This book uses fundamental ideas in dynamical systems to answer questions of a biologic nature, in particular, questions about the behavior of populations given a relatively few hypotheses about the nature of their growth and interaction. The principal subject treated is that of coexistence under certain parameter ranges, while asymptotic methods are used to show competitive exclusion in other parameter ranges. Finally, some problems in genetics are posed and analyzed as problems in nonlinear ordinary differential equations.

Population biology has been investigated quantitatively for many decades, resulting in a rich body of scientific literature. Ecologists often avoid this literature, put off by its apparently formidable mathematics. This textbook provides an introduction to the biology and ecology of populations by emphasizing the roles of simple mathematical models in explaining the growth and behavior of populations. The author only assumes acquaintance with elementary calculus, and provides tutorial explanations where needed to develop mathematical concepts. Examples, problems, extensive marginal notes and numerous graphs enhance the book's value to students in classes ranging from population biology and population ecology to mathematical biology and mathematical ecology. The book will also be useful as a supplement to introductory courses in ecology.

Population biology has been investigated quantitatively for many decades, resulting in a rich body of scientific literature. Ecologists often avoid this literature, put off by its apparently formidable mathematics. This textbook provides an introduction to the biology and ecology of populations by emphasizing the roles of simple mathematical models in explaining the growth and behavior of populations. The author only assumes acquaintance with elementary calculus, and provides tutorial explanations where needed to develop mathematical concepts. Examples, problems, extensive marginal notes and numerous graphs enhance the book's value to students in classes ranging from population biology and population ecology to mathematical biology and mathematical ecology. The book will also be useful as a supplement to introductory courses in ecology.

The goal of this book is to search for a balance between simple and analyzable models and unsolvable models which are capable of addressing important questions on population biology. Part I focusses on single species simple models including those which have been used to predict the growth of human and animal population in the past. Single population models are, in some sense, the building blocks of more realistic models -- the subject of Part II. Their role is fundamental to the study of ecological and demographic processes including the role of population structure and spatial heterogeneity -- the subject of Part III. This book, which will include both examples and exercises, is of use to practitioners, graduate students, and scientists working in the field.

Population dynamics is an important subject in mathematical biology. A cen tral problem is to study the long-term behavior of modeling systems. Most of these systems are governed by various evolutionary equations such as difference, ordinary, functional, and partial differential equations (see, e. g. , [165, 142, 218, 119, 55]). As we know, interactive populations often live in a fluctuating environment. For example, physical environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity and the availability of food, water, and other resources usually vary in time with seasonal or daily variations. Therefore, more realistic models should be nonautonomous systems. In particular, if the data in a model are periodic functions of time with commensurate period, a periodic system arises; if these periodic functions have different (minimal) periods, we get an almost periodic system. The existing reference books, from the dynamical systems point of view, mainly focus on autonomous biological systems. The book of Hess [106J is an excellent reference for periodic parabolic boundary value problems with applications to population dynamics. Since the publication of this book there have been extensive investigations on periodic, asymptotically periodic, almost periodic, and even general nonautonomous biological systems, which in turn have motivated further development of the theory of dynamical systems. In order to explain the dynamical systems approach to periodic population problems, let us consider, as an illustration, two species periodic competitive systems dUI dt = !I(t,Ul,U2), (0.

This book uses fundamental ideas in dynamical systems to answer questions of a biologic nature, in particular, questions about the behavior of populations given a relatively few hypotheses about the nature of their growth and interaction. The principal subject treated is that of coexistence under certain parameter ranges, while asymptotic methods are used to show competitive exclusion in other parameter ranges. Finally, some problems in genetics are posed and analyzed as problems in nonlinear ordinary differential equations.

Single-species growth; Pedration and parasitism; Predador-prey systems; Lotka-volterra systems for predator-prey interactions; Intermediate predator-prey models; Continous models; Discrete models; The kolmogorov model; Related topics and applications; Related topics; Aplications; competition and cooperation (symbiosis); Lotka-volterra competition models; Higher-oder competition models; cooperation (symbiosis); Pertubation theory; The implicit function theorem; Existence and Uniqueness of solutions of ordinary differential equations; Stability and periodicity; The poincare-bendixon theorem; The hopf bifurcation theorem.