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Lake Trophic Cascade 2D: Spatial Biomanipulation Fronts

A spatially explicit reaction-diffusion model of a lake food web: stock piscivorous fish at a dock and watch the predation front spread across the water, clearing algae behind it as the four-level trophic cascade propagates.

Ecology & Conservation Biology2DAdvanced60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted💧 Water ⇄ 3D version

Real lakes are not well-mixed tanks — a predator released at one dock takes time to spread across the water, and algal blooms form spatial patches rather than rising and falling everywhere at once. This simulator solves the same four-level trophic cascade (piscivores → planktivores → zooplankton → phytoplankton) as a two-dimensional reaction-diffusion system: populations grow, feed on each other and die exactly as in a well-mixed model, but they also diffuse across a grid representing the lake surface. Stock piscivorous fish at the dock and watch a genuine invasion front — mathematically the same Fisher-KPP spreading behaviour used to model real species range expansions — carry the predation pressure, and the resulting water clarity, outward across the lake in real time.

⚙ Under the hood

A spatially explicit reaction-diffusion version of the lake trophic cascade: stock piscivorous fish at a single dock and watch the predation pressure spread as real diffusive grazing pulses that clear algae outward across the water, instead of one shared well-mixed number.

ecologytrophic cascadereaction-diffusionlimnologybiomanipulationspatial ecologylake

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install