ImperialCollegeLondon / virtual_ecosystem

This repository is the home for the codebase for the Virtual Ecosystem project.
https://virtual-ecosystem.readthedocs.io
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
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Improve how excrement and carcass decay is handled #546

Open jacobcook1995 opened 1 week ago

jacobcook1995 commented 1 week ago

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. At the moment excrement and carcass decay is handled by splitting generated carcasses and excrement into consumable and decayed pools. From a model timing perspective this is probably the least worst option, but it isn't very intuitive.

Also at the moment these pools flow into the metabolic litter pool, which means that the fraction defined as not being consumed by animals can actually be consumed by animals.

Also at the moment all these flows are carbon only when they should also track nitrogen and phosphorus

Describe the solution you'd like These flows can be moved to be animal to soil model flows to bypass the litter model entirely. The parameterisation of the split between animal consumption and decay can be generated using a mechanistic equation, which should improve the explainability of this part of the model.