Dr Adam Kleczkowski

Web page of Adam Kleczkowski's Group

Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

News:

The departmental studentships have been filled.

Interesting links:

I am a Head of Mathematics and Statistics Group in Stirling, so please visit our web site;
Our group is a part of Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, at the University of Stirling;
Botanical Epidemiology and Modelling Group at Cambridge, where I worked until recently;
My personal web page;

Research interests:

Two main threads have been shaping my research over the last 15 years, parameter estimation and spatially-extended models of ecological and epidemiological systems. I am particularly interested in analysis of effects of spatial and temporal heterogeneities on dynamics of biological systems and in describing and predicting variability in various population models. Advances in in experimental techniques allow us to look directly at properties of single organisms, cells or even molecules, thus avoiding loss of information due to averaging. Inclusion of variability has profound consequences for modelling and predicting the behaviour of many biological systems. The variability becomes an important part of the dynamics that can and must be incorporated into the description and explained rather than removed from the analysis. It also offers us a significantly reacher insight into the mechanisms controlling behaviour of populations than a traditional approach. It is a combination of different factors (environment, nonlinearity, species interaction and dispersal) that leads to a formation and maintenance of variability and diversity, leading, for example, to biodiversity hot-spots and patches of disease. Strong emphasis is put on statistical model fitting and rigorous testing against experimental and archival data, on data collection and experimental design.

My formal CV

...has not yet been fully updated following the move to Stirling, but you can still look at a copy of it here.

Research projects

My particular interests are in the following areas:

Microbial ecology and diversity in soils (in collaboration with the Department of Biology, University of York; discussions about joint projects have also been under way with SIMBIOS at University of Abertay Dundee);
Development of a strategic model to evaluate control strategies and disease risk of Rhizoctonia solani in field vegetables (in collaboration with Botanical Epidemiology and Modelling Group, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge);
Modelling spread of pathogenic fungi (in collaboration with Botanical Epidemiology and Modelling Group, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge);
Predicting spread of infectious diseases on various networks and desigining effective ways of controlling the spread under a condition of incomplete knowledge (in collaboration with Botanical Epidemiology and Modelling Group, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge and Insitute of Physics, Jagellonian University);
In this project, we are currently moving into the area of describing epidemic spread and designing control strategies for systems with more than one pathogen. Particularly, we are interested in a recent spread of fungal and insect infection in mountain forests of Southern Poland - work in collaboration with Insitute of Physics, Jagellonian University);
Seed dynamics in seed banks of common weeds (in collaboration with Rothamsted Research and Insitute of Physics, Jagellonian University);
Modelling response of ecosystems to environmental changes (in collaboration with Oxford Long-Term Ecology Laboratory, University of Oxford);

Teaching interests:

Courses currently taught:

Modelling with Differential Equations (year 3/4), MAT9LB
Real Analysis (year 3/4), MAT9LC
Numerical Methods (year 3/4), MAT9JB
Projects in Mathematics and its Applications, MAT9J8/K8
Calculus for year 2 applied maths students (MAT913)
Advanced topics in calculus for year 3/4 applied maths students (MAT9MA)
Time series and stochastic processes, MAT9MD (will run in Spring 2009)

Courses recently taught:

Introduction to mathematical biology for Part IA (1st year) Natural Sciences course
Statistical methods for Part IB (2nd year) Microbial and Plant Sciences course
Plant epidemiology and microbial dynamics, Part II (3rd and final year)
Introduction to Epidemiological modelling, part of CIDC (Cambridge Infectious Diseases Consortium) post-graduate course.

Projects currently supervised:

Spread and control of diseases on networks (undergraduate course)
Invasion and persistence of soil microorganisms in heterogeneous environments (PhD jointly with University of Cambridge)
To treat or not to treat: Costs of disease spread and control (undergraduate project jointly with Jagellonian University)

Courses that I would like to teach:

The list is not very long - in fact, most of my 'dream' courses I already teach!

Mathematical ecology, and in particular stochastic models
Probability theory and applications

