Theoretical Ecology, L577, Spring 2011 COURSE WEBPAGE

 

Instructor:                    Spencer Hall, Department of Biology

 

Contact:                      email: sprhall@indiana.edu  

                                    Phone: Office (812-85)5-6009, cell 812-679-8858   

                                    Office: Jordan 015

 

 

Meeting Time:           Monday and Wednesdays, 1:30 - 2:45 pm

and Location              Jordan Hall 248 (Cleland Room)

 

Office hours:              By appointment OR just stop in (usually 9:30 am – 5 pm M-F)

 

Course:                      www.indiana.edu/~halllab/courses/L577.htm

webpage                    Posted on this webpage:

                                    (1) lecture note templates (print and bring to class)

                                    (2) topic assignments assignments, and

                                    (3) code (Mathematica and Matlab); also

 

 

i. Preliminary stuff

 

Logistics and syllabus – first day handout (PDF)

Helpful math stuff (Index from Case 2000) (PDF)

 

Introduction to Matlab (see below)

List of books from which readings are chosen and other books I consult for the course.

 

 

Topic 1          Introduction to models and stability analysis (Taylor series, eigenvalues)

                        (Lecture notes)  (Assignment)  (Mathematica Tutorial right-click notebook, save, then open) 

                        (PPT slides for LSA)  (LSA example: logistic)

                        Reading: general intro to models (Turchin)  (Murdoch et al.) (Gurney and Nisbet)

                        More advanced intro to models: (Kooijman’s guide)

                        Local stability analysis  (Case, very readable)  (Gurney and Nisbet)  (Murdoch et al.)

                        Yikes – calculus!  Helpful math stuff (Appendix from Case 2000)

                        More calculus primers: a more bare-bones one (1 PDF); two with more packaging (2 PDF) (3 PDF)

                        ‘Big fancy models’ forum on complex vs. simple models in Ecology

 

 

Topic 2          Population growth (exponential growth, density dependence in continuous and

                        discrete time, oscillations and chaos)

                        (Lecture notes)  (Assignment)  (Zip file of Code) (Matlab Tutorial)  (Cobwebbing slide)

                        Reading: (Case chapter 5)  (Turchin Ch 3)

If you’re interest: (May 1974 Science) (May and Oster 1976 AmNat)  (Wikipedia article on logistic map)

 

 

Topic 3          Harvest models and introduction to more bifurcations (yield; transcritical and fold

                        [saddle-node] bifurcations, saddles, alternative stable states)

                        (Lecture notes)  (Assignment)  (Zip file of Code)  (PPT of harvest optimization)  (Bifurcations slides)

                        Reading: (Kot chapter 2)  (Case on Ludwig model)

If you’re interested: (Scheffer and Rinaldi 2000 Ecosystems)  (Ludwig et al. 1978 J Anim Ecol) 

(Scheffer and Carpenter 2003 TREE)  (Dakos et al. 2008 PNAS)

 

 

Topic 4          Interspecific interactions I. Lotka-Volterra competition (2D stability analysis and

                        the Jacobian matrix; competitive displacement, coexistence, alternative stable

                        states; invasibility; nullclines)

(Lecture notes)  (Assignment)  (Zip file of code and tutorials) 

Support: (Dynamicists Toolkit) (Derivation of Interior LV-Comp Equilibrium)

                        Reading: (Case Chap14) (Kot Chapter 12)

                        If you’re interested: (Scheffer et al. 2003 PNAS)

 

 

Topic 5          Interspecific interactions II.  Predator-prey dynamics (functional responses,

                        neutral stability, complex numbers and sinusoidal functions, eigenvalues;

                        generation of predator-prey cycles; stable limit cycles; Hopf bifurcations)

                        (Lecture notes)  (Assignment) (Zip file of code) 

                        For more info:

                        - Rootfinders, etc. (Wikipedia on rootfinders)  (Euler’s formula on Wikipedia) 

                        - Complex eigenvalues to oscillations, SRH’s attempt)

                        - Numerical integration from Numerical Recipes – Runge Kutta and adaptive-step RK

Reading: (Murdoch et al. Chap 3)  (Case Part 1 General) (Case Part 2 Stability Analysis) (Kot Chapter 7) (Kot Chapter 8)

- If you’re interested: Crossing the Hopf in a live system (Fussman et al. 2000 Science)

 

 

Topic 6          Interspecific interactions III.  Multi-species and disease models (global

                        bifurcations, homoclinic bifurcations; relative non-linearities and Jensen’s

                        Inequality; chaotic attractors in 3D systems; quasi-periodicity)

                        (Lecture notes)  (Assignment)  (Matlab code zip file)  (Matlab tutorial, if needed)  (Example figure for 2B) 

 

                        Reading:

                        - Type IV functional responses and homoclinic bifurcations (Kot Chap 9)   (Scheffer and Rinaldi 2000 Ecosystems) 

                        - Cycles and coexistence: (Armstrong and McGehee Am Nat 1980) 

                        - Jensen’s inequality: (Ruel and Ayers TREE) (Chesson 2000 AREES) 

                        - Floquet’s multipliers: (Klausmeier 2008 Theoretical Ecology)

- Chaotic attractors: teacup: (Abrams and Roth 1994 Ecology)

- Intro to host-parasitoid models: (Murdoch et al. H-P models)   More on quasi-periodicity (Rohani et al.)

