Colloquia

Many theoretical physicists with a background in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics are becoming interested in exploring mathematical models of ecosystems. The reason for this is clear when one realizes that such models typically involve a large number of individuals interacting according to simple rules and that the ultimate aim is to compute coarse-grained or long-time behavior. The ingredients of these models include population dynamics, predator-prey interactions, competitive effects, speciation and immigration. Two examples will be discussed. One is a model which describes the evolution of food webs using adaptive dynamics and the other, a stochastic model of species-rich ecosystems which makes predictions concerning the form of the species abundance distribution.