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Capla comments on The "best" mathematically-informed topics? - Less Wrong Discussion
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The math of natural selection and evolution
Depends whether you want to go genetics, or a more theoretical approach. But complete expert-level knowledge of the subject would probably include fitness landscapes, network theory, a basic understanding of what's fashionably called 'big data' (for bioinformatics), linear algebra (including a familiarity with the dynamics of formally unsolvable systems and chaos theory), and a LOT of probability theory.
Price's Equation
That is important destination but maybe too subtle a starting point.
Start with ecological models for inter-species interactions (predation, competition, mutualism, etc.) where there are more examples and the patterns are simpler, starker, and more intuitive. Roughly, death processes may depend on all involved populations but birth processes depend on each species separately. Then move to natural selection and evolution, intra-species interactions, where the birth processes for each genotype may depend on populations of all the different genotypes, and death processes depend on the phenotypes of all the different populations.
Do you have a curriculum that works through these?
It can either be an already existing textbook or class or just a list of concepts.
It's been a while since I've thought about how to learn ecology, but maybe check out Ben Bolker's Ecological Models and Data in R? It would also be a decent way to start to learn how to do statistics with R.