Animal Ecology: Populations, Competition and Behavior

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

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

Charles Elton's 1927 classic that laid the foundations of animal community ecology, introducing food chains, the ecological niche and the pyramid of numbers. Still a clear, readable account of how animal populations are organized and regulated.

Charles Elton