- Earth System Modelling Group (Laboratory for Global Marine and Atmospheric Chemistry)
- School of Environmental Sciences
- University of East Anglia
Research Interests and Background
CV
BA Biological Sciences, Oxford 2002.
MRes Mathematical Biology, Royal Holloway University of London, 2004.
PhD Earth System Modelling, University of East Anglia, 2008.
Interests
■Earth system science, the Gaia hypothesis, coevolution of life and the environment.
■Levels of selection, complexity begets stability (or not).
■Evolvability, evolutionary origin of physiologies.
■Origin/definitions of life and quantifying the possibility of astrobiology.
Most of my interests relate to the assumption that it would be useful to build ties between the ‘information’-based, hereditary properties of life (i.e. heritable variation causing differential survival), and the physiological properties (homeostasis, entropy production, hierarchical compartmentalisation, stability, control). I like to try to make generalisations that work from the cell to the Gaia hypothesis. These are, of course, necessarily speculative, but some concrete predictions can (in my opinion) be made. I have published work on altruism in extreme environments, and think that it is probable that the proliferation of the Ediacaran macrobiota (with implications for the subsequent cambrian explosion) , was directly driven by the planetary-scale glaciations that happened at this time. In general I think that useful perspectives on evolutionary trade-offs can be gained from looking to the dynamics of the abiotic environment and by thinking in a more physiologically explicit way.