Stephen Simpson - Biological Sciences

Plague and pestilence: Locusts and the human condition

Professor Simpson’s dual research interests – nutrition and locust swarming – have led to fundamental insights into the dietary causes of the human obesity epidemic, as well as linking genetic and neurophysiological events in individual insects to mass migration.

His state-space model of nutrition, the Geometric Framework (GF), is a major conceptual advance. Nutrition touches all aspects of biology. Indeed, the fundamental, interlinked triumvirate in biology is sex, death and nutrition. By applying the GF to major problems in ecology, evolution, agriculture, health and welfare, complex problems assume a new clarity and novel advances can be made.

Simpson’s work has numerous applications in the field of sustainability:

• His protein leverage hypothesis for human obesity provides new avenues for research.
• His research into the nutritional basis of ageing has proved that different nutrients
  have specific effects.
• New approaches to optimising animal feeds are being pursued by major manufacturers in the aquaculture industry, and will underpin efforts to minimise environmental impacts and maximise fish welfare.
• A geometric analysis of dietary supplements is helping conserve endangered kakapo parrots.
• Research that links individual physiology to mass migration in locusts has helped predict and manage locust outbreaks.

A single theoretical model that connects individuals to communities is a holy grail in quantitative ecology and offers a new foundation for understanding the impact of environmental change.

In seeking this grail, Simpson is bridging a range of scientific disciplines, integrating self-propelled particle models from statistical physics and geometric models of nutrition to form the basis of a new framework for exploring the causal links between individual organisms and community ecology.