Contents

• Species and populations threatened by extinction
  • Threatened biodiversity
    • What is biodiversity?
    • Configuration and distribution of biodiversity
    • The loss of biodiversity
    • Causes of threat and extinction
    • The value of biodiversity
    • Preserving biodiversity
  • The risk of extinction: Allee effect and genetic deterioration
    • Demographic phenomena in populations threatened by extinction
    • Depensation phenomena and the Allee effect
    • Simple dynamic models of the Allee effect
    • Genetic deterioration: basics
      • Cell structure and DNA
      • Cell cycles and reproduction
      • Genetic variability
    • The Hardy-Weinberg law
    • Genetic drift and Wright's formula
    • Effects of genetic drift on population dynamics
  • Extinction risk analysis: demographic and environmental stochasticity
    • Population fluctuations
    • The different types of stochasticity
    • Individual fitness and models of demographic and environmental stochasticity
    • Risk analysis for populations subject to demographic stochasticity only
      • Demographic stochasticity in Malthusian populations
      • Demographic stochasticity in density-dependent populations
    • Risk analysis for populations subject to environmental stochasticity only
      • Environmental stochasticity in Malthusian population
      • Estimating the risk of extinction
      • Environmental stochasticity in density-dependent populations
    • Extinction vortices, population viability analyses, IUCN risk categories
  • Problems on the analysis of Extinction Risk (ER)
  
  
• Populations in spatially explicit landscapes
  • Movement of organisms and the dynamics of populations in space
    • The diffusion process
    • Diffusion in an infinite domain
    • Diffusion in a finite habitat
    • Demographic increase and diffusion
      • Malthusian growth and dispersal in an infinite habitat
      • Malthusian growth and diffusion in a finite habitat with an absorbing barrier
      • Diffusion and density-dependent population growth
  • Habitat fragmentation and destruction: the dynamics of metapopulations
    • Metapopulations and habitat loss
    • Different modelling approaches to the study of metapopulations
    • Spatially implicit boolean models
      • The mainland-island model
      • The model by #Levins69###
    • The effects of habitat destruction and environmental disasters
    • A spatially explicit boolean model
  • Problems on Spatial Ecology (SE)
  
  
• Sustainabilty of biomass harvesting and its management
  • The management of natural populations harvesting
    • Renewable resources
    • Dynamics of a harvested population
    • Effects of some regulation policies
    • The problem of maximum sustainable yield
    • The bio-economic viewpoint
    • Harvesting populations with age and size structure
      • Optimal rotation period of a managed forest and the problem of discounting
      • Managing the harvest of fish populations with constant recruitment
  • Problems on the Management of renewable resource harvesting (M)
  
  
• Parasite and disease ecology
  • Ecology of parasites and infectious diseases
    • Introduction
    • Dynamics of diseases caused by microparasites
      • Directly transmitted diseases
    • Water borne diseases
    • Vector borne diseases
    • Dynamics of diseases caused by macroparasites
    • Host-parasitoid dynamics
  • Problems on the Ecology of Parasites and Disease (PD)
  
  
• Bibliography