An eminent geneticist examines the Darwinian theory of evolution, analyzes the hereditary differences that produce new species, and suggests changes in evolutionary theory based on his biological research

An understanding of the dynamics of populations is critically important to ecologists, evolutionary biologists, wildlife managers, foresters, and many other biologists. This edited treatise brings together the latest research on how populations fluctuate in size, the factors that drive these changes, and the theories explaining how populations are regulated. The book also includes specific chapters dealing with insects of economic importance.

This new approach to insect modeling discusses population dynamics' regularities, control theory, theory of transitions, and describes methods of population dynamics and outbreaks modeling for forest phyllophagous insects and their effects on global climate change. Research in insect population dynamics is important for more reasons than just protecting forest communities. Insect populations are among the main ecological units included in the analysis of stability of ecological systems. Moreover, it is convenient to test new methods of analyzing population and community stability on the insect-related data, as by now ecologists and entomologists have accumulated large amounts of such data. In this book, the authors analyze population dynamics of quite a narrow group of insects – forest defoliators. It is hoped that the methods proposed herein for the analysis of population dynamics of these species may be useful and effective for analyzing population dynamics of other animal species and their effects and role in global warming. What can insects tell us about our environment and our ever-changing climate? It is through studies like this one that these important answers can be obtained, along with data on the insects and their behaviors themselves. The authors present new theories on modeling and data accumulation, using cutting-edge processes never before published for such a wide audience. This volume presents the state-of-the-art in the science, and it is an essential piece of any entomologist's and forest engineer's library.

This book provides an introduction to population dynamics, exploring rules that govern change in any dynamic system and applying these general principles to populations of living organisms. Principles of Population Dynamics and their Application is aimed at applied ecologists, resource managers. and pest managers. It is also aimed at undergraduate students taking courses in forestry, fisheries, widlife and pest management.

Insects multiply. Destruction reigns. There is dismay, followed by outcry, and demands to Authority. Authority remembers its experts or appoints some: they ought to know. The experts advise a Cure. The Cure can be almost anything: holy water from Mecca, a Government Commis sion, a culture of bacteria, poison, prayers denunciatory or tactful, a new god, a trap, a Pied Piper. The Cures have only one thing in common: with a little patience they always work. They have never been known entirely to fail. Likewise they have never been known to prevent the next outbreak. For the cycle of abundance and scarcity has a rhythm of its own, and the Cures are applied just when the plague of insects is going to abate through its own loss of momentum. -Abridged, with insects in place of voles, from C. Elton, 1924, Voles, Mice and Lemmings, with permission of Oxford University Press This book is an enquiry into the "natural rhythms" of insect abundance in forested ecosystems and into the forces that give rise to these rhythms. Forests form unique environ ments for such studies because one can find them growing under relatively natural (pri meval) conditions as well as under the domination of human actions. Also, the slow growth and turnover rates of forested ecosystems enable us to investigate insect popula tion dynamics in a plant environment that remains relatively constant or changes only slowly, this in contrast to agricultural systems, where change is often drastic and frequent.

Why do organisms become extremely abundant one year and then seem to disappear a few years later? Why do population outbreaks in particular species happen more or less regularly in certain locations, but only irregularly (or never at all) in other locations? Complex population dynamics have fascinated biologists for decades. By bringing together mathematical models, statistical analyses, and field experiments, this book offers a comprehensive new synthesis of the theory of population oscillations. Peter Turchin first reviews the conceptual tools that ecologists use to investigate population oscillations, introducing population modeling and the statistical analysis of time series data. He then provides an in-depth discussion of several case studies--including the larch budmoth, southern pine beetle, red grouse, voles and lemmings, snowshoe hare, and ungulates--to develop a new analysis of the mechanisms that drive population oscillations in nature. Through such work, the author argues, ecologists can develop general laws of population dynamics that will help turn ecology into a truly quantitative and predictive science. Complex Population Dynamics integrates theoretical and empirical studies into a major new synthesis of current knowledge about population dynamics. It is also a pioneering work that sets the course for ecology's future as a predictive science.