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The Application of Mathematics to the Sciences of Nature pp 191–205Cite as

The History of Theoretical Population Ecology: Which Role for Mathematical Modeling?

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Overview

The use of mathematics in biology has always been controversial. At variance with economics, which became a formalized discipline quite early in its development, biologists had always been suspicious about the use of formal models in their field. During the now long history of bio-mathematics, supporters of this approach have devised quite a large number of arguments to persuade skeptics that the marriage between mathematics and biology was a good deal for both disciplines. Beside the obvious reason that formal models lead, hopefully, to quantitative predictions that are easier to falsify, mathematical’ models have been frequently defended because of their (alleged) heuristic value. According to this view, mathematical models’ most important contribution to biology consists in their ability to highlight some phenomena, or some relationships among phenomena, that could not be understood without formalization, A very clear defense of this point of view is to be found in one of the early classics of mathematical population ecology, Vito Volterra’s “Variazioni e fluttuazioni del numero d’individui in specie animali conviventi”, first published in 1926.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università degli Studi di Bari, Piazza Umberto I, 1, 70121, Bari, Italia

    Luciano Andreozzi

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  1. Luciano Andreozzi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Paola Cerrai

  2. University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy

    Paolo Freguglia

  3. Domus Galilaeana, Pisa, Italy

    Paolo Freguglia

  4. University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Claudio Pellegrini

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Andreozzi, L. (2002). The History of Theoretical Population Ecology: Which Role for Mathematical Modeling?. In: Cerrai, P., Freguglia, P., Pellegrini, C. (eds) The Application of Mathematics to the Sciences of Nature. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0591-4_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0591-4_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5147-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-0591-4

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