Contributed talk

Speaker: Kamrun Nahar Keya (Arizona State University)

Location and Time: SAS 201, Saturday, 11:15–11:45 AM

Title: Study of chaos on Tribolium confusum: A data driven model to depict the behavior of flour beetles.

Abstract: Mathematicians have always been interested in understanding population biology using mathematical tools, especially using deterministic and differential equations. For decades scientists are studying or trying to understand the nonlinearity or, chaos that are present in

the environment. Tribolium beetles' cannibalistic behavior have been a popular experiment among researchers. In this project, we experiment with Tribolium confusum population for different levels of nutrition (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Carbon). The purpose of this work is to understand the biology of flour beetle using experimental data and mathematics. A data driven model has been established using difference equation for two different life stage of flour beetle (larva+pupae and adult beetle). We analyzed the model and showed that the stability of model depends on flour beetles' birth rate and cannibalism rate of adult population. Our results confirm the decreasing nature of adult population. Using the parameter from the data, we performed bifurcation analysis that led us to believe that chaos might not be present in the ongoing experiment.