Pastor Mathematical Ecology of Populations and Ecosystems

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4443-5845-2
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 344 Seiten, E-Book

Population ecologists study how births and deaths affect the dynamics of populations and communities, while ecosystem ecologists study how species control the flux of energy and materials through food webs and ecosystems. Although all these processes occur simultaneously in nature, the mathematical frameworks bridging the two disciplines have developed independently. Consequently, this independent development of theory has impeded the cross-fertilization of population and ecosystem ecology. Using recent developments from dynamical systems theory, this advanced undergraduate/graduate level textbook shows how to bridge the two disciplines seamlessly. The book shows how bifurcations between the solutions of models can help understand regime shifts in natural populations and ecosystems once thresholds in rates of births, deaths, consumption, competition, nutrient inputs, and decay are crossed.
Mathematical Ecology is essential reading for students of ecology who have had a first course in calculus and linear algebra or students in mathematics wishing to learn how dynamical systems theory can be applied to ecological problems.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pastor, John

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Prologue.
Preface.
Acknowledgments.
Part I: Preliminaries.
1. What is Mathematical Ecology and Why Should We Do It?.
2. Mathematical Toolbox.
Part II: Populations.
3. Homogeneous Populations: Exponential and Geometric Growth andDecay.
4. Age- and Stage-structured Linear Models: Relaxing TheAssumption Of Population Homogeneity.
5. Nonlinear Models of Single Populations: The Continuous TimeLogistic Model.
6. Discrete Logistic Growth, Oscillations, and Chaos.
7. Harvesting and the Logistic Model.
8. Predators and their Prey.
9. Competition between Two Species, Mutualism, and SpeciesInvasions.
10. Multispecies Community and Food Web Models.
Part III: Ecosystems.
11. Inorganic Resources, Mass Balance, Resource Uptake, andResource Use Efficiency.
12. Litter Return, Nutrient Cycling, and EcosystemStability.
13. Consumer Regulation of Nutrient Cycling.
14. Stoichiometry and Linked Element Cycles.
Part IV: Populations and Ecosystems in Space andTime.
15. Transitions between Populations and States inLandscapes.
16. Diffusion, Advection, the Spread of Populations andResources, and the Emergence of Spatial Patterns.
Appendix: MatLab Commands for Equilibrium and Stability Analysisof Multi-compartment Models by Solving the Jacobian and itsEigenvalues.
References.
Index

Über Autor(innen)

John Pastor is Professor of Biology, at University of Minnesota Duluth, USA