Listing 1 - 10 of 3542 | << page >> |
Sort by
|
Choose an application
Choose an application
Choose an application
Choose an application
Population biology --- Congresses --- Population biology - Congresses
Choose an application
Ecology. --- Population biology. --- Environmental protection. --- POPULATION BIOLOGY
Choose an application
Despite often violent fluctuations in nature, species extinction is rare. California red scale, a potentially devastating pest of citrus, has been suppressed for fifty years in California to extremely low yet stable densities by its controlling parasitoid. Some larch budmoth populations undergo extreme cycles; others never cycle. In Consumer-Resource Dynamics, William Murdoch, Cherie Briggs, and Roger Nisbet use these and numerous other biological examples to lay the groundwork for a unifying theory applicable to predator-prey, parasitoid-host, and other consumer-resource interactions. Throughout, the focus is on how the properties of real organisms affect population dynamics. The core of the book synthesizes and extends the authors' own models involving insect parasitoids and their hosts, and explores in depth how consumer species compete for a dynamic resource. The emerging general consumer-resource theory accounts for how consumers respond to differences among individuals in the resource population. From here the authors move to other models of consumer-resource dynamics and population dynamics in general. Consideration of empirical examples, key concepts, and a necessary review of simple models is followed by examination of spatial processes affecting dynamics, and of implications for biological control of pest organisms. The book establishes the coherence and broad applicability of consumer-resource theory and connects it to single-species dynamics. It closes by stressing the theory's value as a hierarchy of models that allows both generality and testability in the field.
Choose an application
Why do organisms become extremely abundant one year and then seem to disappear a few years later? Why do population outbreaks in particular species happen more or less regularly in certain locations, but only irregularly (or never at all) in other locations? Complex population dynamics have fascinated biologists for decades. By bringing together mathematical models, statistical analyses, and field experiments, this book offers a comprehensive new synthesis of the theory of population oscillations. Peter Turchin first reviews the conceptual tools that ecologists use to investigate population oscillations, introducing population modeling and the statistical analysis of time series data. He then provides an in-depth discussion of several case studies--including the larch budmoth, southern pine beetle, red grouse, voles and lemmings, snowshoe hare, and ungulates--to develop a new analysis of the mechanisms that drive population oscillations in nature. Through such work, the author argues, ecologists can develop general laws of population dynamics that will help turn ecology into a truly quantitative and predictive science. Complex Population Dynamics integrates theoretical and empirical studies into a major new synthesis of current knowledge about population dynamics. It is also a pioneering work that sets the course for ecology's future as a predictive science.
Population biology. --- Biology --- Ecology
Choose an application
Biology takes a special place among the other natural sciences because biological units, be they pieces of DNA, cells or organisms, reproduce more or less faithfully. As for any other biological processes, reproduction has a large random component. The theory of branching processes was developed especially as a mathematical counterpart to this most fundamental of biological processes. This active and rich research area allows us to make predictions about both extinction risks and the development of population composition, and also uncovers aspects of a population's history from its current genetic composition. Branching processes play an increasingly important role in models of genetics, molecular biology, microbiology, ecology and evolutionary theory. This book presents this body of mathematical ideas for a biological audience, but should also be enjoyable to mathematicians.
Choose an application
Choose an application
This introduction to mathematical methods that are useful for studying population phenomena is intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and will be accessible to scientists who do not have a strong mathematics background. The material is graded in mathematical difficulty. The earlier parts of the book involve elementary diference equations while later chapters present topics that require more mathematical preparation. Models of total population and population age structure are first derived and studied, and then models of random population events are presented in terms of Markov chains. The last two chapters deal with mathematical methods used to uncover qualitative behaviour of more complicated difference equations. Each chapter begins with a simple model, usually of some historical interest, that defines the primary goals of the chapter. Exercises, for which solutions are provided, illustrate material in the text and also deal with models more advanced than those derived and studied in the text.
Listing 1 - 10 of 3542 | << page >> |
Sort by
|