Computational ecology: artificial neural networks and their applications

Due to the complexity and non-linearity of most ecological problems, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have attracted attention from ecologists and environmental scientists in recent years. As these networks are increasingly being used in ecology for modeling, simulation, function approximation, prediction, classification and data mining, this unique and self-contained book will be the first comprehensive treatment of this subject, by providing readers with overall and in-depth knowledge on algorithms, programs, and applications of ANNs in ecology. Moreover, a new area of ecology, i.e., computational ecology, is proposed and its scopes and objectives are defined and discussed. Computational Ecology consists of two parts : the first describes the methods and algorithms of ANNs, interpretability and mathematical generalization of neural networks, Matlab neural network toolkit, etc., while the second provides case studies of applications of ANNs in ecology, Matlab codes, and comparisons of ANNs with conventional methods. This publication will be a valuable reference for research scientists, university teachers, graduate students and high-level undergraduates in the areas of ecology, environmental sciences, and computational science.

Ch. 1. Introduction. 1. Computational ecology. 2. Artificial neural networks and ecological applications -- pt. I. Artificial neural networks : principles, theories and algorithms. ch. 2. Feedforward neural networks. 1. Linear separability and perceptron. 2. Some analogies of multilayer feedforward networks. 3. Functionability of multilayer feedforward networks. ch. 3. Linear neural networks. 1. Linear neural networks. 2. LMS rule. ch. 4. Radial basis function neural networks. 1. Theory of RBF neural network. 2. Regularized RBF neural network. 3. RBF neural network learning. 4. Probabilistic neural network. 5. Generalized regression neural network. 6. Functional link neural network. 7. Wavelet neural network. ch. 5. BP neural network. 1. BP algorithm. 2. BP theorem. 3. BP training. 4. Limitations and improvements of BP algorithm. ch. 6. Self-organizing neural networks. 1. Self-organizing feature map neural network. 2. Self-organizing competitive learning neural network. 3. Hamming neural network. 4. WTA neural network. 5. LVQ neural network. 6. Adaptive resonance theory. ch. 7. Feedback neural networks. 1. Elman neural network. 2. Hopfield neural networks. 3. Simulated annealing. …