Population Biology Books

Mathematical Models in Population Biology and Epidemiology

Fred Brauer, Carlos Castillo-Chavez

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Editorial Review:

This book is an introduction to the principles and practice of mathematical modeling in the biological sciences, concentrating on applications in population biology, epidemiology, and resource management. The core of the book covers models in these areas and the mathematics useful in analyzing them, including case studies representing real-life situations. The emphasis throughout is on describing the mathematical results and showing students how to apply them to biological problems while highlighting some modeling strategies. A large number and variety of examples, exercises, and projects are included. Additional ideas and information may be found on a web site associated with the book. Senior undergraduates and graduate students as well as scientists in the biological and mathematical sciences will find this book useful. Carlos Castillo-Chavez is professor of biomathematics in the departments of biometrics, statistics, and theoretical and applied mechanics at Cornell University and a member of the graduate fields of applied mathematics, ecology and evolutionary biology, and epidemiology. H is the recepient of numerous awards including two White House Awards (1992 and 1997) and QEM Giant in Space Mentoring Award (2000). Fred Brauer is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University id Wisconsin, where he taught from 1960 to 1999, and has also been an Honorary Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia since 1997.

Ecology: The Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance

Charles J. Krebs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Scarily good 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

As a layperson with next-to-no knowledge of the subject, nor any maths, algebra or statistics, I thought I'd have a lot of trouble with this book.

And yes, I did have some trouble, and yes, I would really have liked to have had a tutor and classmates to help me through the exercises.

But even so I got a great deal from it, it has lead me to read scientific papers, it has prompted me to investigate higher education possibilities - and it has made me extremely grateful for scientists!

Thanks!

Editorial Review:

This best-selling majors ecology text continues to present ecology as a series of problems for students to critically analyze. No other text presents analytical, quantitative, and statistical ecological information in an equally accessible style. Reflecting the way ecologists actually practice, the book emphasizes the role of experiments in testing ecological ideas and discusses many contemporary and controversial problems related to distribution and abundance. Throughout the text, Krebs thoroughly explains the application of mathematical concepts in ecology while reinforcing these concepts with research references, examples, and interesting end-of-chapter review questions. Thoroughly updated with new examples and references, the text now features a new full-color design and is accompanied by an art CD-ROM for instructors, a Companion Website and EvolutionLab for students, and a subscription to The Biology Place.

Invasive Alien Species: A New Synthesis (Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) Series)

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Ecological economics addresses one of the fundamental flaws in conventional economics--its failure to consider biophysical and social reality in its analyses and equations. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications is an introductory-level textbook that offers a pedagogically complete examination of this dynamic new field.

As a workbook accompanying the text, this volume breaks new ground in applying the principles of ecological economics in a problem- or service-based learning setting. Both the textbook and this workbook are situated within a new interdisciplinary framework that embraces the linkages among economic growth, environmental degradation, and social inequity in an effort to guide policy in a way that respects fundamental human values. The workbook takes the approach a step further in placing ecological economic analysis within a systems perspective, in order to help students identify leverage points by which they can help to affect change. The workbook helps students to develop a practical, operational understanding of the principles and concepts explored in the text through real-world activities, and describes numerous case studies in which students have successfully completed projects.

Ecological Economics: A Workbook for Problem-Based Learning represents an important new resource for undergraduate and graduate environmental studies courses focusing on economics, environmental policy, and environmental problem-solving.

Biology of Rarity: Causes and Consequences of Rare-Common Differences (Population and Community Biology Series)

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Editorial Review:

The study of rare species has long fascinated biologists. Rare and common species may differ in body size, dispersal, reproduction and many other respects. The Biology of Rarity reviews documented patterns of such differences, and considers the methodological difficulties plaguing their interpretation. This book provides an unusually wide ranging picture of how patterns of species differences can be maintained.
The authors consider the potential roles of community assembly rules and speciation in biasing the set of species that become rare, of extinction in `editing' that set, and the potential for changes in ecology, genetics and evolution to transform the characteristics of rare species over time. The potential role of phylogenetic comparisons in disentangling these processes is considered, along with potential applications to conservation biology.

