--What Is BioQUEST?
--BioQUEST
|Collection
|-- Biometrics
|--Biota
|--Data Collection and
|Organization
|--Demography
|--Environmental Decision
|Making
|--Evolve
|--Genetics
|Construction Kit
|--Isolated Heart
|Laboratory
|--Modeling
|--Sequence It!
|
--Collection
|Candidates
--First Review
|Folder
--Extended Learning
|Resources
--Software Materials
--Support Materials

	Biota
	Jim Danbury, Ben Jones, John Kruper, Eric Nelson, William Sterner, Jeff Schank, Jim Lichtenstein, Joyce Weil, and William Wimsatt (University of Chicago)
Screen Shots | What's New | System Requirements

Biota is a program that;

1) models the ways that species interact to cause changes in each others' population over time (e.g., predators and their prey; hosts and parasites, plants and pollinators); and

2) simulates research methods in population dynamics by providing the option to turn chosen simulations into 'black box' problems and providing tools that can be used to investigate these problems as if they were field studies.

Biota has two primary modes: Simulation and Problem. In Simulation mode you construct a simulation by specifying the regions, species, interactions among species, migratory patterns, and the starting levels of the populations in the regions. You can change all of the available parameters that underlie growth rates: the model of growth, interaction coefficients, population densities, properties of research tools, etc.

Problem mode is analogous to the situation faced by a researcher who must go into the field and figure out the population dynamics of the species there. You begin without knowing what species are there, what their current population levels are, how many different breeding populations there are, or what the migration patterns are. Your task is to figure the dynamics of these populations. You are provided access to a set of research tools that will give you information about what is there and will provide the ability to estimate population levels through sampling and experimental design.

Screen Shots

Map window in Problem mode. The tools available in problem mode are meant to be analogs to some of the tools and methods available to researchers.

Map region in simulation, or edit mode with 4 regions created.

What's New?

Added two menu items to the Species menu:

• Summarize Species - contains descriptions of all the options that are active in the selected species as well as the values of all active numerical parameters.
• Summarize Simulation - contains the text of the summary of the map parameters and summaries of all the species in the simulation.

System Requirements

Macintosh or Power Macintosh

• System 6.07 or later; System 7.1 or later for Power Macintosh.
• At least 800K of available random access memory (RAM), more for complex simulations or models.