Animal Ecology

A university textbook that builds population and community ecology from simple models, covering exponential and logistic growth, competition, predation and mutualism. Each model comes with computer code so you can run the math yourself.

Clarence Lehman, Shelby Loberg, Adam Clark

Graduate lecture notes from Cornell University on foraging theory, single-species population dynamics, interacting populations and matrix models. A solid bridge between field ecology and the mathematical models behind it.

Stephen P. Ellner

A university course on how animal populations grow, compete and cycle, with units on age structure, population regulation and predator-prey systems. It closes with behavioral ecology case studies of African mammals such as bats.

National Open University of Nigeria

Oxford lecture notes that model single species, interacting populations and harvesting with differential and difference equations. Ideal if you already know calculus and want to see how ecologists predict insect outbreaks and population cycles.

Ruth E. Baker