The Biodemography of Human Reproduction and Fertility

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Review by American Journal of Human Reproduction &Fertility 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Biodemography is a sullied concept in anthropology. It ought to be about the biological and evolutionary basis of demographic events that determine Darwinian fitness. Usually it is merely descriptive, and I have come to expect that titles with biodemography in them will disappoint. This book is a nice surprise: it has many pieces that do just what biodemography ought to do.
The strength of the book is that is it a collection of pieces (12 chapters) from different fields in anthropology, biology, epidemiology, psychology, and even sociology that are not obviously related and tempts scholars to read outside their fields. Anthropologists, for example, learn early on that phenotypic plasticity is what humans are about, and it never occurred to me to question the assumption that phenotypic plasticity is a good thing until I read the second chapter of the book, by Hughes, Burleson, and Rodd. Environmentally cued development may have costs not incurred by genes coding for canalized development. For example, there may be costs associated with information acquisition.
Most human reproductive ecology is based on plastic responses to the food supply or energy output, and we ought to be developing models that compare the costs of this kind of response to fixed responses. Valeggia and Ellison in Chapter 5 use Ellison's energy balance model (see Ellison, 2001) to interpret data on the duration of lactational amenorrhea in the Toba of Northern Argentina. Unfortunately, the beauty of Ellison's energy balance model is its weakness. It explains all the data we have or ever will have on ovarian suppression. In this sense it is not a true scientific model since it is impossibe to falsify.
The Toba have breastfeeding patterns similar to the !King Bushmen of Southern Africa. The !King are known for their long lactation periods and low fertility, and after Melvin Konner and Carol Worthman's landmark piece in 1980 establishing the intense lactation patterns of !Kung and suppressed ovarian activity, the 4-year-wide birth intervals of !Kung were attributed to lactational suppression. But the Toba have a surprisingly short period of lactational amerorrhea - half of all lactating Toba women have resumed cycling by 9 months postpartum, illustrating that breastfeeding intensity is not solely responsible for variation in lactational amenorrhea. Since there are no comparative data (Konner and Worthman's data were much less detailed), the piece does not elucidate the role of energetics, but Valeggia and Ellison describe some plausible physiological mechanisms for a regulatory role of food on ovarian activity.
Some variation in the timing of life history events previously attributed to plasticity can now be attributed to genetic variation. In Chapter 9 James Murray and colleagues describe differences in fertility among Honduran men with different alleles at the dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2)/TaqI/site. DRD2/Taq1/A1+ men have earlier age at reproduction and higher fertility than DRD2/Taq1/A1- men. In the past, they argue, the higher fertility of the DRD2/Taq1/A1+ allele was balanced by higher mortality in carriers that today produces excess morbidity. They summarize a large body of literature about genes with similar effects that may be responsible for so-called diseases of modernization (e.g., hypertension).
Like all edited volumes, this book varies in quality. Because the statistical methods and the theoretical content change with each chapter, the book is unlikely to be suitable for standard undergraduate courses. Undergraduates could grasp the conclusions, but not where they came from, and there are too many statistical techniques and too much theory and biology to introduce in a semester. Anderson and Low in Chapter 4, for example, find that the higher fertility of unmarried women disappears when covariates are included. This is an interesting but questionable finding. Many of the covariates (like age at first birth, age at marriage, and schooling) are competing risks. Women who become pregnant young are less likely to be married and receive less schooling, and a different model incorporating interactions among these terms might produce a different answer.
There are many other pieces by prominent scholars on many issues. This book should give readers a lot of new ideas with which to approach their own research problems, including up-to-date literature reviews in fields outside their own fields. It would be a great choice for a journal-club-like course in which students and faculty can hash out the issues and the consequences of better data or different statistical methods.
American Journal of Human Biology (Wiley-Liss), pages 101-102, Volume 16, Number 1 January/February 2004.

Editorial Review:

The Biodemography of Human Reproduction and Fertility takes an interdisciplinary look at the subjects of fertility and reproduction.
Key topics include:

- anorexia as a reproductive disease with evolutionary origins;
- the evolutionary basis of menarche;
- the familial (genetic) basis of having boys versus girls;
- twin fertility;
- extramarital childbearing.

This book is for advanced level students and researchers who study human reproduction and fertility.

Mathematical Ecology of Populations and Ecosystems

John Pastor

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Editorial Review:

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.

