Review by Choice Review
The use of mathematics in the biological sciences has been impeded by biologists' lack of mathematics and mathematicians' lack of biology. In this short book, Istas (Universite Pierre Mendes-France, Grenoble) tries to bridge this gap by showing how some fairly standard mathematics may help in a variety of biological areas. He starts with population biology, where some models have been used for years and practitioners are comfortable with them. But the introduction of diffusion leads to more modern models that will be unfamiliar to many biologists. Istas quickly moves to discrete dynamical systems, game theory, Markov chains, branching processes, and statistics. For each mathematical topic, he includes several biological models exemplifying the mathematical technique; e.g., under Markov chains he considers genetic drift and domestication of pearl millet. The book reads like a set of lecture notes; the intended audience is clearly mathematically sophisticated. There is too much assumed mathematics for it to be useful to mathematically naive biologists. Many results are derived quickly and cryptically from general theorems not well explained; the brief statement of these theorems in the appendix will leave biologists at sea. One hopes that in the future, mathematics will be used more widely in biology. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. P. Cull Oregon State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
