[预告]10.18地学前缘讲座

      美国普林斯顿大学讲席教授，美国科学院院士，美国国家科学最高奖获得者

主讲人简介：

    Dr. Simon A. Levin is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. His research focuses on complexity, particularly how large-scale patterns — such as at the ecosystem level or even the global level — are maintained by small-scale behavioral and evolutionary factors at the level of individual organisms. Prof. Levin uses observational data and mathematical models to explore topics such as biological diversity, the evolution of structure and organization, and the management of public goods and shared resources. While primarily related to ecology, Prof. Levin's work also has analyzed conservation, financial and economic systems, and the dynamics of infectious diseases and antibiotic resistance.

    Prof. Simon Levin is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. He was awarded the 2015 U.S. National Medal of Science—the nation’s highest honor for achievement and leadership in science. He has received several other notable accolades, including the Ecological Society of America’s Eminent Ecologist Award in 2010 and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 2014.

报告简介：

    Fundamental questions in basic and applied ecology alike involve complex adaptive systems, in which localized interactions among individual agents give rise to emergent patterns that feed back to affect individual behavior.  In such systems, a central challenge is to scale from the “microscopic” to the “macroscopic,” in order to understand the emergence of collective phenomena, the potential for critical transitions, and the ecological and evolutionary conflicts between levels of organizations.  This lecture will explore some specific examples, from universality in bacterial pattern formation to collective motion and collective decision-making in animal groups.  It also will suggest that studies of emergence, scaling and critical transitions in physical systems can inform the analysis of similar phenomena in ecological systems, while raising new challenges for theory.

中文关键词：复杂适应系统；生态系统；群体协同；尺度推绎；格局和过程