Metabolic Scaling

"They're more like diagnostic instruments than recipes. Here's how this works in practice. In Chapter 2, you'll learn about metabolic scaling - how energy requirements change with organism size. The biological mechanism explains why cells have high metabolic rates while elephants have low o..."

"...offspring with high investment in stable environments), Y-model of energy allocation, parental investment theory, aging as deferred maintenance cost, metabolic scaling and size-dependent energy allocation, and case studies on organizational resource allocation across competing priorities (operations vs. growth vs."

"...s their weight - buoyancy eliminates the structural constraints that limit land animals. So why stop at 180 tons? Why not 300? Or 500? The answer is metabolic scaling. As body mass increases, metabolism scales to the 3/4 power (Kleiber's Law). Double the body mass, and you need 2^0.75 = 1.68× the energy, not 2×."

"...lves obey scaling laws, as we'll explore in the fractal geometry chapter. Kleiber's Law and Metabolic Theory of Ecology Max Kleiber's 3/4-power metabolic scaling has been replicated across an extraordinary range. It holds across taxonomic groups: mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, invertebrates, plants, and unice..."

"...^n. The network is fractal with dimension D ≈ 3 (fills three-dimensional space), and total vessel volume scales sublinearly with body mass (enabling metabolic scaling, Chapter 1). For symmetric branching, the optimal branching ratio is ~3:1 (parent to daughter), but asymmetric branching is common when supplying asy..."