In this NSF supported project (PI, AH; co-PI's Jon Machta, U Mass and Karen Abbott, Case Western) together with postdoc Shadi Esmaeili we are using ideas based on the physics concept of universality to study the dynamics of spatial biological systems with an emphasis on ecological systems.  The image shows how a spatial ecological model (colors are local population size) mimics the 'critical' behavior of the classic Ising model from physics used to describe the behavior of magnetic materials in 2 dimensions.