This book arises from a course I've taught at Duke University in the Department of Zoology. The goal of the course, like the goal of this book, is to combine mathematical and simulation approaches within a common framework to pursue interesting questions in population biology. The book's perspective reflects my interest in linking population-level phenomena and individual-level interactions. I address upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers familiar with theoretical concepts in ecology and having a strong mathematical foundation.

The main challenge in the book (which is heightened in a one-semester course) is that three concurrent goals must be addressed simultaneously. One goal is teaching the C language to students who may have never programmed in any language. Another goal is teaching new mathematical concepts to students, in particular the mathematics associated with analyzing spatial problems, as well as standard approaches such as the stability analysis of a nonspatial model. A third goal is using simulation and mathematical approaches together to understand ecological dynamics by comparing and contrasting deterministic and stochastic modeling frameworks.

These three concurrent goals are reflected in the book, which serves much like a workbook for students learning C and applying it to ecological and evolutionary problems. Most of the theoretical tools I've needed in my work – programming concepts and mathematics – are mentioned somewhere in the book, along with useful references having more complete treatments.