Quantitative ecology is the application of advanced
mathematical
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
and
statistical tools to any number of problems in the field of
ecology
Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...
. It is a small but growing subfield in ecology, reflecting the demand among practicing ecologists to interpret ever larger and more complex data sets using quantitative reasoning. Quantitative ecologists might apply some combination of deterministic or
stochastic Stochastic (; ) is the property of being well-described by a random probability distribution. ''Stochasticity'' and ''randomness'' are technically distinct concepts: the former refers to a modeling approach, while the latter describes phenomena; i ...
mathematical models
A mathematical model is an abstract description of a concrete system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed ''mathematical modeling''. Mathematical models are used in applied mathemati ...
to theoretical questions or they might use sophisticated methods in
applied statistics
Statistics (from German: ', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or socia ...
for
experimental design
The design of experiments (DOE), also known as experiment design or experimental design, is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. ...
and
hypothesis testing
A statistical hypothesis test is a method of statistical inference used to decide whether the data provide sufficient evidence to reject a particular hypothesis. A statistical hypothesis test typically involves a calculation of a test statistic. T ...
. Typical problems in quantitative ecology include estimating the dynamics and status of wild populations, modeling the impacts of anthropogenic or climatic change on ecological communities, and predicting the spread of invasive species or disease outbreaks.
Quantitative ecology, which mainly focuses on statistical and computational methods for addressing applied problems, is distinct from
theoretical ecology
Theoretical ecology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of ecosystem, ecological systems using theoretical methods such as simple conceptual models, mathematical models, computer simulation, computational simulations, and advanced d ...
which tends to explore focus on understanding the dynamics of simple mechanistic models and their implications for a general set of biological systems using mathematical arguments.
See also
*
Taylor's law
Taylor's power law is an empirical law in ecology that relates the variance of the number of individuals of a species per unit area of habitat to the corresponding mean by a power law relationship. It is named after the ecologist who first propose ...
*
Theoretical ecology
Theoretical ecology is the scientific discipline devoted to the study of ecosystem, ecological systems using theoretical methods such as simple conceptual models, mathematical models, computer simulation, computational simulations, and advanced d ...
*
Thermal ecology
References
Bibliography
* Matthiopoulos, J. 2011. ''How to be a Quantitative Ecologist''. Wiley.
* Hilborn, R. and M. Mangel. 1997. ''The Ecological Detective: Confronting Models with Data''. Princeton University Press.
* Mangel, M. 2006. ''The Theoretical Biologist's Toolbox. Quantitative Methods for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology''. Cambridge University Press.
* Poole, R. 1974. ''Introduction to Quantitative Ecology''. McGraw-Hill.
* Schneider, D. 1994, 2009. ''Quantitative Ecology: Spatial and Temporal Scaling''. Academic Press.
* Turner, M. and R. Gardner (eds). 1991. ''Quantitative methods in landscape ecology''. Springer.
External links
Quantitative Ecology and Resource Managementat the
University of Washington, Seattle
The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Unite ...
Quantitative Ecologyat
Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...
{{Branches of ecology
Subfields of ecology