UCLA

In this thesis I will analyze the dynamics of two-populations of nuclei within a filamentous fungus. The models developed here are designed to directly represent recent experiments studying Neurospora crassa chimera created from two genetically different nuclear populations.

The focus will be on analyzing how dynamics within the network are affected by the geometry of the fungus network by building and validating spatial population genetic models. We start from simulating some intuitive models for nuclear population dynamics during fungal growth, then provide asymptotic and analytic insights on the dynamics involved, and the relationship between population dynamics and the branching structure of the network. Comparisons among the simulation, the simplified model, and existing experiment data will also be discussed.