| This thesis is an investigation of the spatial growth of productions of clonally-reproducing plants. Using a stochastic individual-based model in MATLAB, the population of clonal plants is treated as a network and population growth in space is simulated. The dependence of network architecture on various individual level growth parameters is explored. The thesis explores phenomena such as central die-back with regeneration, and 'fairy rings'. Conditions that give rise to fairy-rings are studied. Simulation results show that the number of tubers in a given rectangular region grows logistically. A shorter spacer length results in a plant population with higher density, while a plant with longer spacer lengths exploits the field more quickly. Simulation results also show that the number of daughter branches per mother branch follows a power-law distribution in certain cases. |
