Geometric biology allows us to understand the dynamics of how living things convert energy flows into mass, at all scales of biological organisation.
The size and shape (together, the ‘geometry’) of organisms ultimately determine these flows.
The Geometric Theory of Biology allows us to predict how things function, grow, and change; be they tumours, schools of fish, or whole forests.
Professor Dustin Marshall is seeking a marine larval biologist, with strong quantitative skills, to explore the ways in which temperature affects the energetics of development in marine invertebrates.
Dustin Marshall and Craig White suggest that it might be time to take another look at the ways we currently understand and model growth.
Published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution.
A new study led by Evatt Chirgwin indicates that parental environment can influence adaptation to projected increases in sea level temperatures, not only by altering the fitness of offspring but also by altering the genetic variance available to increase fitness.
Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
PhD student Karin Svanfeldt and supervisors Keyne Monro and Dustin Marshall have been using colonial bryozoans to determine how selection affects zooid longevity, and how it compares with our knowledge of modular organisms from studies on plants.
The Centre’s Diego Barneche and Dustin Marshall have collaborated with Scott Burgess of Florida State University to compile a dataset of 1,078 observations of fish egg size taken from 192 studies, enabling them to test multiple life history theories, including the prediction that in environments with stable food regimes the most effective strategy to maximise reproductive rates is to produce many small eggs.
Published in Global Ecology and Biogeography.
Uruguayan researchers Daniel and Hugo Naya have joined forces with the Centre’s Craig White to investigate how body mass in mammals affects the relationship between energy expenditure and climate.
Professors Dustin Marshall and Craig White will be speaking about their experiences as academics looking for postdocs, and we invite students and interested early career researchers to join us armed with questions about how to go about getting a postdoc, what to expect from a postdoc and ‘conversations you should have’ when starting a postdoc.
Published in Evolutionary Biology.
