Site fidelity and range size of wintering Barnacle Geese Branta leucopsis

Barnacle Geese restrict their movements to relatively few key sites and exhibit considerable variation in ranging behaviour. To examine individual and seasonal variation in site fidelity, habitat use, range size and foraging strategies of Barnacle Geese Branta leucopsis, the movements of 18 male Barnacle Geese tagged in two discrete areas were tracked for 3–6 months from late autumn until departure on the spring migration. Tagged geese concentrated their feeding in a relatively small proportion of apparently suitable habitat. Geese moved increasingly further afield in midwinter, and there was a clear predeparture shift to the largest area of relatively undisturbed, and possibly more nitrogen-rich, saltmarsh on the Solway. Birds from one of the two capture sites tended to be more sedentary and have smaller home ranges

Stochastic Simulation Service: Bridging the Gap between the Computational Expert and the Biologist.

We present StochSS: Stochastic Simulation as a Service, an integrated development environment for modeling and simulation of both deterministic and discrete stochastic biochemical systems in up to three dimensions. An easy to use graphical user interface enables researchers to quickly develop and simulate a biological model on a desktop or laptop, which can then be expanded to incorporate increasing levels of complexity. StochSS features state-of-the-art simulation engines. As the demand for computational power increases, StochSS can seamlessly scale computing resources in the cloud. In addition, StochSS can be deployed as a multi-user software environment where collaborators share computational resources and exchange models via a public model repository. We demonstrate the capabilities and ease of use of StochSS with an example of model development and simulation at increasing levels of complexity

Process flow and component diagram for a modeling and simulation workflow with StochSS.

<p>The biochemical model and domain is defined as part of the problem specification. The ODE, spatial stochastic, and well-mixed simulation tools generate realizations of these models. The parameter estimation and parameter sensitivity tools allow for analysis of models. The output and visualization tools present the data.</p

Screenshots of the StochSS model editor.

<p>Choose the model to edit from the selection list and view and edit your domain with the mesh editor (left), and define the biochemical species, initial conditions, parameters, and reactions (right).</p

Illustration of simulation times and data output sizes for the different modeling levels supported by StochSS.

<p>There is a steep increase in computational cost as the model is refined.</p