Sunday, August 2, 2009: 8:30 AM-12:30 PM
Cochiti, Albuquerque Convention Center
WK 7 - A New Approach to Population Models: Sensitivity Analysis via Matrix Calculus
Sensitivity and elasticity analyses play important roles in population biology. It is now standard practice to accompany almost any calculation of population growth rate with a sensitivity analysis. These analyses are used in conservation, evolutionary ecology, management, and statistics. But population growth rates and the linear models that produce them are not the only game in town. Would you like to also calculate the sensitivities of short-term transient dynamics, of nonlinear equilibria and cycles, of resilience and reactivity, of life expectancy, … of pretty much anything that you can calculate from a population model? Well, it is now possible to do all that and more. The mathematical approach (matrix calculus) is new to ecology, but is easy to learn and to implement. This workshop will teach the basic methods, and show how to implement them numerically. With examples. And interpretations. To benefit from this workshop, you should already be familiar with the basics of matrix population models and the sensitivity/elasticity of growth rates. If you bring a laptop running Matlab, you can try out some calculations.
Organizer:	Hal Caswell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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See more of The 94th ESA Annual Meeting (August 2 -- 7, 2009)