Publication |
2010
Abstract
One of the most interesting event in biology of the end of 20th century was the formulation of metabolic theory of biology, based on the theoretical foundation of scaling of metabolism and body size characterized by the exponent of 3/4. Several recent studies show that (1) the threequarter scaling is not universal, intraspecific scaling coefficient varying between 2/3 and 1, (2) the relationship between body size and metabolic rate is not an exact power-law but is slightly curvilinear in log-log space, and (3) the scaling coefficient in bacteria is close to 2, and in protists close to 1, indicating major evolutionary transition in metabolic scaling associated with the origin of eukaryotic cell and multicellularity.