Mathematical Models of Selection and Interaction Among Populations

拟议的研究将涉及生态学和种群生物学的三个领域：食物网、传染病和年龄结构种群。食物网描述了物种群落中哪些物种吃哪些物种。在现实社区中观察到的许多食物网已经导致了一个数学模型，这个模型似乎统一并解释了（第一次）这些经验归纳。该研究将根据进一步的经验观察来检验这一数学模型，并试图结合和解释群落中生物量大小和分布的作用的其他规律。这项基础研究的目的是为了更好地了解生态群落的结构。希望好的科学工具最终能够帮助解决应用问题，例如意外或有意引入新物种，自然保护区和封闭生态生命维持系统的设计，以及生态过程中毒素和污染物的集中。传染病是公共卫生的一个经典问题，也是研究人口生物学基本问题的一个具有科学价值的领域。需要研究的一个具体问题是如何预测疟疾控制项目对发展中国家死亡率的影响。将开发一个数学模型，并根据非洲实际的疟疾控制项目进行校准。另一个需要研究的具体问题是，为什么宿主和寄生虫有如此多的防御策略（如抗体克隆）和攻击策略（如抗原变异或菌株）。年龄结构种群包括人类种群、许多其他动物种群和许多植物种群。一个常见的问题是估计每个年龄段的未来人数。拟议工作的目标是发展改进的技术，以便编制预测和估计预测的不确定性，其中考虑到人口已经经历和将要经历的出生率和死亡率的随机变化。

The proposed research will concern three areas of ecology and population biology: food webs, infectious diseases, and age- structured populations. Food webs describe which species eat which other species in a community of species. Many food webs observed in real communities have led to a mathematical model that appears to unify and explain (for the first time) a number of these empirical generalizations. The proposed research will test this mathematical model against further empirical observations and attempt to incorporate and explain other regularities about the roles of body size and distribution of biomass in communities. The goal of this basic research is to establish a better understanding of the structure of ecological communities. The hope is that good scientific tools will eventually become available to help solve applied problems, such as the accidental or intentional introduction of new species, the design of nature reserves and closed ecological life support systems, and the concentration of toxins and pollutants by ecological processes. Infectious diseases are a classical problem of public health, and a scientifically rewarding area in which study fundamental problems of population biology. One specific problem to be investigated is how to predict the effect of malaria control programs on death rates in developing countries. A mathematical model will be developed and calibrated against a real malaria control program in Africa. Another specific problem to be investigated is why hosts and parasites have so many strategies of defense (e.g., antibody clones) and attack (e.g., antigenic variants or strains). Age-structured populations include human populations, many other animal populations and many plant populations. A common problem is to estimate future numbers of individuals in each age class. The goal of the proposed work is to develop improved techniques for preparing projections, and estimates of the uncertainty of projections, that take account of random variation in the birth and death rates that the population has experienced and will experience.