Workshop on Mathematical Ecology

December 07 - 11, 2010

Symposium on Mathematical Ecology

December 13 - 14, 2010

Ecology is the science which deals with complex interactions between living organisms, individuals or groups, and their environment; physiological and behavioral variation; structure formation; movement of matter and energy between communities and the physical environment along with management and control of the resources. This makes interdisciplinary involvement inevitable as ecology opens up new and exciting branches for analytical and computational tools to be applied. The last few decades have witnessed remarkable application of mathematical techniques in explaining the complex interactions and the dynamical phenomena in ecosystems, and development of a new branch called "Mathematical Ecology"

The five-day Workshop is intended for researchers with basic knowledge of mathematics and computational methods but interested in applying these to problems in ecology, and also for ecologists interested in enhancing their skill in mathematical modeling. The programme will consist of lectures and hands-on sessions on different areas of ecology, and introduction to useful software, modeling and data handling techniques. The two-day Symposium aims to engage scholars from all disciplines of science interested in cross-disciplinary dialogue through invited talks, posters, discussions and closer interactions with experts in theoretical and experimental ecology.

Participation:
Mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and biologists, with an interest in application of mathematical methods and modeling in different areas of ecology. Master’s and doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and young scientists are encouraged to apply.

Topics for the workshop:

Day 1: Two parallel sessions:

Session 1: Introduction of Mathematical Methods for Biologists

Basic Mathematics, Ordinary and partial differential equations, Nonlinear Dynamics, Graph Theory and Probability-Statistics.

Session 2: Introduction of Ecology for Mathematicians/Physicists

Ecology, Niche, Species, Population, Predator–Prey interactions, Food chain, Food web.

Day 2:Basic modeling techniques and Data Analysis

Day 3: Population dynamics and Stage Stucture Modelling

Day 4: Food web: Food Chain, Network, Metapopulation

Day 5: Optimization techniques in Ecology

Day 6 -7: Symposium Invited lectures and discussions