Populus 5.3 includes half a dozen new modules on stage-structured population growth (programmed by Amos Anderson); and macroparasitic infection dynamics, the evolution of disease virulence, the population biology of bacterial plasmids, the evolution of temperate phage, and insect resistance management (programmed by Sharareh Noorbaloochi, with collaboration from Amos Anderson).

     In addition to these content additions, we now include life history diagrams for the age- and stage-structured projection modules that serve as both input and output screens. This means that a student can initiate a demographic projection by specifying the lxmx schedule, by drawing a graph of age or stage nodes onscreen and setting their transition parameters, or by providing the elements of a projection matrix and population-state vector. The significant programming challenge of making these several formats interchangeable is the final Populus bow for Amos Anderson, who now moves on to doctoral work in Chemistry at Caltech.

     Macintosh users must continue to note that OS X is required to run Populus. We are using Java development tools that are not supported by Mac OS 9 and predecessors.