Read more
Klappentext A practical undergraduate textbook for maths-shy biology students showing how basic maths reveals important insights. Zusammenfassung The number-shy biology student is a common species. This introductory text shows how to apply simple mathematical principles to a range of biological examples to reveal vital insights and understanding. Packed with questions and calculations and covering the whole range of biology! this is for all maths-shy biologists! from first-year undergraduates to graduates. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface; A guide to the book; 1. Putting two and two together; 2. Units, formulae and the use of old envelopes: confronting some obstacles to quantitative thinking; 3. Aspects of energy metabolism; 4. Getting things in proportion; 5. Perilous percentages, dangerous ratios; 6. Building a trophic pyramid; 7. Sodium in animals and plants; 8. Exchanges of water and carbon dioxide; 9. A geometric series; 10. Introduction to logarithms; 11. Bringing logarithms to life; 12. Exponential relationships; 13. Aspects of allometry; 14. More on allometry, and on quantitative patterns in nature; 15. How the abundance of food affects rates of feeding; 16. The characterization of trees and other branching systems; 17. Epilogue; References; Notes; Index.
