An Introduction To Mathematical Population Dynamics

This book is an introduction to mathematical biology for students with no experience in biology, but who have some mathematical background. The work is focused on population dynamics and ecology, following a tradition that goes back to Lotka and Volterra, and includes a part devoted to the spread of infectious diseases, a field where mathematical modeling is extremely popular. These themes are used as the area where to understand different types of mathematical modeling and the possible meaning of qualitative agreement of modeling with data. The book also includes a collections of problems designed to approach more advanced questions. This material has been used in the courses at the University of Trento, directed at students in their fourth year of studies in Mathematics. It can also be used as a reference as it provides up-to-date developments in several areas.

As Eugene Wigner stressed, mathematics has proven unreasonably effective in the physical sciences and their technological applications. The role of mathematics in the biological, medical and social sciences has been much more modest but has recently grown thanks to the simulation capacity offered by modern computers. This book traces the history of population dynamics---a theoretical subject closely connected to genetics, ecology, epidemiology and demography---where mathematics has brought significant insights. It presents an overview of the genesis of several important themes: exponential growth, from Euler and Malthus to the Chinese one-child policy; the development of stochastic models, from Mendel's laws and the question of extinction of family names to percolation theory for the spread of epidemics, and chaotic populations, where determinism and randomness intertwine. The reader of this book will see, from a different perspective, the problems that scientists face when governments ask for reliable predictions to help control epidemics (AIDS, SARS, swine flu), manage renewable resources (fishing quotas, spread of genetically modified organisms) or anticipate demographic evolutions such as aging.

Mankind now faces even more challenging environment- and health-related problems than ever before. Readily available transportation systems facilitate the swift spread of diseases as large populations migrate from one part of the world to another. Studies on the spread of the communicable diseases are very important. This book, Mathematical Population Dynamics and Epidemiology in Temporal and Spatio-Temporal Domains, provides a useful experimental tool for making practical predictions, building and testing theories, answering specific questions, determining sensitivities of the parameters, forming control strategies, and much more. This volume focuses on the study of population dynamics with special emphasis on the migration of populations and the spreading of epidemics among human and animal populations. It also provides the background needed to interpret, construct, and analyze a wide variety of mathematical models. Most of the techniques presented in the book can be readily applied to model other phenomena, in biology as well as in other disciplines.

The author uses mathematical techniques to give an in-depth look at models for mechanical vibrations, population dynamics, and traffic flow.

Interest in the temporal fluctuations of biological populations can be traced to the dawn of civilization. How can mathematics be used to gain an understanding of population dynamics? This monograph introduces the theory of structured population dynamics and its applications, focusing on the asymptotic dynamics of deterministic models. This theory bridges the gap between the characteristics of individual organisms in a population and the dynamics of the total population as a whole. In this monograph, many applications that illustrate both the theory and a wide variety of biological issues are given, along with an interdisciplinary case study that illustrates the connection of models with the data and the experimental documentation of model predictions. The author also discusses the use of discrete and continuous models and presents a general modeling theory for structured population dynamics. Cushing begins with an obvious point: individuals in biological populations differ with regard to their physical and behavioral characteristics and therefore in the way they interact with their environment. Studying this point effectively requires the use of structured models. Specific examples cited throughout support the valuable use of structured models. Included among these are important applications chosen to illustrate both the mathematical theories and biological problems that have received attention in recent literature.

The author uses mathematical techniques along with observations and experiments to give an in-depth look at models for mechanical vibrations, population dynamics, and traffic flow. Equal emphasis is placed on the mathematical formulation of the problem and the interpretation of the results. In the sections on mechanical vibrations and population dynamics, the author emphasizes the nonlinear aspects of ordinary differential equations and develops the concepts of equilibrium solutions and their stability. He introduces phase plane methods for the nonlinear pendulum and for predator-prey and competing species models. Haberman develops the method of characteristics to analyze the nonlinear partial differential equations that describe traffic flow. Fan-shaped characteristics describe the traffic situation that occurs when a traffic light turns green and shock waves describe the effects of a red light or traffic accident. Although it was written over 20 years ago, this book is still relevant. It is intended as an introduction to applied mathematics, but can be used for undergraduate courses in mathematical modeling or nonlinear dynamical systems or to supplement courses in ordinary or partial differential equations.

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.

This book is an outcome of the Second International Conference on Mathematical Population Dynamics. It is intended for mathematicians, statisticians, biologists, and medical researchers who are interested in recent advances in analyzing changes in populations of genes, cells, and tumors.

Population dynamics; Spatial patterns in one-species populations; Spatial relations of two or more species; Many-species populations.

This book provides an introduction to age-structured population modeling which emphasizes the connection between mathematical theory and underlying biological assumptions. Through the rigorous development of the linear theory and the nonlinear theory alongside numerics, the authors explore classical equations that describe the dynamics of certain ecological systems. Modeling aspects are discussed to show how relevant problems in the fields of demography, ecology and epidemiology can be formulated and treated within the theory. In particular, the book presents extensions of age-structured modeling to the spread of diseases and epidemics while also addressing the issue of regularity of solutions, the asymptotic behavior of solutions, and numerical approximation. With sections on transmission models, non-autonomous models and global dynamics, this book fills a gap in the literature on theoretical population dynamics. The Basic Approach to Age-Structured Population Dynamics will appeal to graduate students and researchers in mathematical biology, epidemiology and demography who are interested in the systematic presentation of relevant models and mathematical methods.