Modeling community population dynamics with the open-source language R.

Methods Mol Biol

Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98185, USA.

Published: January 2015

The ability to explain biological phenomena with mathematics and to generate predictions from mathematical models is critical for understanding and controlling natural systems. Concurrently, the rise in open-source software has greatly increased the ease at which researchers can implement their own mathematical models. With a reasonably sound understanding of mathematics and programming skills, a researcher can quickly and easily use such tools for their own work. The purpose of this chapter is to expose the reader to one such tool, the open-source programming language R, and to demonstrate its practical application to studying population dynamics. We use the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey dynamics as an example.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0554-6_15DOI Listing

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