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October 21.2002
See my NOTES.
    They discuss basic monitoring methods and a few ways to determine species interations, one which uses a formula to quantify relationships.

Our team has decided on our two models:  First we will be making a complex pictoral as well as mathematical model that represents as many of the systems interactions as possible, quantifying as much as we can.  Secondly, we will have a mathematical model that can give us information like how long a species will go before becoming extinct based on current environmental conditions.  Also, depending on whether or not we have the appropriate software available to us, we can expand this model to encompass changes in the layout of the Amazon, so that the factor of fragmentation can be constantly adjusted to keep the model up to date.

October 15, 2002
This past week my team and I have made several important advancements in our work.  Firstly, we had a team meeting on Monday October 14, 2002 where we discussed important topics at length and came to consensus on certain topics of debate.  Firstly, we are going to create a qualitative and a quantitative model for the final presentation.  The basic idea for this centers around the fact that there are many essential interactions within the rainforest ecosystem that we need to take into account, yet at the same time we want to mathematically model interactions so we can give quantitative answers to questions we plan to address.  Our solution is to take the many factors into account within our qualitative model and then to choose specific relationships to represent in our quantitative model, thereby simplifying the mathematical model.

The second major task I have been working on is related to this last accomplishment.  During our group meeting, where five members of the team were present, we decided on five major relationships to focus on for this next week.  Specifically they were those between flora and fauna, flora and soil, flora and air, soil and water, and decomposition.  We each then took one of these interactions and decided to focus our research on this topic for the next week.  My topic is decomposition, which, to further clarify, encompasses both flora's relationship with soil and fauna's relationship with soil, in the one direction of decomposition.  I have notes that I will be putting up on the web page when I next update, but for further information at present, go to this webpage which I found useful because it discusses the makeup of the forest floor.

Lastly, I went to the meeting on Monday October 14, 2002 where representatives from most of the mission teams discussed some of the integral points of divergence between the teams and tried to figure out how we can solidify the final goal of the project.  We came up with a basic list of components we want in our final presentation starting with a presentation discussing what a healthy rainforest is, describing equilibrium, and setting a goal for our project, then moving on to a statement of the problems we see in the Amazon Basin, followed by our practical plan for preservation of the Amazon Rainforest, ending with a presentation of our innovative monitoring techniques to keep a watch over how our plan affects the Rainforest, and with which we will be able to gauge our success.  During this meeting we also discussed the restriction of our focus to just Amazonia, a state that holds within it half the rainforest that is within Brazil and came to a shaky agreement with this decision.  Lastly, we have decided that both the webpage and the practical plan need to be starting to be developed now, and cannot be put off any longer.  This meeting turned out to be successful, and we agreed that we should have such meetings every other week or so, unless we are allowed class time in which we conduct a similar discussion.

October 5, 2002
I took a few pages of prelimiary notes on the three books I've been focusing on, first and foremost of these being once again Monitoring Ecological Change by Ian F. Spellerberg.  I found several equations that I showed by group that could possibly be used to represent interactions between specific species.
I started typing up my notes online.

September 26, 2002
I read through the first chapter in three of my books, and found an interesting fact worth noting.  The authors all agree, when discussing the basics of mathematical modeling of populations and population interactions, on the point that simpler models are more effective representations.  A more complicated model will try to take in too many specifics, and since it cannot possible account for every factor influencing the populationb being modelled, it must therefore choose where it is specific, therefore making it more fallible.

Our group had a meeting on Wednesday where we met with one of our mentors Marc Mander, and he offered to help with the modeling of the systems when we have enough information to do so.  Until then, we are still working on researching general ecology and mathematical modeling.

September 23, 2002
Over the past week I have been working with researching online and at the Science Library.  My research online research resulted in my suggestion to use the "water world,"  the Rainforest when the Amazon has flooded it's banks, as a possible choice for a case study.  This suggestion was one I made based on information I read about how the parts of the rainforest that are flooded with water during these times are teeming with aquatic life and the interactions between plants, soil, water and animal life are clearly distinct.

I took several books out of the MIT Science Library, two of which deal with mathematical modeling of populations.  The book I found most helpful so far is entitled Monitoring Ecological Change by Ian F. Spellerberg.  This book is not about introductory ecology as much as it discusses methods of data collection and monitoring of evolving populations.

Last Updated:  October 15, 2002
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