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Find a PhD Supervisor

Dr Keith Farnsworth

School of Biological Sciences
Lanyon

Dr Keith Farnsworth

School of Biological Sciences

Fundamental Biology

Enquiry into the `essence’ of life using information and cybernetic theory. The aim is to build a coherent theory of what life essentially is and use this to better inform biological science `from molecules to ecosystems’. Examples of research include an inquiry into the basis of the autonomy of organisms, the informational foundation of biodiversity and the extent to which ecosystems are really a thing.

Fisheries Science

Creating and testing mathematical and computational models of fisheries systems using connected sets of partial differential equations and broader simulation methods. This work contributes to the scientific foundation of `ecosystem based fisheries management’ and helps pioneer radically new forms of fisheries management such as the Real Time Incentive (RTI) scheme.

Contact info

  • View Academic Profile
  • askmhls@qub.ac.uk
  • +44 (0)28 9097 2352

Research Interests

Open to PhD applications in the field of

  • Fisheries Sciences
  • Fundamental Biology
  • How the information structure of ecological communities quantitatively affects their ecological function

Overview

Biodiversity-ecosystem function relations (BEFRs) are central to ecology, economic value and conservation. They have only been quantified for foodwebs and plant communities to-date: excluding parasitism and mutualism and with no explicit account of network structure. Presently we have no quantitative measure of ecological structure - the network of interactions - and its effect on BEFRs. Great anticipation was generated this summer by three recent papers developing a method using information metrics, including very recent developments from brain research (Integrated Information (IIT)- Tononi et al.), Dynamic Causal Analysis (Kark Friston) and chemistry (entropic capacity - by Tom Shneider). The race is on to apply this approach to real ecological communities. The project would best suite an applied mathematician or physicist with an interest in computational science. It may be jointly supervised by one or more leading academics in the USA or UK. Please see www.whatlifeis.info/pages/PhD.html for further details.

Make a PhD enquiry


Current Research Opportunities

  • The relative importance of different species traits for predicting invasion success and impact - a sensitivity analysis approach
  • How The information structure of ecological communities quantitatively affects their ecological function.

Public outreach & key achievements

  • What Life Is: www.whatlifeis.info
  • United Academics Magazine: Are Viruses Alive? 
  • Organisms (Uniquely) Do It For Themselves (In Defiance Of Determinism) https://www.ua-magazine.com/information-theory-what-life-is
  • Scientific American - Wild fish ecosystems resist impact of biodiversity loss 
  • Science Daily - Seals not competing with Irish fishing stocks

Discover More

  • Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences

  • School of Biological Sciences

  • www.whatlifeis.info 

Postgraduate research
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School of Biological Sciences

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