- Parasites and predators (Lafferty and Kuris 2002 TREE)

 

 

Topic 7          Interspecific interactions IV.  Niche models  (Mechanistic competition models;                                

                        R* again; the famous Resource Ratio model; rock-scissors-paper game,                                          

                        heteroclinic orbits, and fractal basins of attraction; assembly rules in food webs)

                        (Lecture notes)  (Assignment)  (MBC Appendix)  (Huisman slides)

                        Resource competition and resource ratio (RR): (Grover 1997: Chap 2 )   Resource-dependent food webs (Chap 6)

                        Mechanistic niche concept: (Leibold 1995 Ecology)   RR and disease (Smith 1993,  Smith and Holt 1996,   Smith 2007)

                        Critique of RR: (Miller et al. 2005 AmNat)  (Wilson et al reply)  (Miller et al’s response)

                        Multiple-species competition: (Huisman&Weissing ’01 Ecology) (Huisman&Weissing ’01 Am Nat)

                        Heteroclinic cycles: Vandermeer chapter (here, pg 136-139)  Online encyclopedias: (1)  (2)

                        Permanence theory: (Hutson and Law 1985)

                       

 

Topic 8          Environmental variation (stochasticity, time series analysis basics, noise color;

                        synchrony and the Moran effect; autoregressive processes; noise-excited                                          

                        oscillations; noise-induced chaos)

                        (Lecture notes: Part A  Part B)  (Slides: Part A   Part B)  (Assignment)   (Zipped Matlab code)

                        Time series basics: (Ranta et al., Ch 2)  (Turchin Ch 7)

                        Exponential growth and white noise (Case, Chap 2)  (Wikipedia on averages)

                        Synchronicity: (Ranta et al., Ch 5)  (Liebhold et al. 2004)  (Heino 1998)  (Earn et al. 1998)

                        Pink noise: (Halley 1995)     Noisy population dynamics (Kaitala et al. 1997)

                        Extinction and noise: (Ripa and Heino 1999)  

                        Sinusoidally-forced consumer resource: gleaner-opportunitist (Grover 1990), storage specialist (Grover 1991)

                        More seasonally-forced consumer-resource (Scheffer et al. 1997)  (King 1999)  (related: entrainment Vandemeer 1993)

                        Noise transmission in food webs: (Ripa et al. 1998 Am Nat)                 

                        Wavelets, disease, synchrony, traveling waves: (Grenfell et al. 2001 Nature)  (Wavelets, Wikipedia)

                        Noise-induced chaos: (Rand and Wilson 1991)  (Dwyer et al. 2004)

                        Books: Chatfield 1999 (time series)  Nisbet and Gurney 1982 (modeling fluctuating populations)

                                    Turchin 2003 (overview of methods to tackle time series)

 

 

 

 

 

BOOKS:

 

Case, Ted.  2000.  Theoretical ecology: an illustrated guide

Grover, Jim.  1997.  Resource competition.  Chapman and Hall.

Gurney, Bill, and Roger Nisbet.  1998.  Ecological dynamics.  Oxford.

Hastings, Alan.  1997.  Population biology: concepts and models.  Springer

Kot, Mark.  2001.  Elements of mathematical ecology.  Cambridge.

Murdoch et al.  2003.  Consumer-resource dynamics

Turchin, Peter.  2003.  Complex population dynamics: a theoretical/empirical synthesis.  Princeton.

 

 

LINKS:

 

(A). Matlab tutorials:

Graeme Chandler’s Introduction to Matlab (HTML) – great place to start

Stephen Ellner and John Guckenheimer’s Matlab guide for Biologial Modeling (PDF)

SVC’s Tutorial (HTML)

David Griffith’s great PDF tutorial (PDF)

Kristian Sandberb’s tutorial (HTML)

A page at IUPUI (HTML)

 

 

(B). Matlab packages for analysis of models and statistics:

GRIND – a toolkit for analysis of ODEs, difference equations, etc.

FATHOM – a toolkit for multivariate statistics

CL_MatCont – continuation software for numerical characterization of bifurcations

TSA – a toolkit for time series analysis

Different wavelets packages: