Terence Blows

Spring 2006: MAT 542 - Wildlife Population Modeling

MAT 542: Wildlife Population Modeling is a 3-hour interdisciplinary course that discusses the use and misuse of mathematical models in population ecology. Headcount and age (or stage) structured models, density independent and density dependent models, deterministic and stochastic models are all studied; strengths and weaknesses analyzed using both analytic and computational (including simulation) means. The official prerequisites is a course in calculus or matrix algebra.

The course syllabus MS Word  or  pdf  gives complete details of the course content, expectations and evaluation.

The course text "An illustrated guide to theoretical ecology" by T. J. Case, Oxford University Press, 2000 is used as a supplement to a set of course notes. These notes were developed during the first two offerings of this course by Paul Beier and Terence Blows (1997, 1999) and written by Terence Blows during his sabbatical leave at the Ecology Centre at the University of Queensland in 2000-01. These notes were first used in 2002, and continue to be modified.

The intent is that these notes (covering a wide variety of aspects of population modeling) be covered in tandem with readings from literature. Homework assignments will be used to assess student learning of this material. Readings will be assigned, discussed in class with occasional quizzes. Readings for quizzes may be found at http://www.nau.edu/library/courses/spring06/mat542-blows/

The co-requisite course MAT 543 is a lab course, with the 3-hours per week spent analyzing deeper mathematical or modeling aspects of the material taught in MAT 542.