Is West, Brown and Enquist's model of allometric scaling mathematically correct and biologically relevant?

Kozłowski, Jan; Konarzewski, Marek

doi:10.1111/j.0269-8463.2004.00830.x

Cited by 269 publications

(239 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…17 But this work largely ignores the fact that exponents of 0.75 have never been an established feature of the empirical database. Indeed, more recent empirical work has established that, once phylogenetic effects are accounted for (in other words, effects due to a shared evolutionary origin), the most parsimonious exponent is strongly dependent on the group being studied, [18][19][20] and there is no uniform scaling exponent -be it 0.66 or 0.75 -for either basal or maximal metabolic rate. 21 This widespread confusion over the most appropriate method for 'correcting' estimates of metabolism for body weight differences has led to a diversity of different approaches in the literature, which is replete with estimates of metabolism divided by body weight, or divided by 'metabolic weight', which is weight raised to 0.66 or weight raised to 0.75.…”

Section: Comparison Of Energy Expenditure In Lean and Obese Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some mathematical and technical issues in the measurement and interpretation of open-circuit indirect calorimetry in small animals

et al. 2006

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Indirect calorimetry is increasingly used to investigate why compounds or genetic manipulations affect body weight or composition in small animals. This review introduces the principles of indirect (primarily open-circuit) calorimetry and explains some common misunderstandings. It is not widely understood that in open-circuit systems in which carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is not removed from the air leaving the respiratory chamber, measurement of airflow out of the chamber and its oxygen (O 2 ) content paradoxically allows a more reliable estimate of energy expenditure (EE) than of O 2 consumption. If the CO 2 content of the exiting air is also measured, both O 2 consumption and CO 2 production, and hence respiratory quotient (RQ), can be calculated. Respiratory quotient coupled with nitrogen excretion allows the calculation of the relative combustion of the macronutrients only if measurements are over a period where interconversions of macronutrients that alter their pool sizes can be ignored. Changes in rates of O 2 consumption and CO 2 production are not instantly reflected in changes in the concentrations of O 2 and CO 2 in the air leaving the respiratory chamber. Consequently, unless air-flow is high and chamber size is small, or rates of change of O 2 and CO 2 concentrations are included in the calculations, maxima and minima are underestimated and will appear later than their real times. It is widely appreciated that bigger animals with more body tissue will expend more energy than smaller animals. A major issue is how to compare animals correcting for such differences in body size. Comparison of the EE or O 2 consumption per gram body weight of lean and obese animals is misleading because tissues vary in their energy requirements or in how they influence EE in other ways. Moreover, the contribution of fat to EE is lower than that of lean tissue. Use of metabolic mass for normalisation, based on interspecific scaling exponents (0.75 or 0.66), is similarly flawed. It is best to use analysis of covariance to determine the relationship of EE to body mass or fat-free mass within each group, and then test whether this relationship differs between groups.

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Section: Comparison Of Energy Expenditure In Lean and Obese Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some mathematical and technical issues in the measurement and interpretation of open-circuit indirect calorimetry in small animals

et al. 2006

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“…Thus, they concluded that plants do not differ from animals in terms of scaling of population density with respect to body mass, confirming the prediction of their general mechanistic model of resource use in fractal-like branching networks (West et al 1997). This model, however, has met an increasing number of criticisms claiming that it is mathematically flawed and empirically unwarranted (e.g., Magnani 1999, Bokma 2004, Cyr and Walker 2004, Kozlowski and Konarzewski 2004. Nevertheless, allometric scaling, as a general approach, remains useful, and its rule in spatial scaling is discussed below.…”

Section: Biological Allometrymentioning

confidence: 74%

Perspectives and Methods of Scaling

2006

Scaling and Uncertainty Analysis in Ecology

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“…[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The WBE and MTE have been received with both great enthusiasm and intense criticism, both theoretically and empirically. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28] Nevertheless, it provides the most internally consistent mathematical structure and it offers an over-arching set of predictions that, on average, have received support.…”

Section: The Metabolic Theory Of Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Kleiber's Law: How the Fire of Life ignited debate, fueled theory, and neglected plants as model organisms

Niklas¹,

Kutschera

2015

Plant Signaling & Behavior

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Size is a key feature of any organism since it influences the rate at which resources are consumed and thus affects metabolic rates. In the 1930s, size-dependent relationships were codified as "allometry" and it was shown that most of these could be quantified using the slopes of log-log plots of any 2 variables of interest. During the decades that followed, physiologists explored how animal respiration rates varied as a function of body size across taxa. The expectation was that rates would scale as the 2/3 power of body size as a reflection of the Euclidean relationship between surface area and volume. However, the work of Max Kleiber (1893Kleiber ( -1976 and others revealed that animal respiration rates apparently scale more closely as the 3/4 power of body size. This phenomenology, which is called "Kleiber's Law," has been described for a broad range of organisms, including some algae and plants. It has also been severely criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds. Here, we review the history of the analysis of metabolism, which originated with the works of Antoine L. Lavoisier (1743-1794) and Julius Sachs (1832-1897), and culminated in Kleiber's book The Fire of Life (1961; 2. ed. 1975). We then evaluate some of the criticisms that have been leveled against Kleiber's Law and some examples of the theories that have tried to explain it. We revive the speculation that intracellular exo-and endocytotic processes are resource delivery-systems, analogous to the supercellular systems in multicellular organisms. Finally, we present data that cast doubt on the existence of a single scaling relationship between growth and body size in plants.

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Is West, Brown and Enquist's model of allometric scaling mathematically correct and biologically relevant?

Cited by 269 publications

References 33 publications

Some mathematical and technical issues in the measurement and interpretation of open-circuit indirect calorimetry in small animals

Some mathematical and technical issues in the measurement and interpretation of open-circuit indirect calorimetry in small animals

Perspectives and Methods of Scaling

Kleiber's Law: How the Fire of Life ignited debate, fueled theory, and neglected plants as model organisms

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