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Author: Hanna Kokko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139463659
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
Students of evolutionary and behavioural ecology are often unfamiliar with mathematical techniques, though much of biology relies on mathematics. Evolutionary ideas are often complex, meaning that the logic of hypotheses proposed should not only be tested empirically but also mathematically. There are numerous different modelling tools used by ecologists, ranging from population genetic 'bookkeeping', to game theory and individual-based computer simulations. Due to the many different modelling options available, it is often difficult to know where to start. Hanna Kokko has designed this 2007 book to help with these decisions. Each method described is illustrated with one or two biologically interesting examples that have been chosen to help overcome fears of many biologists when faced with mathematical work, whilst also providing the programming code (Matlab) for each problem. Aimed primarily at students of evolutionary and behavioural ecology, this book will be of interest to any biologist interested in mathematical modelling.
Author: Hanna Kokko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139463659
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Get Book Here
Book Description
Students of evolutionary and behavioural ecology are often unfamiliar with mathematical techniques, though much of biology relies on mathematics. Evolutionary ideas are often complex, meaning that the logic of hypotheses proposed should not only be tested empirically but also mathematically. There are numerous different modelling tools used by ecologists, ranging from population genetic 'bookkeeping', to game theory and individual-based computer simulations. Due to the many different modelling options available, it is often difficult to know where to start. Hanna Kokko has designed this 2007 book to help with these decisions. Each method described is illustrated with one or two biologically interesting examples that have been chosen to help overcome fears of many biologists when faced with mathematical work, whilst also providing the programming code (Matlab) for each problem. Aimed primarily at students of evolutionary and behavioural ecology, this book will be of interest to any biologist interested in mathematical modelling.
Author: Sarah P. Otto
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400840910
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 745
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Book Description
Thirty years ago, biologists could get by with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics and modeling. Not so today. In seeking to answer fundamental questions about how biological systems function and change over time, the modern biologist is as likely to rely on sophisticated mathematical and computer-based models as traditional fieldwork. In this book, Sarah Otto and Troy Day provide biology students with the tools necessary to both interpret models and to build their own. The book starts at an elementary level of mathematical modeling, assuming that the reader has had high school mathematics and first-year calculus. Otto and Day then gradually build in depth and complexity, from classic models in ecology and evolution to more intricate class-structured and probabilistic models. The authors provide primers with instructive exercises to introduce readers to the more advanced subjects of linear algebra and probability theory. Through examples, they describe how models have been used to understand such topics as the spread of HIV, chaos, the age structure of a country, speciation, and extinction. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists today need enough mathematical training to be able to assess the power and limits of biological models and to develop theories and models themselves. This innovative book will be an indispensable guide to the world of mathematical models for the next generation of biologists. A how-to guide for developing new mathematical models in biology Provides step-by-step recipes for constructing and analyzing models Interesting biological applications Explores classical models in ecology and evolution Questions at the end of every chapter Primers cover important mathematical topics Exercises with answers Appendixes summarize useful rules Labs and advanced material available
Author: John M. McNamara
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198815778
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
This novel reassessment of the field presents the central concepts in evolutionary game theory and provides an authoritative and up-to-date account. The focus is on concepts that are important for biologists in their attempts to explain observations. This strong connection between concepts and applications is a recurrent theme throughout the book.
Author: Ian C. W. Hardy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521887100
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Contests are an important aspect of the lives of diverse animals, from sea anemones competing for space on a rocky shore to fallow deer stags contending for access to females. Why do animals fight? What determines when fights stop and which contestant wins? Addressing fundamental questions on contest behaviour, this volume presents theoretical and empirical perspectives across a range of species. The historical development of contest research, the evolutionary theory of both dyadic and multiparty contests, and approaches to experimental design and data analysis are discussed in the first chapters. This is followed by reviews of research in key animal taxa, from the use of aerial displays and assessment rules in butterflies and the developmental biology of weapons in beetles, through to interstate warfare in humans. The final chapter considers future directions and applications of contest research, making this a comprehensive resource for both graduate students and researchers in the field.
Author: Michael E. Hochberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198804784
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
This contemporary guide is packed full of expert tips and suggestions which will make the reader think in a fresh, creative, and novel way about writing and publishing science.
