Modeling and Programming for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Increasingly, the ability to translate between qualitative hypotheses and their more exact expression in the form of mathematical equations is becoming an essential skill for all biologists.  Subsequently, the ability to program a computer is becoming another essential skill.  The analysis of these mathematical models, for the purposes of gaining fundamental insights into biological phenomena and testing predictions against data, very often requires the use of computation. The key goals of this course are to teach students how to 1) understand and develop basic mathematical models of ecological and evolutionary phenomena, and 2) analyze those mathematical models using a combination of í¢â‚¬Å“pencil and paperí¢â‚¬  and computational approaches.  This course will take an example-driven approach, teaching any mathematical concepts beyond calculus needed to understand example mathematical models in ecology and evolutionary biology, as well as assuming no prior knowledge of programming.  The course will primarily make use of the R software environment, a freely available resource, and will also introduce students to the use of campus clusters.  Some very basic data manipulation and statistics using R will be covered, but the focus of the course will be on mathematical modeling and using R to analyze mathematical models, rather than the statistical analysis of data.

Currently scheduled for Thursdays 10am-1pm

For more information, please contact the instructor at aostling@umich.edu