- David Sims (marine biologist)
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Prof. David Sims 
David Sims at the Marine Biological Association in October 2008Born 7 June 1969
Worthing, West Sussex, UKResidence Plymouth Nationality British Fields Fish behavioural ecology Notable awards FSBI Medal Professor David Sims (b. 7 June 1969) is a British biological scientist who is a Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director for Research at the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) in Plymouth, UK.
He works in the field of behavioural ecology and is known for his research on foraging of free-ranging predators, studied using a combination of techniques including miniature electronic animal-attached tracking devices, movement analysis using methods transferred from statistical physics, and computer models of search efficiency. His work cuts across fields spanning animal behaviour to applied physics.
Contents
Awards
He has been awarded a ‘Scientist of the New Century’ Lecture from the Royal Institution of Great Britain (2001), honorary Life Membership of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (2001), the FSBI Medal from the Fisheries Society of the British Isles (2007), and the Stanley Gray Silver Medal from the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, IMarEST (2008).
Background
He attained a First Class Honours degree in Biological Sciences (1991) and a Ph.D in animal behaviour (1994) from the University of Plymouth, UK. His Ph.D research on fish behaviour was undertaken in part at the MBA Laboratory under the supervision of Dr Quentin Bone FRS, whilst in receipt of a personal studentship from the Natural Environment Research Council[1]. He was a lecturer in the Zoology Department at the University of Aberdeen before taking up a NERC-funded Fellowship at the Marine Biological Association Laboratory in Plymouth in 2000 [1].
Research
David Sims is known for his discovery of Lévy scaling laws of search behaviour patterns across diverse predator species (reptiles, sharks, bony fish, penguins) and that these patterns occur in habitats with sparse prey, as predicted by theory. [2] [3]
This work has provided perhaps the strongest empirical evidence [4] [5] [6] for the existence of biological Lévy flights, a specialised random search pattern that was theorised to be a new principle in ecology in 1999. [7] It is said that Sims’ work has shifted the debate on biological Lévy flights from whether they exist, to how and why they arise. [4] [6]. His work also represents the first test of the Lévy flight foraging hypothesis, which states that since Lévy flights can optimise random searches [8], search patterns must have naturally evolved in organisms to exploit Lévy flights. This presents the possibility that searching movements approximated by Lévy patterns have evolved in diverse organisms, from microbes to humans. [9] [10] [11]
Other findings include the first measurements of how predatory fish actually respond to variations in prey density gradients in the ocean [12], empirical data that has informed search algorithms [13], and the biological significance of ocean fronts to predators [14] [15], which have potential as candidates for high seas marine protected areas (MPAs) [16].
Sims and colleagues also demonstrated how timings of migrations of commercially important fish and squid vary in response to rapid climate-driven changes in sea temperature that have occurred over the past few decades [17] [18] They found phenological changes in migration shifted by up to two months in years with the greatest temperature changes, variations which have consequences for fisheries and their management.
Sims is also known for his long-term study of the behavioural ecology of the plankton-feeding basking shark, the world’s second largest fish [16] . He showed from natural experiments and theoretical calculations, and then tested predictions directly using satellite tracking, that basking sharks do not hibernate in winter [19] [20] [21], overturning an understanding which had stood for nearly 50 years [22].
His research group has also documented geographical sexual segregation of sharks, and identified that this behavioural trait can interact with spatially focussed longlining fisheries to increase the risk of population decline in these vulnerable species [23]. They have also been involved with several technological advances, such as the first use of GPS tags to track large fish in the ocean [24] [25].
Science and media
David Sims’ research has been published in leading scientific journals including Nature [3] and Proceedings of the Royal Society B[26]. It has also received media attention, including articles in New Scientist, Nature, Science, Science News, Physics World, and in documentaries and films such as “Email From A Shark”, which won the British Council Youth and Science Award at the Helsingborg Film Festival, Sweden, in 2004. Professor Sims has featured in several wildlife documentary programmes for BBC Television, such as BBC1 “Animal Camera” with Steve Leonard (10th March 2004), BBC Radio 4 Natural History Programme, and Channel 5 “Nick Baker's Weird Creatures” episode 5 – the basking shark (16th Feb 2007).
