Dear Colleagues,

Although almost a century has passed since the seminal work of Lotka and Volterra, who developed mathematical models to study competition and predation between biological species, there are still many people who do not consider mathematics as the tool of choice when studying ecological questions. Mathematical modeling has offered a framework for simplifying the complex natural world and seeking answers to pressing ecological questions. Ecologists are mostly interested in individual organisms, groups of individuals comprising populations, and groups of populations of different species comprising biological communities as well as communities together with their environment, comprising an ecosystem. Understanding how these entities that correspond to different levels of biological organization change in time and space—or in other words, their dynamics—has been facilitated by a particular branch of mathematics termed dynamical systems. In the tradition of mathematical ecology, very important scientific disciplines have been developed, almost in parallel, such as mathematical epidemiology. Besides the use of dynamical systems, several other tools have been utilized to study biological systems, notably network theory. Network models are used to investigate the effects of network topology on different properties of biological communities. At the same time, the relationship between some component of the complexity/diversity of ecosystems and the different measures of stability has historically been the cornerstone of mathematical ecology. It is often pointed out that increase in computational power has allowed us to investigate different scenarios in the development of the natural world, especially in light of global change.

We invite our colleagues to submit papers related to ecology as studied using different mathematical methods. We especially encourage contributions employing novel methods in the study of questions in mathematical ecology.

Prof. Dr. Giorgos Kokkoris
Guest Editor

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• mathematical ecology
• theoretical ecology
• population ecology
• community ecology
• ecosystem ecology
• complexity and stability
• food webs
• ecological networks
• dynamical systems