“…Like most bivalves, surfclam adult size is dependent on the relative rates of respiration and ingestion; both are temperature controlled. In bivalves, respiration typically scales as the cube of the length (Powell & Stanton 1985, Freitas et al 2009, Powell et al 2015b, whereas ingestion, which is a function of the two-dimensional surface of the gill, tends to scale as the square of the length (Powell et al 1992, Hofmann et al 2006, van der Meer 2006. This differential scaling produces physiological challenges for large-sized bivalves; at some point, ingestion is just able to meet respiratory demands and, perhaps, reproduction, and at that point, growth ceases.…”