Interactive Ecological Population Models Website: A Master's Thesis Project

Abstract

For this Master's Thesis Project, I created a website that educates people about nine different population models. I wrote several Java applets that allow users to explore both single population and multiple population models. Additionally, I explained each model from a combined ecological and mathematical perspective, and gave examples in the text that pair with examples in the programs. Most of the models use differential equations. This website explains how differential equations work, along with why and how the differential equations are created for the various models. In order to create graphs of the populations, the fourth order Runge-Kutta method was used to find approximations of the solutions of the systems of differential equations. One model incorporates randomness through stochastic differential equations, and uses a discrete approximation technique to generate the data points.