Living the dream: Desperately Seeking Agent 5503216

Our latest project involves modeling individual microbes, each with a full genome, in the global ocean over 10k+ years. This is a really exciting problem and I wake up every day thinking about it. We are currently in the model development phase and are struggling with keeping track of the microbes in the model. Microbe 5503216 shows up in the population at time 317.34 years, but not at time 318.35, yet it doesn't register as dying in between these two times. Where did it go? In my experience, and those of my students, this is common problem and there is no alternative, but to hunt the cell down. So thats what I am working on these days. Its the same thing I did many years ago when I developed my first agent-based model of phytoplankton. So my life hasn't changed a bit... I love it!