Current Themes in Theoretical Biology A Dutch Perspective

About this book

Current Themes in Theoretical Biology: A Dutch Perspective originated as a Festschrift to mark the publication of Volume 50 of the journal Acta Biotheoretica in 2002 and the journal's 70th anniversary in 2005. In it, eleven previously unpublished research papers have been collected that reflect the entire scope of topics on which Acta Biotheoretica publishes. Acta Biotheoretica is a journal on theoretical biology, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, that has its roots in the Dutch tradition of theoretical biology. From the perspective of this tradition, theoretical biology is understood as encompassing a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from mathematical biology to philosophy of biology. To reflect the Dutch roots of the journal, all papers have been invited from authors that work in The Netherlands. Current Themes in Theoretical Biology: A Dutch Perspective is aimed at an audience of theoretical and mathematical biologists, philosophers of biology and philosophers of science, and biologists in general.

Contents

1. The History of Acta Biotheoretica and the Nature of Theoretical Biology; Thomas A.C. Reydon, Piet Dullemeijer and Lia Hemerik
2. Images of the Genome: From Public Debates to Biology, and Back, and Forth; Cor van der Weele
3. The Functional Perspective of Organismal Biology; Arno Wouters
4. Infectious Biology: Curse or Blessing? Reflections on Biology in Other Disciplines, with a Case Study of Migraine; Wim J. van der Steen
5. The Composite Species Concept: A Rigorous Basis for Cladistic Practice; D.J. Kornet and James W. McAllister
6. The Wonderful Crucible of Life?s Creation: An Essay on Contingency versus Inevitability of Phylogenetic Development; R. Hengeveld
7. The Symbiontic Nature of Metabolic Evolution; S.A.L.M. Kooijman and R. Hengeveld
8. The Founder and Allee Effects in the Patch Occupancy Metapopulation Model; Rampal S. Etienne and Lia Hemerik
9. Balancing Statistics and Ecology: Lumping Experimental Data for Model Selection; Nelly van der Hoeven, Lia Hemerik and Patrick A. Jansen
10. Resilience and Persistence in the Context of Stochastic Population Models; Johan Grasman, Onno A. van Herwaarden and Thomas J. Hagenaars
11. Evolution of Specialization and Ecological Character Displacement: Metabolic Plasticity Matters; Martijn Egas

Customer Reviews