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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