MODELING INDIVIDUALS EMPLOYING AN INTEGRATED ENERGY RESPONSE - APPLICATION TO DAPHNIA

Motivated by problems where variation among individuals is necessary to explain properties of ecological systems, the authors develop a mathematical model of an individual organism. The model, based primarily upon energetics, is developed specifically for female daphnids, although with appropriate modifications it should be applicable to other aquatic animals. Mimicking the life history of an individual as it progresses from egg to juvenile to adult instars, the model consists of a coupled pair of nonlinear, nonautonomous ordinary differential equations. -from Authors