Structured population dynamics are modeled by measure-valued processes describing the individual behaviors and taking into account the demographic and mutational parameters, and possible interactions between individuals. Many quantitative parameters appear in these models and several relevant normalizations are considered, leading  to infinite-dimensional deterministic or stochastic large-population approximations. Biologically relevant questions are considered, such as extinction criteria, the effect of large birth events, the impact of  environmental catastrophes, the mutation-selection trade-off, recovery criteria in parasite infections, genealogical properties of a sample ofindividuals.

These notes originated from a lecture series on Structured Population Dynamics at Ecole polytechnique (France).

Vincent Bansaye and Sylvie Méléard  are    Professors at Ecole Polytechnique (France).  They are a specialists of branching processes and random particle systems in biology. Most of their research concerns the applications of probability to biodiversity, ecology and evolution.