source: Wisconsin DNR)

INITIALIZATION The landscape is randomly initialized with patches of full sun, shade and water. A number of healthy garlic mustard plants and wildflowers are placed randomly on the landscape.

INPUT DATA There is no input data

SUBMODELS Garlic Mustard Submodels -Spread: First check if any of the neighbors are water. If so, add a healthy garlic mustard plant to every neighbor that is not water. If no neighbors are water, randomly select 1 neighbor. Create and add a healthy garlic mustard agent to it. Wildflowers Submodels -Update health (wildflower): if patch contains both a wildflower and a garlic mustard agent, wildflower dies -Update health (garlic mustard): if a garlic mustard plant is in a sun patch, its health will decrease until it dies. This is specified by increasing the color value of the orange garlic mustard plant by one each tick it lies in the sun patch. When the color value reaches the lightest orange (29) the garlic mustard will die.



Combined with bee model - super Martha Model