An Introduction to Structured Population Dynamics (CBMS-NSF Regional Conference Series in Applied Mathematics)

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.