Ecological Biomechanics

3.0 credits · Graduate

Ecological mechanics explores ecological relations from a mechanics perspective, including fluid, solid, structural mechanics, and heat and mass transport. While other ecological studies incorporate transport of mass, energy, and information, consideration of momentum transport and its consequence in biotic and abiotic relations in organisms is unique to this discipline. We begin the course by introducing the fundamental and advanced concepts in mechanics. Then we will learn how to incorporate these concepts by considering response function (the functional relationship between condition imposed on the system and its response) to understand and predict ecological phenomena such as predator-prey relation and pattern formation.