Schedule

^†Readings and assignments are from the text Population ecology: from first principles, 2^nd ed., 2013, by Vandermeer and Goldberg, unless otherwise specified

Week	M Date	Meeting	Topic	Reading	Slides	PSets	Remodeling	Misc.
01	Feb 03	Disc	Introduction to Population Modeling and modeling in general
		Lab	Introduction to the R language and RStudio server GUI		IntroToR
02	Feb 10	Disc	Density-independent population growth	Botsford et al. ch. 1 (focus less on §2 & 3 but still read); V&G pp. 1–8	Simple population models	PSet01, key		Quiz01, Notes: rates of change & units
		Lab	Remodeling project introduction, numerical solutions in R		Numerical solutions in R		LitSearch
03	Feb 17	Disc	Density-dependent population growth	Remainder of V&G ch. 1, pp. 9–29	Density-dependence	PSet02, key		Quiz02, Logistic units and resources
		Lab	Numerical solutions in R: `ode()`
04	Feb 24	Disc	Dynamics	V&G pp. 81–94 (stop at 2D)	Dynamics	PSet03, key		Quiz03
		Lab	Loops, parameter analysis, and bifurcations				PaperPres
05	Mar 03	Disc	Bifurcations and consumer-resource dynamics, pt. I.	V&G pp. 116–125, 152–158; this blog		PSet04		Quiz04, 1DBifurcation
		Lab	Remodeling proposal presentation, state space
06	Mar 10	Disc	Consumer-resource dynamics, pt. II.	V&G pp. 158–176
		Lab	Phase planes and 2D bifurcation diagrams
07	Mar 17	Disc	Consumer-resource dynamics, pt. III.
		Lab	Remodeling methods presentation				MethPres
	Mar 24		Spring recess
08	Mar 31	Disc	Disease
		Lab	Open/remodeling project
09	Apr 07	Disc	Competition, pt. I: resources
		Lab	Remodeling prelim. results presentation
10	Apr 14	Disc	Competition, pt. II: phenomenological
		Lab
11	Apr 21	Disc	Mutualism
		Lab	Open/remodeling project
12	Apr 28	Disc	Students pick a topic
		Lab	CLAS: lab on F, Open/remodeling lab
13	May 05	Disc	Philosophy and desiderata of modeling
		Lab	Remodeling results presentation
Exam	May 15		Remodeling paper due at 9 AM

Population Modeling @ Colby College

Schedule