Written for researchers and postgraduate students with a background in physics or applied mathematics and a desire to apply their skills to problems in the life sciences, this beautifully illustrated book includes a number of introductory chapters on genetics and cell biology, phylogeny and development, mathematical probability, and inferential statistics. In addition, appendices summarise background material on speciation and systematics, controversies surrounding evolutionary thinking, dynamical systems, optimality arguments, as well as statistical and thermal physics.