This book outlines how to build, test, revise and apply models for wildlife management. It is conceived around a course for postgraduate students with no previous experience in modelling. It represents a continuation of the philosophy of model building begun by Tony Starfield and his collaborators. In that vein, it emphasizes how to build effective models with a minimum of fuss.
The book's pedigree as a teaching manual is evident in the structure and organization. It takes the reader from very simple models, through increasing levels of detail, finishing with applications that illustrate some relatively complicated real-world problems and their solutions. Throughout the book, Owen-Smith asks the reader to question and test assumptions. Guidance on implementation of ideas and other insights are provided in appendices that accompany most of the chapters. The book also comes with software that implements the functions and case studies.
After a brief introduction outlining the philosophy of the book, Owen-Smith poses an innovative challenge, asking the reader to solve a problem without using equations or computers. The first half of the book then covers standard population biology topics including exponential growth, various forms of density dependence, age and stage structured models, consumer-resource models and harvesting. The approach is to build plausible dynamic, deterministic versions and then to add variability and other nuances that illustrate pertinent features.
The second half of the book is devoted to population viability, metapopulation dynamics, infectious disease models, scenarios, vegetation and community dynamics, and species responses to habitat variation (termed habitat suitability models). The book finishes with a short treatment of model evaluation including qualitative assessment of pattern, statistical fit of explanatory variables and AIC.
Overall it is a very good book, but I have a few minor complaints. The treatment of uncertainty is superficial, compared to the thoughtful and insightful treatment given to the dynamic equations. The software interface is not pretty, it is easy to specify unreasonable values (for example survivorships > 1) without the error being trapped, it is easy to generate run-time errors and several of the graphs seem to plot oddly. I was left wondering if perhaps it would have been sufficient to rely on the spreadsheet examples described in the appendices.
These are minor issues that do not detract substantially from the book's value as the basis for a course on models for conservation. The book is nicely produced and well written. It is well organized and the progression of material is generally very good. Owen-Smith's enthusiasm for the material and his skill as a teacher make it accessible and interesting. It is a worthy addition to the conservation literature.
