The 2005 Laureates / Basic Sciences Category / Biological Sciences (Evolution, Behavior, Ecology, Environment)

Prof. Simon A. Levin, receiving a B.A. in mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1961 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1964, started teaching at the Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University in 1965, and joined the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, in 1992. Awards that this distinguished member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences has received include the MacArthur Award (1988) in ecology, the First Okubo Lifetime Achievement Award (2001) in mathematical biology, and the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize (2004) in environmental sciences.

Ecologist whose approach to the comprehensive understanding of biodiversity has had substantial impact on ecology and on environmental protection

Prof. Simon A. Levin created the field of “spatial ecology” by using mathematical models to understand the complex patterns of the biosphere comprehensively. Further, his approach that considers the biosphere as a “complex adaptive system” led to the proposal of a new management method for environmental protection, and has also had a substantial impact on environmental sciences.

The ecosystems surrounding us has resulted from the interactions of living organisms and their responses to the environments that developed over the 4.6 million years since the birth of the Earth and 3.5 billion years since the birth of living organisms. Ecology is the discipline that studies the interactions of living organisms and the mechanisms of resource and energy cycles in ecosystems. Previously, ecology had difficulty in comprehensive understanding how patterns and processes were maintained at the level of ecosystems and the biosphere. To deal with this challenge, Prof. Levin introduced mathematical models into ecology that deal with the biosphere as a complex adaptive system and created the new field of "spatial ecology."

In his early and well known study based on the observation of high biodiversity in intertidal communities ( seashore communities of living organisms), he created a mathematical model based on the prediction that there must be enough space for mutually competitive and exclusive species to co-exist in the same community, and localized disturbance to maintain diversity in living organisms. Dr. R. Paine provided evidence for this model by showing that after removal of disturbance-causing starfish (a predator of shellfish) from a reef ecosystem, only mussels with a high reproductive rate flourished, and the number of species decreased from 15 to 8, showing that disturbance by starfish maintains biodiversity. Prof. Levin showed that this sort of mathematical analysis can also be applied to research on diversity in forests.

Prof. Levin's mathematical models demonstrated that analysis of a small region reveals what approaches are necessary for analysis of a phenomenon in a larger region, and therefore they are used in a wide range of environmental management situations. Prof. Levin has actively conducted collaborative research with economists and environmental scientists, and proposed concrete, practical environmental management methods and guidelines to dealing with environmental problems.

Recently, mass production, consumption, and disposal of waste have caused rapid loss in biodiversity, which is difficult to recover. His book titled Fragile Dominion (1999) proves that biodiversity has a fragile foundation and he discusses how much humans have benefited from biodiversity and what we must do to maintain such benefits.

Prof. Levin's contributions to ecology and environmental sciences are extremely important for our future as environmental issues will become even more critical.

For more details, see the Achievements.