To understand nature / D. Mackiewicz and S. Cebrat -- Evolution of the age-structured populations / A. Łaszkiewicz [and others] -- Complementing haplotypes versus purifying selection / W. Waga [and others] -- Models of population dynamics and genetics / R. Rudnicki -- Age-structured population models with genetics / M.R. Dudek and T. Nadzieja -- Computational modeling of evolutionary systems / A. Lipowski and D. Lipowska.

This volume contains pedagogical and elementary introductions to genetics for mathematicians and physicists as well as to mathematical models and techniques of population dynamics. It also offers a physicist's perspective on modeling biological processes. Each chapter starts with an overview followed by the recent results obtained by authors. Lectures are self-contained and are devoted to various phenomena such as the evolution of the genetic code and genomes, age-structured populations, demography, sympatric speciation, the Penna model, Lotka-Volterra and other predator-prey models, evolutionary models of ecosystems, extinctions of species, and the origin and development of language. Authors analyze their models from the computational and mathematical points of view. Contents: Preface To Understand Nature Computer Modeling Between Genetics and Evolution Evolution of the Age-Structured Populations and Demography Darwinian Purifying Selection versus Complementing Strategy in Monte-Carlo Simulations Models of Population Dynamics and Their Applications in Genetics Computational Modeling of Evolution: Ecosystems and Language Age-Structured Population Models with Genetics