Selected publications

Willis KJ, Kleczkowski A, New M, Whittaker RJ, 2007. Testing the impact of climate variability on European plant diversity: 320 000 years of water–energy dynamics and its long-term influence on plant taxonomic richness, Ecology Letters 10 pp. 673-679.
A. Kleczkowski and C.A. Gilligan, 2007. Parameter estimation and prediction for the course of a single epidemic outbreak of a plant disease, Journal of the Royal Society Interface 4 pp. 865-877.
Fitter, A. H., Gilligan, C. A., Hollingworth, K., Kleczkowski, A., Twyman, R. & Pitchford, J. W. (2005) Biodiversity and ecosystem function in soil. Functional Ecology. Functional Ecology. (accepted).
Dybiec, B., Kleczkowski, A. and Gilligan, C.A. (2005) Optimizing control of disease spread on networks with incomplete knowledge. Acta Physica Polonica 36 (5) 1509-1526.
Kleczkowski, A. (2005) Predictability in simple population models. Acta Physica Polonica 36 (5) 1623-1634.
Gibson, G.J., Kleczkowski A. & Gilligan, C.A. (2004) A Bayesian analysis of botanical epidemics using stochastic compartmental models. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 101 (12120-12124)
Bailey, D.J., Kleczkowski, A. & Gilligan, C.A. (2004) Epidemiological dynamics and the efficiency of biological control of soil-borne disease in consecutive crops. New Phytologist 161: 560-577.
Kleczkowski, A. & Góra, P.F. (2003) Quenched disorder and long-tail distributions. Physica A 327 (3-4): 378-398.
Gudowska-Nowak, E., Kleczkowski, A., Kraft, G., Nasonova, E., Ritter, S. &Scholz, M. (2001) Mathematical Models of Radiation-Induced Mitotic Delay: Time-Course Analysis and Statistics of Lesions, Physica Medica 17: 161-163.
Gubbins, S. Gilligan, C.A. & Kleczkowski, A. (2000) Thresholds for invasion in plant-parasite systems. Theoretical Population Biology 57: 219-234.
Kleczkowski, A. & Grenfell, B.T.(1999) Mean-field-type equations for spread of epidemics: the 'small-world model', Physica A 274: 355-360; also published in Gadomski, A, Kertész, J., Stanley, H.E. and Vandewalle N.(eds.), Applications of Statistical Physics, Elsevier, 1999.
Gibson, G.J., Gilligan, C.A. & Kleczkowski, A. (1999) Predicting variability in biological control of a plant-pathogen system using stochastic models Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 266: 1743-1753.
Heusser, L., Heusser, C., Kleczkowski, A. & Crowhurst. S.J. (1999) A 50,000 yr record of South American millennial-scale climate instability during the last glaciation from Chile, Quaternary Research 52: 154-158.
Willis, K.J., Kleczkowski, A., Briggs, K.M. & Gilligan, C.A. (1999) The effect of sub-Milankovitch climatic forcing in initiation of the northern hemisphere glaciation Science 285: 568-571.
Willis, K.J., Kleczkowski, A. & Crowhurst, S. J. (1999) 124,000-year periodicity in terrestrial vegetation change during the late Pliocene epoch, Nature 397: 685-688.
Kleczkowski, A. (1998) Statistical properties of dynamical systems with disturbances: variation in parameters, Proceedings of the Marian Smoluchowski Symposium on Statistical Physics, Zakopane. Acta Physica Polonica B 29: 1717-1735.
Kleczkowski, A., Gilligan, C.A. & Bailey, D.J. (1997) Scaling and spatial dynamics in plant pathogen systems: from individuals to populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society London, Series B 264: 979-984.
Gilligan, C.A. & Kleczkowski, A. (1997) Population dynamics of botanical epidemics involving primary and secondary infection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London, Series B. 352: 591-608.
Kleczkowski, A., Bailey, D.J. & Gilligan, C.A. (1996) Dynamically generated variability in a plant pathogen system with biological control. Proceedings of the Royal Society London, Series B. 263: 777-783.
Grenfell, B.T., Kleczkowski, A., Gilligan, C.A. & Bolker, B.M. (1995) Spatial heterogeneity, nonlinear dynamics and chaos in infectious diseases. Statistical Methods in Medical Research 4: 160-183.
Grenfell, B.T., Bolker, B. & Kleczkowski, A. (1995) Seasonality, Demography, and Dynamics of Measles in Developed Countries, pp.248-268 In Epidemic Models, ed. D. Mollison, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Grenfell, B.T. Bolker, B.M. & Kleczkowski, A. (1995) Seasonality and extinction in chaotic metapopulations, Proceedings of the Royal Society B 259: 97-103.
Grenfell, B.T., Kleczkowski, A., Ellner, S.P. & Bolker, B.M. (1994) Nonlinear forecasting and chaos in ecology and epidemiology: measles as a case study. pp. 321-345 In Forecasting and chaos, ed Tong, H., World Scientific, Singapore, New Jersey, London, Hongkong.
Grenfell, B.T., Kleczkowski, A., Ellner, S.P. & Bolker,B.M. (1994) Measles as a case study in nonlinear forecasting and chaos, Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A 348: 515-530.
Kleczkowski, A. (1993) Stochastic versus chaotic dynamics for genetic model - revisited, Acta Physica Polonica B 24: 1445-1473.
Kleczkowski, A. (1993) Dynamical systems with impulses: stroboscopic maps approach, Acta Physica Polonica B 24: 1061-1071.
Gudowska-Nowak, E., Williams, G.O. & Kleczkowski, A. 1989, Stochastic vs.chaotic dynamics in a deterministic system, Journal of Statistical Physics 54: 539-548.

Personnel:

	M. Castle (PhD student; currently in Cambridge)
	K. Sławińska (MSc student; in collaboration with the Jagellonian University, Kraków, Poland)
	P.F. Góra (Visitor)

Last updated by AK, 10 September, 2008 .