In ecological studies the recent emphasis on larger study areas over longer time spans has coincided with the development of geographical information systems (GIs). GISs are a set of computer hardware and software for analyzing and displaying spatially referenced features (i.e. , points, lines, polygons) with non-geographic attributes (i.e., species, age). In the fields of natural resources man...

Self-regulation of living tissue as an example of self-organization phenomena in hierarchical systems of biological, ecological, and social nature is under consideration. The characteristic feature of these systems is the absence of any governing center and, thereby, their self-regulation is based on a cooperative interaction of all the elements. The work develops a mathematical theory of a vas...

Geckos have gained ecological access to novel microhabitats by exploiting intermolecular van der Waals forces, which allow them to climb smooth vertical surfaces. They use microscopic surface-based phenomena to thrive in a macroscopic mass- and kinetic energy-based world. Here we detail this as a premier example of integrative biology, spanning seven orders of magnitude and a lot of interesting...

The multidisciplinary fields of study on sustainability, which relate to ecological, geophysical, societal and environmental research, demand for the availability processing data that is capable represent spatial phenomena [...]

Ecology studies biodiversity in its variety and complexity. It describes how species distribute and perform in response to environmental changes. Ecological processes and structures are highly complex and adaptive. In order to quantify emerging ecological patterns and investigate their hidden mechanisms, we need to rely on the simplicity of mathematical language. This becomes especially apparen...

An important class of ecological problems concerns propagation processes. In ecological modelling, these phenomena generally occur on large scales and are generally difficult to efficiently simulate because of the number of entities and connections between entities. Studies of this kind of phenomena lack genericity and reusability because they are often presented through the point of view of a ...

Maternal effects can play an important role in a diversity of ecological and evolutionary processes such as population dynamics, phenotypic plasticity, niche construction, life-history evolution and the evolutionary response to selection. However, although maternal effects were defined by quantitative geneticists well over half a century ago, there remains some confusion over exactly what pheno...

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The speed and the minimum carrying capacity needed for a successful population expansion into new territory are addressed using a reaction-diffusion model. The model is able to encapsulate a rich collection of ecological behaviours, including the Allee effect, resource depletion due to consumption, dispersal adaptation due to population pressure, biological control agents, and a range of breedi...