Abstract:

This lecture will contrast two structurally different ecological models. A deterministic, analytical model concerning terrestrial plants employs integrodifferential equations to examine competition between two species that differ only in stem length. A much more detailed stochastic, numerical model concerning fish employs field data on recruitment, growth, survival, and reproduction to project the fates of thousands of individual fish through time. These two models sample part of the range of mathematical ecology and illustrate the fact that ecology, like the physical sciences, is fundamentally a mathematical subject.