Terrestrial runoff after heavy rainfall can increase nutrient concentrations in waters overlying coral reefs that otherwise experience low nutrient levels. Field measurements during a runoff event showed a sharp increase in nitrate (75-fold), phosphate (31-fold) and ammonium concentrations (3-fold) in waters overlying a fringing reef at the island of Curaçao (Southern Caribbean). To understand ...

This paper presents a plant root behavior-based approach to defining the control architecture of a plant-root-inspired robot, which is composed of three root-agents for nutrient uptake and one shoot-agent for nutrient redistribution. By taking inspiration and extracting key principles from the uptake of nutrient, movements and communication strategies adopted by plant roots, we developed an upt...