Quantitative Elements of General Biology: A Dynamical Systems Approach

✍ Scribed by Ivan Maly

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 200
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This monograph sketches out a broad spectrum of problems (from evolution and metabolism to morphogenesis and biogeographical dynamics) whose solution has been impacted by mathematical models. Each of the selected examples has led to the recognition―and set direction to further study―of certain fundamental but unintuitive properties of biological systems, such as the making and breaking of specific symmetries that underlie morphogenesis. Whether they are long-established or only recently accepted, these models are selected for being thought-provoking and illuminating both the achievements and the gaps in our current understanding of the given area of biology. The selection of models is also meant to bring to the fore the existing degree of unity in the quantitative approach to diverse general-biological questions and in the systems-level properties that are discovered across the levels of biological organization. It is the thesis of this book that further cultivation of such unity is a way forward as we progress toward a general theory of living matter.

This is an ideal book for students (in the broadest sense) of biology who wish to learn from this attempt to present the exemplary models, their methodological lessons, and the outline of a unified theory of living matter that is now beginning to emerge. In addition to a doctoral student preparing for quantitative biology research, this reader could also be an interdisciplinary scientist transitioning to biology. The latter―for example, a physicist or an engineer―may be comfortable with the mathematical apparatus and prepared to quickly enter the intended area of work, but desires a broader foundation in biology from the quantitative perspective.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Abbreviations
Chapter 1: Introduction
References
Chapter 2: Biomass Growth and the Language of Dynamic Systems
2.1 Equilibria, Stability, and Hysteresis
2.2 Growth with Generations: Oscillations and Chaos
References
Chapter 3: Species and Speciation
3.1 Selection-Mutation Equilibria
3.2 Neutral Sympatric Speciation
References
Chapter 4: Signaling and Control
4.1 All-or-Nothing Response
4.2 Oscillatory Control
4.3 Switches
References
Chapter 5: Self-Organization in the Cell
5.1 Orientation of the Cortex
5.2 Emergence of a Focal Cytoskeleton
5.3 Biochemistry of Cell Polarity
References
Chapter 6: Forces that Shape the Cell
6.1 Symmetry-Breaking and Emergent Irreversibility
6.2 Cell Division and Alternative Equilibria
6.3 Cell Interaction and Multiperiodic Motion
References
Chapter 7: Multicellular Morphogenesis
7.1 Turing Mechanisms
7.2 Phyllotaxis
7.3 Segmentation
References
Chapter 8: Interspecies Dynamics
8.1 Coexistence and Exclusion
8.2 Temporal Patterns
8.3 Spatial Effects
References
Chapter 9: Summary and Outlook
References
Appendix: Phase Plane Analysis
References
Index