理论生态学

罗伯特·梅的《理论生态学》是这门学科当之无愧的经典教材，但它并不适合所有人。翻开它之前，你需要先面对一个现实：这是一本被数学模型层层包裹的书。读者反馈中最真实的两极分化恰恰说明了它的定位——对具备数学、物理基础的研究生与科研者而言，它是梳理种群动力学、群落稳定性等核心问题的权威框架；而对缺乏相应背景的读者，密集的模型则会成为难以逾越的门槛。本书的独特之处在于，它没有停留在理论推演，而是把种群动力学延伸至传染病、捕捞业、粮食生产与气候变化等现实议题，展现出理论生态学的生命力。若你渴望理解生态学家如何用方程解释自然，它会是很好的起点；若你更期待现象与数据，或许需要做好查阅前沿论文的心理准备。

Robert May is Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. His research, first at Princeton University and since 1988 at Oxford University, has dealt with the ways in which plant and animal populations - either singly or in interacting communities - change over time, especially in response to natural or human-created disturbance. His work on chaos, on how infectious diseases can influence the numerical abundance or geographical distribution of populations (including applications to humans and HIV/AIDS), on estimating species' numbers and rates of extinction, and more generally on conservation biology have been recognized by several major International Prizes (Crafoord, Balzan, Blue Planet). He has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government (1995-2000), President of the Royal Society (2000-2005), and in 2001 was one of the first appointees to the UK Upper House by the Independent House of Lords Appointments Commission. Angela McLean is Professor of Mathematical Biology in the Department of Zoology and Director of the Institute for Emergent Infections of Humans in the James Martin 21st Century School. Her research interests lie in the use of mathematical models to aid our understanding of the evolution and spread of infectious agents. This encompasses modelling of the dynamics of infections and immune responses within individual hosts as well as models of the spread of infections from one host to another.