Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions (MPB-49) PDF Download

Author: A. Townsend Peterson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691136882
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Terminology, conceptual overview, biogeography, modeling.

Author: Bryan K. Epperson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691086699
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Population genetics has made great strides in applying statistical analysis and mathematical modeling to understand how genes mutate and spread through populations over time. But real populations also live in space. Streams, mountains, and other geographic features often divide populations, limit migration, or otherwise influence gene flow. This book rigorously examines the processes that determine geographic patterns of genetic variation, providing a comprehensive guide to their study and interpretation. Geographical Genetics has a unique focus on the mathematical relationships of spatial statistical measures of patterns to stochastic processes. It also develops the probability and distribution theory of various spatial statistics for analysis of population genetic data, detailing exact methods for using various spatial features to make precise inferences about migration, natural selection, and other dynamic forces. The book also reviews the experimental literature on the types of spatial patterns of genetic variation found within and among populations. And it makes an unprecedented strong connection between observed measures of spatial patterns and those predicted theoretically. Along the way, it introduces readers to the mathematics of spatial statistics, applications to specific population genetic systems, and the relationship between the mathematics of space-time processes and the formal theory of geographical genetics. Written by a leading authority, this is the first comprehensive treatment of geographical genetics. It is a much-needed guide to the theory, techniques, and applications of a field that will play an increasingly important role in population biology and ecology.

Author: Stephen P. Hubbell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691021287
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Despite its importance and the threat of its global crash, biodiversity is poorly understood both empirically and theoretically. This work presents a neutral, general theory to explain the origin, maintenance and loss of biodiversity in a biogeographical context.

Author: Laurence D. Mueller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209944
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Throughout the twentieth century, biologists investigated the mechanisms that stabilize biological populations, populations which--if unchecked by such agencies as competition and predation--should grow geometrically. How is order in nature maintained in the face of the seemingly disorderly struggle for existence? In this book, Laurence Mueller and Amitabh Joshi examine current theories of population stability and show how recent laboratory research on model populations--particularly blowflies, Tribolium, and Drosophila--contributes to our understanding of population dynamics and the evolution of stability. The authors review the general theory of population stability and critically analyze techniques for inferring whether a given population is in balance or not. They then show how rigorous empirical research can reveal both the proximal causes of stability (how populations are regulated and maintained at an equilibrium, including the relative roles of biotic and abiotic factors) and its ultimate, mostly evolutionary causes. In the process, they describe experimental studies on model systems that address the effects of age-structure, inbreeding, resource levels, and population structure on the stability and persistence of populations. The discussion incorporates the authors' own findings on the evolution of population stability in Drosophila. They go on to relate laboratory work to studies of animals in the wild and to develop a general framework for relating the life history and ecology of a species to its population dynamics. This accessible, finely written illustration of how carefully designed experiments can improve theory will have tremendous value for all ecologists and evolutionary biologists.

Author: Ricard V. Solé
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691070407
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Describing a theoretical view of ecosystems based on how they self-organise to produce complex patterns, this book focuses on very simple models that despite their simplicity encapsulate fundamental properties of how ecosystems work.

Author: Kevin S. McCann
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691134189
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book synthesizes and reconciles modern and classical perspectives into a general unified theory.

Author: Adam Lomnicki
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209618
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
A common tendency in the field of population ecology has been to overlook individual differences by treating populations as homogeneous units; conversely, in behavioral ecology the tendency has been to concentrate on how individual behavior is shaped by evolutionary forces, but not on how this behavior affects population dynamics. Adam Lomnicki and others aim to remedy this one-sidedness by showing that the overall dynamical behavior of populations must ultimately be understood in terms of the behavior of individuals. Professor Lomnicki's wide-ranging presentation of this approach includes simple mathematical models aimed at describing both the origin and consequences of individual variation among plants and animals. The author contends that further progress in population ecology will require taking into account individual differences other than sex, age, and taxonomic affiliation--unequal access to resources, for instance. Population ecologists who adopt this viewpoint may discover new answers to classical questions of population ecology. Partly because it uses a variety of examples from many taxonomic groups, this work will appeal not only to population ecologists but to ecologists in general.

Author: Robert M. May
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780691081304
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The Description for this book, Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems. (MPB-6), will be forthcoming.

Author: Sean Meyn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521731828
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 623

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Book Description
New up-to-date edition of this influential classic on Markov chains in general state spaces. Proofs are rigorous and concise, the range of applications is broad and knowledgeable, and key ideas are accessible to practitioners with limited mathematical background. New commentary by Sean Meyn, including updated references, reflects developments since 1996.

Author: Stephen D. Fretwell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691081069
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Most organisms live in a seasonal environment. During their life cycles, some species face seasons of cold and heat, aridity and abundant rainfall, migration and stable residence, breeding and nonbreeding. Populations grow and decline as supplies of materials essential to their survival wax and wane. Such qualitative truths as these flow obviously from field observations. In this original monograph, Stephen Fretwell analyzes the highly complex interaction between a population and a regularly varying environment in an attempt to define and measure seasonality as a critical parameter in the general theory of population regulation. Concerned primarily with the size and the habitat distribution of populations, Professor Fretwell develops simple models that, when applied to specific populations, usually of birds, demonstrate the effect of seasonal variations on the regulation of populations. He maintains that seasonality, as a concept, is essential to a full understanding of environmental interaction. During the course of his exposition, the author offers several new hypotheses, including theories affecting the breeding, numbers, distribution, and diversity of wintering birds, and a theory affecting the body size of sparrows.