Project properties

Title Development of an agent based model to represent algae-microplastics and daphnia-microplastics interactions.
Group Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group
Project type thesis
Credits 24-39
Supervisor(s) Sven Frei (sven.frei@wur.nl)
Benjamin Gilfedder
Egbert van Nes
Examiner(s) Sven Frei
Contact info Water quality: Bart Koelmans (bart.koelmans@wur.nl)
Marine ecology: Mischa Streekstra (marine.aew@wur.nl)
Freshwater ecology: Edwin Peeters (edwin.peeters@wur.nl)
Begin date 2024/04/10
End date 2025/12/30
Description The behaviour of microplastics (MPs) in lakes is still not very well understood. Besides the phyiscal transport of MPs, depending on the hydrodynamic conditions in the lake and particle properties such as size, density and shape, interactions with other lake materials (e.g. algae) might can be important. Further, it is known that the interactions with bioata (uptake and excretation) can change the hydrodynamic properties of the particles resulting in higher settling velocities. To represent these complex interactions in lakes, an agent-based model should be developed using the NetLogo programming language.
Used skills Literature review, data analysis/statistics, modelling
Requirements knowledge on basic hydrology and microplastics, maybe some coding skills are benefitial