Life sciences
10 topics
Life sciences
Quant ecology
Quantitative ecology uses mathematical models to understand population dynamics, species interactions, and ecosystem stability. Differential equations and Bayesian statistics are its workhorses.
Topics in this field
Age-Structured Population Models
Age-structured models use matrix algebra and eigenanalysis to project population dynamics when vital rates depend on age or stage class.
Food Web Dynamics
Food webs describe energy flow and species interactions across trophic levels, combining network theory with nonlinear population dynamics.
Island Biogeography
MacArthur and Wilson's equilibrium theory explains species richness on islands through the balance of immigration and extinction, predicting the species-area relationship.
Logistic Population Growth
The logistic equation models density-dependent population growth toward a carrying capacity, with rich extensions including chaos, Allee effects, and generalized forms.
Lotka-Volterra Equations
A foundational system of nonlinear ODEs describing predator-prey population dynamics and their oscillatory coexistence.
Metapopulation Dynamics
The Levins metapopulation model and its extensions describe how species persist as networks of local populations connected by dispersal.
Occupancy Models
Occupancy models estimate species occurrence probability while explicitly accounting for imperfect detection, using repeated surveys across sites.
SIR Epidemic Model
The SIR compartmental model partitions a population into Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered classes to describe epidemic spread through a basic system of ODEs.
Species Distribution Models
Species distribution models (SDMs) relate occurrence records to environmental predictors to estimate and project a species' ecological niche in geographic space.
Stochastic Population Dynamics
Demographic and environmental stochasticity drive population fluctuations and extinction risk in ways that deterministic models cannot capture.