Statistical Ecology: A Population Perspectiv

Linda J. Young, Jerry Young

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Editorial Review:

Covering a wide range of disciplines, this book explains the formulae, techniques, and methods used in field ecology. By providing an awareness of the statistical foundation for existing methods, the book will make biologists more aware of the strengths and possible weaknesses of procedures employed, and statisticians more appreciative of the needs of the field ecologist.
Unique to this book is a focus on ecological data for single-species populations, from sampling through modeling. Examples come from real situations in pest management, forestry, wildlife biology, plant protection, and environmental studies, as well as from classical ecology. All those using this book will acquire a strong foundation in the statistical methods of modern ecological research.
This textbook is for late undergraduate and graduate students, and for professionals.

Introduction to Plant Population Biology

Jonathan W. Silvertown, Jonathan Lovett Doust, Jon Lovett Doust

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Editorial Review:

This completely revised, fourth edition of Introduction to Plant Population Biology continues the approach taken by its highly successful predecessors. Ecological and genetic principles are introduced and theory is made accessible by clear, accurate exposition with plentiful examples. Models and theoretical arguments are developed gradually, requiring a minimum of mathematics.

The book emphasizes the particular characteristics of plants that affect their population biology, and evolutionary questions that are particularly relevant for plants. Wherever appropriate, it is shown how ecology and genetics interact, presenting a rounded picture of the population biology of plants.

Topics covered include variation and its inheritance, genetic markers including molecular markers, plant breeding systems, ecological genetics, intraspecific interactions, population dynamics, regional dynamics and metapopulations, competition and coexistence, and the evolution of breeding systems and life history. An extensive bibliography provides access to the recent literature that will be invaluable to students and academics alike.

• Effective integration of plant population ecology, population genetics and evolutionary biology.
  
• The new edition is thoroughly revised and now includes molecular techniques.
  
• The genetics chapters have been completely rewritten by a new co-author, Deborah Charlesworth.

The New Consumers: The Influence Of Affluence On The Environment

Norman Myers, Jennifer Kent

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Editorial Review:

While overconsumption by the developed world's roughly one billion inhabitants is an abiding problem, another one billion increasingly affluent "new consumers" in developing countries will place additional strains on the earth's resources, argue authors Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent in this important new book. The New Consumers examines the environmental impacts of this increased consumption, with particular focus on two commodities - cars and meat - that stand to have the most far-reaching effects. It analyzes consumption patterns in a number of different countries, with special emphasis on China and India (whose surging economies, as well as their large populations, are likely to account for exceptional growth in humanity's ecological footprint), and surveys big-picture issues such as the globalization of economies, consumer goods, and lifestyles. Ultimately, according to the authors, the challenge will be for all of humanity to transition to sustainable levels of consumption, for it is unrealistic to expect "new" consumers not to aspire to be like the "old" ones. Cogent in its analysis, The New Consumers issues a timely warning of a major and developing environmental trend, and suggests valuable strategies for ameliorating its effects.

The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography (Monographs in Population Biology)

Stephen P. Hubbell

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Editorial Review:

Despite its supreme importance and the threat of its global crash, biodiversity remains poorly understood both empirically and theoretically. This ambitious book presents a new, general neutral theory to explain the origin, maintenance, and loss of biodiversity in a biogeographic context. Until now biogeography (the study of the geographic distribution of species) and biodiversity (the study of species richness and relative species abundance) have had largely disjunct intellectual histories. In this book. Stephen Hubbell develops a formal mathematical theory that unifies these two fields. When a speciation process is incorporated into Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson's now classical theory of island biogeography, the generalized theory predicts the existence of a universal, dimensionless biodiversity number. In the theory, this fundamental biodiversity number, together with the migration or dispersal rate, completely determines the steady-state distribution of species richness and relative species abundance on local to large geographic spatial scales and short-term to evolutionary time scales. Although neutral, Hubbell's theory is nevertheless able to generate many nonobvious, testable, and remarkably accurate quantitative predictions about biodiversity and biogeography. In many ways Hubbell's theory is the ecological analog to the neutral theory of genetic drift in genetics. The unified neutral theory of biogeography and biodiversity should stimulate research in new theoretical and empirical directions by ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and biogeographers.