Populus Lab Manual
A Populus book offering computer simulation exercises for elementary ecology courses is now available from Prentice-Hall:
Alstad, Donald N. 2001. Basic Populus Models of Ecology.
Prentice-Hall, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
ISBN 0-13-021289-X.
It is an inexpensive spiral-bound paperback of 144 pages, intended to supplement any of the major Ecology texts with more detail about important Ecological models. It introduces the mathematical models taught in basic ecology courses, including
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Density-Independent Growth
Lotka-Volterra Competition
Density-Dependent Growth
Continuous Predators & Prey
Demography & Age Structure
Infectious Microparasitic Diseases
The Populus book expands on model derivations and explanations given in texts; it illustrates operation of the Java Populus software with exemplary input windows, output graphs, and the parameter values used to generate them; and it provides 10 to 15 detailed problems and simulation exercises that demonstrate the conceptually important aspects of each model. Instructors may request an examination copy of the Populus lab manual from at www.prenhall.com.
The modest royalties of this book support continued maintenance and development, so that we can distribute the Populus software gratis. No portion of the book may be reproduced in any form.