Primer Of Ecological Theory

Presents an overview of ecological modeling as it relates to current ecological theory. KEY TOPICS: A Primer of Ecological Theory maintains its scientific objectivity while covering the full extent of current ecological modeling theory. The book introduces the use of computer technology to ecological modeling through MATLAB. This allows all work to be verified and the skills transferred to other disciplines. MARKET: A valuable resource book for ecologists, resource managers, and economists.

The pace, intensity, and scale at which humans have altered our planet in recent decades is unprecedented. We have dramatically transformed landscapes and waterways through agriculture, logging, mining, and fire suppression, with drastic impacts on public health and human well-being. What can we do to counteract and even reverse the worst of these effects? Restore damaged ecosystems. The Primer of Ecological Restoration is a succinct introduction to the theory and practice of ecological restoration as a strategy to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems. In twelve brief chapters, the book introduces readers to the basics of restoration project planning, monitoring, and adaptive management. It explains abiotic factors such as landforms, soil, and hydrology that are the building blocks to successfully recovering microorganism, plant, and animal communities. Additional chapters cover topics such as invasive species and legal and financial considerations. Each chapter concludes with recommended reading and reference lists, and the book can be paired with online resources for teaching. Perfect for introductory classes in ecological restoration or for practitioners seeking constructive guidance for real-world projects, Primer of Ecological Restoration offers accessible, practical information on recent trends in the field.

Provides simple explanations of the important concepts in population and community ecology. Provides R code throughout, to illustrate model development and analysis, as well as appendix introducing the R language. Interweaves ecological content and code so that either stands alone. Supplemental web site for additional code.

This is the first ever introduction to Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Framework written specifically for undergraduate students. The author provides a carefully structured, guided introduction to Bronfenbrenner’s concepts, their interpretation, and their potential applications. Bronfenbrenner’s scientific analysis of the role the environment plays in human development earned him a premier place alongside Jean Piaget, Sigmund Freud, and Erik Erikson as a contributor to our understanding of developmental processes. His ideas are essential for analysing how development happens, how it goes astray, how to right it when it does, and how to create environments that will promote healthy development. The Bronfenbrenner Primer walks students through each component of the framework in a logical order, helping students build a solid, systematic understanding. It describes the background and context that led Bronfenbrenner to develop his framework, illustrates a wide array of potential applications, and provides activities students can do to practice applying the framework to their own experience. Honed over 25 years of teaching Bronfenbrenner’s ideas, this text will be essential reading for students across the behavioral and social sciences.

Despite claims to the contrary, the science of ecology has a long history of building theories. Many ecological theories are mathematical, computational, or statistical, though, and rarely have attempts been made to organize or extrapolate these models into broader theories. The Theory of Ecology brings together some of the most respected and creative theoretical ecologists of this era to advance a comprehensive, conceptual articulation of ecological theories. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, from ecological niche theory to population dynamic theory to island biogeography theory. Collectively, the chapters ably demonstrate how theory in ecology accounts for observations about the natural world and how models provide predictive understandings. It organizes these models into constitutive domains that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of ecological understanding. This book is a milestone in ecological theory and is certain to motivate future empirical and theoretical work in one of the most exciting and active domains of the life sciences.

A one-of-a-kind guide to using deterministic and probabilistic methods for solving problems in the biological sciences Highlighting the growing relevance of quantitative techniques in scientific research, Mathematical Methods in Biology provides an accessible presentation of the broad range of important mathematical methods for solving problems in the biological sciences. The book reveals the growing connections between mathematics and biology through clear explanations and specific, interesting problems from areas such as population dynamics, foraging theory, and life history theory. The authors begin with an introduction and review of mathematical tools that are employed in subsequent chapters, including biological modeling, calculus, differential equations, dimensionless variables, and descriptive statistics. The following chapters examine standard discrete and continuous models using matrix algebra as well as difference and differential equations. Finally, the book outlines probability, statistics, and stochastic methods as well as material on bootstrapping and stochastic differential equations, which is a unique approach that is not offered in other literature on the topic. In order to demonstrate the application of mathematical methods to the biological sciences, the authors provide focused examples from the field of theoretical ecology, which serve as an accessible context for study while also demonstrating mathematical skills that are applicable to many other areas in the life sciences. The book's algorithms are illustrated using MATLAB®, but can also be replicated using other software packages, including R, Mathematica®, and Maple; however, the text does not require any single computer algebra package. Each chapter contains numerous exercises and problems that range in difficulty, from the basic to more challenging, to assist readers with building their problem-solving skills. Selected solutions are included at the back of the book, and a related Web site features supplemental material for further study. Extensively class-tested to ensure an easy-to-follow format, Mathematical Methods in Biology is an excellent book for mathematics and biology courses at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as a valuable reference for researchers and professionals working in the fields of biology, ecology, and biomathematics.

A detailed exposition of the most common mathematical models in population and community ecology, covering exponential and logistic population growth, age-structured demography, metapopulation dynamics, competition, predation, and island biogeography. Intended to demystify ecological models and the math behind them by deriving the models from first principles. The primer may be used as a self-teaching tutorial, as a primary textbook, or as a supplemental text to a general ecology textbook. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Introduction and background; Exploratory data analysis and graphics; Deterministic functions for ecological modeling; Probability and stochastic distributions for ecological modeling; Stochatsic simulation and power analysis; Likelihood and all that; Optimization and all that; Likelihood examples; Standar statistics revisited; Modeling variance; Dynamic models.