< Back to previous page
Project
Development of the Price equation to integrate evolution in community ecology.
The proposed research has the aim to better understand eco-evolutionarydynamics and investigates methods to describe these dynamics adequately. The three methods that will be used in this research is the Price equation (Price 1970), the method developed by Ellner et al. (2011) and 'integral projection models' (Coulson et al. 2011).
The insight in a mathematical structure of these methods allow us to apply these methods on datasets already available at the KU Leuven, and in a further stage the extension to analyses on community level and in space. This extension contains inserting indirect effects and implementing of a multivariate approach. In a later stage we investigate if we can find a continuous version of the equation of Collins and Gardner (2009) and if we canimplement this in an analogous method developed by Ellner et al. (2011). Implementing of this allows us to determine the relative importance ofpopulation dynamics (evolution and phenotypic plasticity) and communitydynamics. To validate our methods we will perform simulations. During my mandate I will search for agriculture- and industrial production systems where we can apply our developed methods.
The insight in a mathematical structure of these methods allow us to apply these methods on datasets already available at the KU Leuven, and in a further stage the extension to analyses on community level and in space. This extension contains inserting indirect effects and implementing of a multivariate approach. In a later stage we investigate if we can find a continuous version of the equation of Collins and Gardner (2009) and if we canimplement this in an analogous method developed by Ellner et al. (2011). Implementing of this allows us to determine the relative importance ofpopulation dynamics (evolution and phenotypic plasticity) and communitydynamics. To validate our methods we will perform simulations. During my mandate I will search for agriculture- and industrial production systems where we can apply our developed methods.
Date:1 Oct 2013 → 20 Apr 2018
Keywords:integral projection models, analysing data, Price equation, community ecology
Disciplines:Geology, Aquatic sciences, challenges and pollution, Animal biology, Fisheries sciences
Project type:PhD project