Welcome to James Dyke's research site

@ Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

   
 
Biospheric Theory & Modelling
Publications
Talks
   

 

Scientist: Someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.

Philosopher: Someone who knows less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything.
 

I work as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Biospheric Theory and Modelling group, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. I am partly funded by the HGF Planetary Evolution & Life project that considers under what conditions life may emerge and evolve in the universe. Prior to working at the MPI, I obtained a PhD (Dphil) in Informatics from the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robitcs at the University of Sussex. My address is:

Max-Planck-Institut fur Biogeochemie

Postfac 10 01 64

D-07701 Jena

jdyke|at|bgc-jena.mpg.de

Jim on the beach

   

 

My research centers around considering the role of life in the long-term evolution of the Earth and any other planets that feature widespread life. To that end I develop mathematical models that explore the effects of life on the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and rocks within an evolutionary, ecological and thermodynamic context. I take Vernadsky's notion of the biosphere and Lovelock's notion of Gaia to be central to this research.

 

 

 

Research Themes

   

 

Self-regulation in evolving systems Biological organisms necessarily effect their environments. Organisms eat resources and excrete waste. One species' rubbish is another's dinner and so very complex nutrient recycling networks can form. Indeed, without such networks life on Earth would be dramatically different. To what extent are these networks robust and resilient to perturbations? I work with simple mathematical models that explore under what conditions elements of the Earth system are stable or self-regulating. I am currently developing some Daisyworld-type models that exhibit self-regulation and self-stabilisation of multi- dimensional environments (one of the major limitations of other Daisyworld models is that they have extremely limiting assumptions concerning the biotic to abiotic interactions. I have shown that this may be significantly relaxed while maintaining the system's ability to respond to perturbations in such ways as to limit their impact on the entire system).

   
  Understanding the causes and consequences of biodiversity Why are there more species of plants and animals in a tropical rain forest rather than a higher latitude wood? What is the effect of inter-species interactions on diversity and how ecosystems respond to perturbations? Can we accurately predict how ecosystems will respond to perturbations such as climate change? In order to answer such questions, we must somehow tackle the challenge of the adaptive biosphere. That is, we need to acknowledge that biological evolution and adaptation can surprise us and that such surprises may have profound implications for how the future biosphere will look like. I participate in some projects that seek to develop new models and techniques that can better represent biological processes at a global scale.  
   
  Interactions between surface life and interior planetary processes I am exploring the perhaps provocative hypothesis that life on the surface of the Earth has had a profound effect not only on the atmosphere and oceans, but the crust and even geological processes occuring deep within the interior of the Earth such as mantle convection. I use concepts from non-equilibrium thermodynamics to model interacting Earth system processes. Our current hypothesis is that biologically-mediated weathering and erosion of continental rock has influenced geological processes such as oceanic crust recycling and mantle convection.
 
 
Biospheric Theory & Modelling
Publications
Talks