Simon A. Levin, winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology, in the Faculty of Biology

Simon A. Levin, winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology
Simon A. Levin, winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology
Research
(05/10/2010)

Simon A. Levin, one of the foremost international experts in theoretical ecology and winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology, was one of the participants in the scientific forum "How do evolutionary processes shape ecosystem patterns and why do ecosystems constrain them?", on 6 October in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology.

 

 

Simon A. Levin, winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology
Simon A. Levin, winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology
Research
05/10/2010

Simon A. Levin, one of the foremost international experts in theoretical ecology and winner of the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology, was one of the participants in the scientific forum "How do evolutionary processes shape ecosystem patterns and why do ecosystems constrain them?", on 6 October in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Biology.

 

 

The event, officially opened by the UB rector Dídac Ramírez, began with a talk by Professor Levin entitled “Evolution at the Ecosystem Level: On the Evolution of Ecosystem Patterns”. At 11.30 there was a round-table discussion chaired by Jordi Flos (lecturer from the UB Department of Ecology) with contributions from Professor Levin and the experts Jordi Bascompte (Doñana Biological Station-CSIC), Ricard Guerrero (UB Department of Microbiology) and Ricard V. Solé (ICREA-UPF).

 
Simon A. Levin (Baltimore, 1941) is Moffett Professor of Biology with the Department of Ecology and Biology at Princeton University (New Jersey, United States). Originally trained as a mathematician, Levin is now a leading figure in theoretical ecology, specializing in the application of mathematical models and empirical studies of macroscopic ecosystem patterns and biodiversity. Levin is particularly interested in biological conservation and the improvement of ecosystem management, and has made significant contributions to the practical and conceptual development of ecology, establishing the field of spatial ecology and the biosphere, which he describes as a “complex adaptive system”. Much of Levinʼs work focuses on the study of diversification and its evolution, the mechanisms that support biodiversity in natural systems, and the implications of these mechanisms on the structure and dynamics of ecosystems. His research career is particularly notable for work on population and community dynamics, heterogeneity and spatial scale problems, evolutionary ecology, theoretical and mathematical ecology, and biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Levin has received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Akira Okubo Prize from the Society for Mathematical Biology, the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences.
 
Simon A. Levin will receive the 2010 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology on 7 October in a ceremony to be held in the Palau de la Generalitat, in recognition of his contribution to theoretical ecology and his innovative work on the integration of different scales for understanding ecological processes. The award, backed by the Generalitat, takes its inspiration from the ecologist Ramon Margalef (1919-2004), emeritus professor of the UB and an internationally acclaimed figure in the field of ecology.