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.
Author(s): Mimmo Iannelli, Andrea Pugliese (auth.)
Series: Unitext 79 - La Matematica per il 3+2
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 346
Tags: Mathematical and Computational Biology; Theoretical Ecology/Statistics; Applications of Mathematics
Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Malthus, Verhulst and all that....Pages 3-37
Population models with delays....Pages 39-63
Models of discrete-time population growth....Pages 65-90
Stochastic modeling of population growth....Pages 91-111
Spatial spread of a population....Pages 113-142
Front Matter....Pages 143-143
Predator-prey models....Pages 145-173
Competition among species....Pages 175-208
Mathematical modeling of epidemics....Pages 209-264
Models with several species and trophic levels....Pages 265-294
Basic theory of Ordinary Differential Equations....Pages 295-314
Delay Equations....Pages 315-319
Discrete dynamics....Pages 321-328
Continuous-time Markov chains....Pages 329-334
Back Matter....Pages 335-346
