This book provides a comprehensive introduction to biodemography, an exciting inter-disciplinary field that unites the natural science of biology with the social science of human demography. Biodemography is an essential resources for demographers, epidemiologist, gerontologist, and health professionals as well as ecologists, population biologists, entomologists, and conservation biologists. This accessible and innovative book is also the ideal for the classroom.
James Carey and Deborah Roach cover everything from baseline demographic concepts to biodemographic applications, and present models and equations in discrete rather than continuous form to enhance mathematical accessibility. They use a wealth of real world examples that draw from data sets on both human and nonhuman species and offer an inter-disciplinary approach to demography like no other, with topics ranging from kinship theory and family demography to reliability engineer and tort law to demographic disasters such as the Titanic and the destruction of Napoleon’s Grande Armée.
- Provides the first synthesis of demography and biology
- Covers baseline demographic models and concepts such as Lexus diagrams, mortality, fecundity, and population theory
- Features in-depth discussions of biodemographic applications like harvesting theory and mark-recapture
- Draws from data sets on species ranging from fruit flies and plants to elephants and humans
- Uses a uniquely inter-disciplinary approach to demography, bringing together a diverse range of concepts
- Appendices on data visualization and management, and more than 150 illustrations of models and equations
“At a time when concerns about biodiversity are great, this book is essencial reading. Methodological advances in human demography in recent decades are often ignored in population biology and ecology. Biodemography build a bridge between these disciplines.”
Jean-Marie Robine, Research Director, INSERM
“This accessible book provides a broader count of demography in its biological applications, with an over arching focus on life history patterns and aging. Ideal for a range of undergraduate courses, it also covers topics not usually found in a single source…”
Shripad Tuljapurkar, Stanford University
“The book provides an excellent resource for everyone, from students to experienced researchers, who wishes to utilize the wealth of methodological approaches developed in demography, and it will therefore have an impact on the development of the field.”
Marlѐne Gamelon and Hannah Froy,
Trends in Ecology and Evolution