A SIMULATION STUDY OF THE SPATIOTEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF THE UNIONID MUSSELS

The southeastern United States has one of the richest and most diverse communities of freshwater mussels in the world, However, the populati on size and species diversity has steadily declined since early in thi s century, resulting in many species being on the brink of extinction, In this paper, a modelling framework using a spatially explicit and a ge structured computer model is used to conduct spatial-temporal dynam ics analysis of the mussel population, The important parameters studie d are the effects of fecundity rate, availability of fish hosts and su itability of the habitat for the mussel communities. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.