AUTHOR Gotelli, Nicholas J., 1959-
TITLE A primer of ecology / Nicholas J. Gotelli.
PUBLISHER Sunderland, Mass. : Sinauer Associates, c1995.
SUBJECT Population biology -- Mathematical models.
Ecology -- Mathematical models.
1 > Science Library QH352 .G67 1995
which presents a whole bunch of models as equations.
So I did a search for "lotka-volterra" and found some links worth revisiting:
L-V Two Species Model (St. Olaf)
and another page from St. Olaf
another presentation with Mathematica code, from a Mathematical Modeling course, U. South Alabama
L-V Equations through Computer Visualization from U. Minn Geometry Center
Mathematics and Biology: the interface table of contents
UNSW computer lab, with exercise
Predator-Prey Models for Maple
Hares and Lynx Applet, and the Java code behind it
another page and Population Dynamics Models from U. Leiden
Integrating the Electronic Desktop into the Natural Sciences Curriculum Development Project at California State University, Los Angeles
Analysis of an Ecosystem from RPI
L-V Dynamics from UNSW
AUTHOR Cartwright, Timothy J. (Timothy John), 1943-
TITLE Modeling the world in a spreadsheet : environmental
simulation on a microcomputer / Timothy J. Cartwright.
PUBLISHER Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, c1993.
SUBJECT Ecology -- Computer simulation.
Computer simulation.
1 > Science Library QH541.15.S5 C37 1993
This one has chapters on minimum viable population, sustainable yield,
Conway's Game of Life --to name only those with obvious biological relevance.
More from the shelves:
AUTHOR Gotelli, Nicholas J., 1959-
TITLE Null models in ecology / Nicholas J. Gotelli, Gary R. Graves.
PUBLISHER Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, c1996.
SUBJECT Null models (Ecology)
Biotic communities -- Statistical methods.
Monte Carlo method.
1 > Science Library QH541.15.N84 G67 1996
AUTHOR Schneider, David C.
TITLE Quantitative ecology : spatial and temporal scaling / David C.
Schneider.
PUBLISHER San Diego : Academic Press, c1994.
SUBJECT Ecology -- Mathematics.
1 > Science Library QH541.15.M34 S36 1994
AUTHOR Rosenzweig, Michael L.
TITLE Species diversity in space and time / Michael L. Rosenzweig.
PUBLISHER Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1995.
1 > Science Library QH541.15.S64 R67 1995
Let me see if I can clarify what I think is happening: mathematical
models of ecological processes have been around for a long time, but
they're puzzling to many students of ecology, in part because they don't
think mathematically. This is a hurdle: how to help students
develop a practical quantitative sense? The tools of a generation ago
were graph paper and ink; access to scientific calculators and then
computers began to change to cahnge that in the 1980s; spreadsheets were
a major step in making data manipulable and displayable; and now we're on
the brink of online interactive simulation, thanks to Java.
But how to make this new possibility for interaction accessible to professors and students? The links above indicate that quite a few people have worked on this general problem (and been generous in sharing their tools), but the steps from desire to present to actualization are still a bit unclear. I do have a feeling that books about data handling and display written more than 4-5 years ago are pretty much out of date, but I don't feel very secure about my own ability to bring them up to date with the Java tools available to me. And yet I think that it SHOULD be doable, but I'm not really sure where I have to start in order to make it happen.
One possibility is to plunge directly in, using the code for the Hare-Lynx applet to build a Visual Café applet myself --figuring out how to substitute, how to plug in code fragments from the existing applet into the frame that Visual Café provides.