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The sixth mass extinction and the home aquarist 

Print versions in Finnish 

An article that I wrote for Botia journal. Published there in two parts – March 2023 and June 2024. Below are PDF files of the two parts (in Finnish), as well as a link to the English translation of Part One.

• OSA YKSI: Luontokatokriisi. (Part One – biodiversity loss)
• OSA KAKSI: Luonnon ja lajien suojelu. (Part Two – nature and species conservation)
• English version of Part One, on loss of biodiversity.

Optimal offspring size varies with maternal size and reproductive effort

An experiment in scientific publishing using web technologies 

Forty years since Smith-Fretwell - an experiment with typesetting of scientific papers using web technologies. The scientific content is my own work on mathematical modeling of evolution of offspring size, in the context of an earlier work by Smith and Fretwell (1974).

Peer-reviewed scientific articles

1. Filin I. 2015. The relation between maternal phenotype and offspring size, explained by overhead material costs of reproduction. Journal of Theoretical Biology 364: 168-178. PDF
2. Dorchin A, Filin I, Izhaki, I, Dafni A. 2013. Movement patterns of solitary bees in a threatened fragmented habitat. Apidologie 44: 90-99. PDF Supplemental

   In this study I applied a maximum-likelihood statistical model in order to estimate movement patterns of solitary bees from mark-recapture data.

3. Holt RD, Barfield M, Filin I, Forde S. 2011. Predation and the evolutionary dynamics of species ranges. American Naturalist 178(4): 488-500. PDF Supplemental
4. Filin I. 2010. Target size and optimal life history when individual growth and energy budget are stochastic. Journal of Theoretical Biology 264: 510-516. PDF Supplemental
5. Filin I. 2009. A diffusion-based approach to stochastic individual growth and energy budget, with consequences to life-history optimization and population dynamics. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22: 1252-1267. PDF

   I combined theoretical models and results from stochastic processes with dynamic optimization techniques in order to study optimal life-history strategies, such as optimal growth trajectories, optimal size at maturity, and optimal offspring size.

6. Scharf, I, Filin, I, Subach, A, Ovadia, O 2009. A morphological and life history comparison between desert populations of a sit-and-pursue antlion, in reference to a co-occurring pit-building antlion. Naturwissenschaften 96: 1147-1156.
7. Scharf I, Filin I, Ovadia O. 2009. A trade-off between growth and starvation endurance in a pit-building antlion. Oecologia 160: 453-460.
8. Scharf I, Filin I, Ben-Yehoshua D, Ovadia O. 2009. Phenotypic variation and plasticity in antlion populations: effect of climate on adult body size and wing loading. Zoology 112(2): 139-150.
9. Filin I, Schmitz OJ, Ovadia O. 2008. Consequences of individual size variation on the survival of an insect herbivore: An analytical model and an experimental field testing using the Red-legged Grasshopper. Journal of Orthoptera Research 17(2): 283-291. [Invited paper; Special issue on body size.] PDF
10. Filin I, Holt RD, Barfield M. 2008. The relation of density regulation to habitat specialization, evolution of a species range, and the dynamics of biological invasions. American Naturalist 172(2): 233-247. PDF Supplemental
11. Scharf I, Filin I, Golan M, Buchstav M, Subach A, Ovadia O. 2008. A comparison between desert and Mediterranean antlion populations: differences in life history and morphology. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 21: 162-172. PDF

    I applied principal component analysis and canonical discriminant analysis to find the morphological traits that best distinguish between the three developmental stages of antlion larvae. Additionally, I applied regression techniques to model larval growth, and Failure-Time Analysis to estimate rates of mortality and developmental transitions (such as molting, pupation and emergence), and how such rates vary with larval stage, body size, and population of origin.

12. Scharf I, Filin I, Ovadia O. 2008. An experimental design and a statistical analysis separating interference from exploitation competition. Population Ecology 50(3): 319-324.
13. Filin I, Ovadia O. 2007. Individual size variation and population stability in a seasonal environment: a discrete-time model and its calibration using grasshoppers. American Naturalist 170(5): 719-733. PDF Supplemental

    I used data on growth, development and survival of North American grasshoppers, in order to find how individual variation in such life-history traits affects overall population dynamics and stability. I applied regression and Failure-time analysis techniques in the statistical analysis. Additionally, I applied models for stochastic population dynamics in order to estimate effects on population stability.

14. Filin I, Ziv Y. 2004. New theory of insular evolution: unifying the loss of dispersability and body-mass change. Evolutionary Ecology Research 6:115-124. PDF

Scientific meetings and presentations

1. December 2002: Zoological Society of Israel Annual meeting 2002, Tel Aviv. “Evolution on islands: a joint explanation of loss of dispersability and body mass change.”
2. June 2004: Evolution 2004, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. “Local adaptation, range and persistence in an environmental gradient: a theoretical perspective.”
3. July 2004: GRC Metabolic Basis of Ecology, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine. “New theory of insular evolution: unifying the loss of dispersability and body-mass change.”
4. July 2004: Society of Mathematical Biology, Annual Meeting 2004, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Local adaptation, range and persistence in an environmental gradient: a theoretical perspective.”
5. January 2006: Zoological Society of Israel Annual meeting 2006, Rehovot, Israel. “Geographic paedomorphosis in a desert landsnail.”
6. June 2006: Evolution 2006, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY. “Density-regulation and the evolution of a species range: stable and quasi-stable range limits.”
7. July 2008: ECMTB08- European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK. “The relation of density regulation to habitat specialization, evolution of a species range, and the dynamics of biological invasion.”
8. April 2009: DEB2009 Symposium on Dynamic Energy Budget theory. Brest, France.
9. June 2009: 2nd Biomathematics Day, University of Helsinki. “Optimal individual structural growth when reserves dynamics is stochastic.”
10. August 2009: ESEB 12th Congress. Torino, Italy. “A diffusion-based approach to stochastic individual growth and energy budget, with consequences to life history and population dynamics.”
11. January 2010: 1st meeting on Mathematical Methods in Systems Biology (MMSB), Tel Aviv University, Israel. “A diffusion-based approach to stochastic individual growth and energy budget, with consequences to life history optimization.”
12. January 2010 Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Ben-Gurion University, Sde Boqer, Israel. “Knitting together life-history theory and evolutionary developmental biology using stochastic processes and dynamic optimization.”
13. April 2011: Colloquium talk at Department of Biology, Technion, Israel. “Stochasticity in Individual state and its consequences to population dynamics and evolution.”
14. May 2011: Colloquium talk at Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, University of Haifa, Israel. “Consequences of variation among individuals to ecological and evolutionary dynamics at the population level.”
15. July 2011: Seminar talk, IceLab Group and Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, University of Umea, Sweden. “Variation in quantitative traits and the evolution of species ranges and life cycles.”
16. April 2012: Seminar talk, Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Ben-Gurion University, Sde-Boqer, Israel. “Offspring size and number: from Smith, Fretwell and Lack to stochastic energy budgets and dynamic optimization.”