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Thermodynamics and Population Dynamics

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2019) | Viewed by 2978

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Chemical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Interests: population balances; statistical thermodynamics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Populations undergoing change and evolution appear throughout the physical and social sciences. A generic population is a collection of individuals (members) that join to form clusters. The state of the population is described by the distribution of clusters, and this may evolve dynamically in time. The members of a population may be physical particles, molecules, cells or galaxies; its distribution may refer to physical size, mass, chemical species, or any other attribute that is distributed among the members of the population. The distribution of a population evolves when members are added and removed from the population, or when clusters exchange members. This generic picture describes a large number of diverse phenomena, from polymerization and colloidal aggregation, to the spread of epidemics and the evolution of galaxies.

This Special Issue focuses on the application of thermodynamics to population dynamics. The central property of the population is its distribution and its state under given external constraints. We invite contributions that explore associations between equilibrium thermodynamics and the distribution of dynamic populations. Of particular interest are stochastic processes that exhibit the features of  phase transitions. Examples are percolation, the emergence of a giant component in networks, gelation in polymerization and colloidal aggregation, the spread of fires and epidemics. We are seeking papers that employ the tools of statistical thermodynamics to study and understand the behavior of such complex dynamical systems.

Prof. Themis Matsoukas
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

7 pages, 1841 KiB  
Article
Endemics and Cosmopolitans: Application of Statistical Mechanics to the Dry Forests of Mexico
by Michael G. Bowler and Colleen K. Kelly
Entropy 2019, 21(6), 616; https://doi.org/10.3390/e21060616 - 22 Jun 2019
Viewed by 2536
Abstract
Data on the seasonally dry tropical forests of Mexico have been examined in the light of statistical mechanics. The results suggest a division into two classes of species. There are drifting populations of a cosmopolitan class capable of existing in most dry forest [...] Read more.
Data on the seasonally dry tropical forests of Mexico have been examined in the light of statistical mechanics. The results suggest a division into two classes of species. There are drifting populations of a cosmopolitan class capable of existing in most dry forest sites; these have a statistical distribution previously only observed (globally) for populations of alien species. We infer that a high proportion of species found only at a single site are specialists, endemics, and that these prefer sites comparatively low in species richness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermodynamics and Population Dynamics)
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