Study on environmental ecology expansion simulation based on cellular automata

In order to establish the linkage of micro and macro ecosystems of plants and describe the complexity of ecosystems from multiple levels, this paper builds a plant ecology simulation system based on cellular automaton theory for simulating the plant ecosystem and analyzing the relation between individual plant and global ecological phenomena. The method based on cellular automaton avoids the difficulties met by traditional analytic methods in finding the solution of ecological problem. Compared with other simulation method, this approach is more reliable in theory and cellular space has direct mapping relation with living space of plant. To show the effectiveness of this emulator, the growth dynamics of population of the endangered species Changium smyrnioides is simulated and compared with that of another similar species Anthriscus sylvestris. The experimental results show that global phenomena can emerge in cellular space made up of autonomous individuals, and also show the remarkable difference between two species under different ecological strategies. The simulation results are consistent with the ecological fact.