Researchers: Spence Behmer, Fiona Clissold, Kwang Pum Lee,
David Mayntz, David Raubenheimer, and Steve Simpson

This research aims to derive hypotheses about the relative reliance of animals, including humans, on behavioural and post-ingestive processes that allow nutrient balance under differing distributions and compositions of foods. Our work is based on a set of state-space models known as the Geometric Framework (GF), which was derived from work on insects but has provided new insights in vertebrate nutrition, most notably the human obesity epidemic. A simple overview and introduction to the GF can be found in...

• Unravelling the tangle of nutritional complexity. David Raubenheimer and Stephen Simpson [pdf]

• The geometry of human nutrition. Stephen Simpson and David Raubenheimer [pdf]

Key Publications:

Maklakov, A.A., Simpson, S. J., Zajitschek, F., Hall, M., Dessman, J., Clissold, F., Raubenheimer, D., Bonduriansky, R. and Brooks, R. C. (2008). Sex-specific fitness effects of nutrient intake on reproduction and lifespan. Current Biology (in press, June 2008).

Cheng, K., Simpson, S.J. and Raubenheimer, D. (2008). A geometry of regulatory scaling. The American Naturalist (in press, May 2008).

Lee, K.P., Simpson, S.J., Clissold, F.J., Brooks, R., Ballard, J.W.O., Taylor, P.W., Soran, N. and Raubenheimer, D. (2008). Lifespan and reproduction in Drosophila: new insights from nutritional geometry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 105, 2498-2503.

Sørensen, A., Mayntz, D., Raubenheimer, D. and Simpson, S.J. (2008). Protein leverage in mice: geometry of macronutrient balancing and consequences for fat deposition. Obesity 16, 566-571.

Raubenheimer, D., Mayntz, D., Simpson, S.J. and Toft, S. (2007). Nutrient specific compensation following overwintering diapause in a generalist predatory invertebrate: implications for intraguild predations. Ecology 88, 2598-2608.

Warbrick-Smith, J., Behmer, S.T., Lee, K-P.,Raubenheimer, D. and Simpson, S.J. (2006). Evolving resistance to obesity in an insect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 103, 14045-14049.

Simpson, S.J., Sword, G.A., Lorch, P.D. and Couzin, I.D. (2006). Cannibal crickets on a forced march for protein and salt. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 103, 4152-4156.

Mayntz, D., Raubenheimer, D., Salomon, M., Toft, S. and Simpson, S.J. (2005). Nutrient-specific foraging in invertebrate predators. Science 307, 111-113.

Simpson, S.J. and Raubenheimer, D. (2005). Obesity: the protein leverage hypothesis. Obesity Reviews, 6, 133-142.

Simpson, S.J., Sibly, R.M., Lee, K., Behmer, S.T. and Raubenheimer, D. (2004). Optimal foraging when regulating the intake of multiple nutrients.Animal Behaviour 68, 1299-1311.

Raubenheimer, D. and Simpson, S.J. (2004). Organismal stoichiometry: quantifying non-independence among food components. Ecology 85, 1203-1216.