Abstract Chemistries and Its Application for Biological Systems

Abstract

 Artificial Chemistry is a new research field of Complex System and Artificial life. We have proposed and investigated an abstract chemical system, Abstract Rewriting System on MultiSets (ARMS). In the system, molecules correspond to “symbols” and they react to each other according to reaction rules which are defined in advance. We confirmed that it can simulate phenomenon that we will find in real bio-chemical reactions such as “Belouzov-Zhabotinsky reaction (BZ-reaction)” (BZ-reaction is spontaneous chemical oscillation, which is considered as one of the basic mechanisms in bio-chemical system). We also investigated the population dynamics of such a tritrophic interaction using ARMS. We also investigated the population dynamics of a tritrophic system consisting of plants, herbivorous mites and carnivorous natural enemies of herbivores using ARMS. In ARMS model, we regarded the tritrophic interaction as chemical reactions of four reagents (plants, herbivores, carnivores and herbivore-induced plant volatiles). The intensities of interactions between these individuals correspond to the reaction speed in the ARMS model. We discuss the function of herbivore-induced plant volatiles in tritrophic context.