Modelling Biological Populations in Space and Time

Cambridge Studies in Mathematical Biology

by Eric Renshaw

This volume develops a unifying approach to population studies that emphasizes the interplay between modeling and experimentation and that will provide mathematicians and biologists with a framework within which population dynamics can be fully explored and understood. A unique feature of the book is that deterministic and stochastic models are considered together; spatial effects are investigated by developing models that highlight the consequences that geographical restriction and species mobility may have on population development. Model-based simulations of processes are used to explore hitherto unforeseen features and thereby suggest further profitable lines of both experimentation and theoretical study. Most aspects of population dynamics are covered, including birth-death and logistic processes, competition and predator-prey relationships, chaos, reaction time delays, fluctuating environments, spatial systems, velocities of spread, epidemics, and spatial branching structures.

422 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is unbelievably cool because it uses actual data from landmark ecological experiments as examples of each stochastic model type. Like Huffaker's mites where you put two types of mites (one predator and one prey species) on oranges and depending on how many oranges you use, you can seem multiple population oscillations before the system crashes.

I could be learning the same mathematics from boring engineering texts about light-bulb failures and web-server statistics. I'll stick with birds and mites, thank you very much!