Collaborative Research: ITR/AP (DEB) Stochastic Synthesis: Simulating the Environmental Transformations of Natural Organic Matter

我们环境中的水和土壤中含有天然有机物质(NOM)，它有助于调节土壤肥力、污染物毒性、生态系统行为和碳循环。这些反过来影响农业生产、公共和生态系统健康以及全球气候变化。然而，由于NOM的复杂性质和环境中的多种可能的反应，人们对从动植物物质中产生NOM的过程知之甚少。这个项目将结合生态学家、地球化学家和计算机科学家的努力，试图使用一种新的随机方法来模拟这个复杂的系统。在这种方法中，数百万个单独的分子被模拟并在电子计算机中一起反应，以提供复杂自然过程的计算机模型。该模型将通过互联网合作进行开发和测试，最终将由农业、环境和地球科学家通过简单的网络浏览器界面访问。

The waters and soils of our environment contain naturally-occurring organic matter (NOM), which helps to regulate soil fertility, pollutant toxicity, ecosystem behavior and carbon cycling. These in turn affect agricultural production, public and ecosystem health, and global climate change. However, the processes which produce NOM from plant and animal matter are poorly understood, due to the complex nature of NOM and the multitude of possible reactions in the environment. This project will combine the efforts of ecologists, geochemists and computer scientists in an attempt to model this complex system using a novel stochastic approach. In this approach, millions of individual molecules are simulated and reacted together 'in silico' to provide a computer model of the complex natural processes. The model will be developed and tested via an internet collaboration, and ultimately will be accessible to agricultural, environmental and earth scientists via a simple web browser interface.