Lecturer: Bas Kooijman
Title: Dynamic Energy Budget theory: where fascination meets profession
Date: 2018/08/29/12:00-12:45
Event: symposium Mathematical Biology in the Netherlands
Place: Institute Cervantes, Utrecht
Orginasors: Lia Hemerik, Nienke Hartemink
Abstract:

When studying biology in Leiden, my original motivation to pay due attention to mathematics was in finding a job in biology. My idea was that it could not be that difficult to improve on the statistical methods that ecologists around me were using. During my PhD in Leiden I became increasingly aware of the importance of the underlying assumptions in statistical applications and the need to scientifically underpin those assumptions: life is a process in the first place and biological states can only be understood in the light of that process. My subsequent work at TNO Delft among engineers learned me two important lessons: first that the processes of substrate uptake and use by organisms underly what organisms are doing in terms of physiology and ecology and theory for it has the potential of unifying biology as a discipline, second that the development of theory is for me personally only attractive if it really guides experimental work and becomes an integrated part of it. I see abstract integration as a key task for theoretical biology, where it complements experimental work.
 
I will briefly sketch the general setup of DEB theory and then discuss two recent examples of application of DEB theory in animal energetics, in the light of the Add_my_Pet collection of data and DEB parameters for 1041 animal species at 2018/06/09:
1) Why did birds evolve from precicial to altricial development, and mammals in the opposite direction?
2) How can we understand and quantify the supply-demand spectrum in animal energetics? 

More information:
https://www.bio.vu.nl/thb/deb/deblab/add_my_pet/