Author: Kim Sterelny
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262552787
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 587
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Book Description
Essays from a range of disciplinary perspectives show the central role that cooperation plays in structuring our world. This collection reports on the latest research on an increasingly pivotal issue for evolutionary biology: cooperation. The chapters are written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and utilize research tools that range from empirical survey to conceptual modeling, reflecting the rich diversity of work in the field. They explore a wide taxonomic range, concentrating on bacteria, social insects, and, especially, humans. Part I ("Agents and Environments") investigates the connections of social cooperation in social organizations to the conditions that make cooperation profitable and stable, focusing on the interactions of agent, population, and environment. Part II ("Agents and Mechanisms") focuses on how proximate mechanisms emerge and operate in the evolutionary process and how they shape evolutionary trajectories. Throughout the book, certain themes emerge that demonstrate the ubiquity of questions regarding cooperation in evolutionary biology: the generation and division of the profits of cooperation; transitions in individuality; levels of selection, from gene to organism; and the "human cooperation explosion" that makes our own social behavior particularly puzzling from an evolutionary perspective. Bradford Books imprint
Author: Anders Klostergaard Petersen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004385371
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 702
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Book Description
Evolution, Cognition, and the History of Religion: A New Synthesis comprises 41 chapters that push for a new way of conducting the study of religion, thereby, transforming the discipline into a genuine science of religion. The recent resurgence of evolutionary approaches on culture and the increasing acknowledgement in the natural and social sciences of culture’s and religion’s evolutionary importance calls for a novel epistemological and theoretical framework for studying these two areas. The chapters explore how a new scholarly synthesis, founded on the triadic space constituted by evolution, cognition, cultural and ecological environment, may develop. Different perspectives and themes relating to this overarching topic are taken up with a main focus on either evolution, cognition, and/or the history of religion.
Author: Benjamin Grant Purzycki
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350265713
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285
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Book Description
Why are humans obsessed with divine minds? What do gods know and what do they care about? What happens to us and our relationships when gods are involved? Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary, cultural, and applied anthropology, social psychology, religious studies, philosophy, technology, and cognitive and political sciences, The Minds of Gods probes these questions from a multitude of naturalistic perspectives. Each chapter offers brief intellectual histories of their topics, summarizes current cutting-edge questions in the field, and points to areas in need of attention from future researchers. Through an innovative theoretical framework that combines evolutionary and cognitive approaches to religion, this book brings together otherwise disparate literatures to focus on a topic that has comprised a lasting, central obsession of our species.
Author: Daniel C. Laughlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192693883
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
How do plants make a living? Some plants are gamblers, others are swindlers. Some plants are habitual spenders while others are strugglers and miserly savers. Plants have evolved a spectacular array of solutions to the existential problems of survival and reproduction in a world where resources are scarce, disturbances can be deadly, and competition is cut-throat. Few topics have both captured the imagination and furrowed the brows of plant ecologists, yet no topic is more important for understanding the assembly of plant communities, predicting plant responses to global change, and enhancing the restoration of our rapidly degrading biosphere. The vast array of plant strategy models that characterize the discipline now require synthesis. These models tend to emphasize either life history strategies based on demography, or functional strategies based on ecophysiology. Indeed, this disciplinary divide between demography and physiology runs deep and continues to this today. The goal of this accessible book is to articulate a coherent framework that unifies life history theory with comparative functional ecology to advance prediction in plant ecology. Armed with a deeper understanding of the dimensionality of life history and functional traits, we are now equipped to quantitively link phenotypes to population growth rates across gradients of resource availability and disturbance regimes. Predicting how species respond to global change is perhaps the most important challenge of our time. A robust framework for plant strategy theory will advance this research agenda by testing the generality of traits for predicting population dynamics.
Author: Mikko Heimola
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 1614513775
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
It is a truism that religion has to do with social cohesion, but the precise nature of this link has eluded scholars and scientists. Drawing on new research in religiously motivated prosociality, evolution of cooperation, and system theory, this book describes how fluctuations in individuals' strategic environment give impetus to a self-organizatory process where ritual behavior works to alleviate uncertainties in social commitment. It also traces the dynamic roles played by emotions, social norms, and socioeconomic context. While exploring the social functions of ritual and revivalist behavior, the book seeks to avoid the fallacies that result from disregarding their explicit religious character. To illustrate these processes, a case study of Christian revivals in early 19th-century Finland is included. The thesis of the book is relevant to theories of the evolution of religion and the role of religion in organizing human societies.