References
- ^ a b MBA (30 Oct 2009). "Prof David Sims". http://mba.ac.uk/simslab/peop_dwsims.html. Retrieved 16 March 2011.
- ^ D.W. Sims, et al. (2008) Scaling laws of marine predator search behaviour. Nature 451, 1098-1102.
- ^ a b N.E. Humphries, et al., D.W. Sims (2010) Environmental context explains Lévy and Brownian movement patterns of marine predators. Nature 465, 1066-1069.
- ^ a b M. Buchanan (2008) Ecological modelling: The mathematical mirror to animal nature. Nature 453, 714-716.
- ^ A.-L. Barabasi (2010) Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do. Dutton.
- ^ a b G.M. Viswanathan, et al. (2011) The Physics of Foraging: An Introduction to Random Searches and Biological Encounters. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ G.M. Viswanathan, et al. (1999) Optimizing the success of random searches. Nature 401, 911-914.
- ^ G.M. Viswanathan, E.P. Raposo, M.G.E. da Luz (2008) Lévy flights and superdiffusion in the context of biological encounters and random searches. Physics of Life Reviews 5, 133-150
- ^ F. Bartumeus, et al. (2003) Helical Lévy walks: Adjusting searching statistics to resource availability in microzooplankton. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100, 12771-12775.
- ^ D. Brockmann, et al. (2006) The scaling laws of human travel. Nature 439, 462-465.
- ^ M. Gonzalez, et al. (2008) Understanding human mobility patterns. Nature 453, 779-782.
- ^ D.W. Sims, V.A. Quayle (1998) Selective foraging behaviour of basking sharks on zooplankton in a small-scale front. Nature 393, 460-464
- ^ F. Valdez, et al. (2011) An improved evolutionary method with fuzzy logic for combining particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithms. Applied Software Computing 11, 2625-2632,
- ^ D.W. Sims, V.A. Quayle (1998) Selective foraging behaviour of basking sharks on zooplankton in a small-scale front. Nature 393, 460-464.
- ^ D.W. Sims, et al. (2000) Annual social behaviour of basking sharks associated with coastal front areas. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 267, 1897-1904.
- ^ a b D.W. Sims (2008) Sieving a living: A review of the biology, ecology and conservation status of the plankton-feeding basking shark Cetorhinus maximus. Advances in Marine Biology 54, 171-220.
- ^ D.W. Sims, et al. (2001) Timing of squid migration reflects North Atlantic climate variability. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 268, 2607-2611.
- ^ D.W. Sims, et al. (2004) Low-temperature-driven early spawning migration in a temperate marine fish. Journal of Animal Ecology 73, 333-341.
- ^ D.W. Sims (1999) Threshold foraging behaviour of basking sharks on zooplankton: life on an energetic knife edge? Proceedings of the Royal Society B 266, 1437-1443.
- ^ D. Weihs (1999) Marine biology: No hibernation for basking sharks. Nature 400, 717-718.
- ^ D.W. Sims, et al. (2003) Seasonal movements and behaviour of basking sharks from archival tagging: no evidence of winter hibernation. Marine Ecology Progress Series 248, 187-196,
- ^ L.H. Matthews (1962) The shark that hibernates. New Scientist 280, 756-759.
- ^ G.R. Mucientes, et al. (2009) Sexual segregation in pelagic sharks and the potential threat from fisheries. Biology Letters 5, 156-159.
- ^ D.W. Sims, et al. (2009) Long-term GPS tracking of ocean sunfish Mola mola offers a new direction in fish monitoring. PLoS ONE 4, e7351.
- ^ “Track Fish Across the Ocean” New Scientist p. 21, 17th October 2009.
- ^ D.W. Sims (1999) Threshold foraging behaviour of basking sharks on zooplankton: life on an energetic knife edge? Proceedings of the Royal Society B 266, 1437-1443.
External links
- http://www.mba.ac.uk/simslab
- http://www.plym.ac.uk
- http://www.abdn.ac.uk
- http://www.fsbi.org.uk
- http://www.imarest.org
Categories:- 1969 births
- British biologists
- British marine biologists
- Living people
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