Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment. It is the study of how the population sizes of species living together in groups change over time and space.
The development of population ecology owes much to demography and actuarial life tables. Population ecology is important in conservation biology, especially in the development of population viability analysis (PVA) which makes it possible to predict the long-term probability of a species persisting in a given habitat patch, such as a national park. Although population ecology is a subfield of biology, it provides interesting problems for mathematicians and statisticians who work in population dynamics.
Read more about Population Ecology: Fundamentals, R/K Selection, Metapopulation, History, Journals
Famous quotes containing the words population and/or ecology:
“A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himself with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, “Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state.””
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