Lev R. Ginzburg, theoretical ecologist

My attention has always been focused on the foundations of theoretical ecology. My most widely

known work is a theory of predation (the ratio-dependent or Arditi-Ginzburg model) that is an

alternative to the classic prey-dependent Lotka-Volterra and MacArthur-Rosenzweig models. A

recent book, How Species Interact (Arditi & Ginzburg, 2012) summarizes our take on this proposed

alteration of the standard view. Another direction of my work has been inertial growth, or a

quantity-quality, two-dimensional approach to population dynamics replacing the usual one-

dimensional approach. This idea gained recognition based on a model of maternal effect and is

summarized in the book Ecological Orbits (Ginzburg & Colyvan, 2004).

One of my interests in the last few years has been in metabolic ecology (Ginzburg & Damuth,

2008). I work on the idea that generation time is an essential fourth dimension of an organism in

addition to the dimensions of space that it occupies. The 4D view provides a simple, unifying

explanation for various observed slopes of metabolic allometries. Another recent interest of mine is

an evolutionary theory of non-adaptive selection, the disappearance of unstable configurations

(Ginzburg et al, 2010). I am currently writing a book (Non-Adaptive Selection, with John Damuth)

which will explore the implications of this idea for macroecology.