Parallel Models of Animal Migration in Northern Yellowstone National Park

Abstract

In landscape ecology, computer models are developed to simulate the migration of animal groups as they ex ist in nature. Typically, these models are sequential, and the animal groups move and forage in sequence. In this work, we discuss a parallel implementation of the NOYELP (NOrthern YELlowstone national Park) model on a 32-processor Thinking Machines CM-5. NOYELP is a spatially explicit, individual-based model that simulates the search, movement, and foraging activities of groups of animals across the northern por tion of Yellowstone National Park. NOYELP is primarily used to study the effects of fire-scale and pattern on the winter foraging dynamics and survival of free- ranging bison and elk groups. Separate versions of a parallel NOYELP model (referred to as PNOYELP) with different degrees of data-sharing and message-passing are used to study the effects on travel distances and semi-annual energy-gain statistics. Comparisons of these statistics with the sequential NOYELP model are made, and reasonable speed improvements (ranging from 2.8 to 6.7) for PNOYELP on the CM-5 over the sequential model on a Sun SPARCstation 10 are re ported.

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