The natural selection of metabolism and mass selects allometric transitions from prokaryotes to mammals

Lars Witting

Theoretical Population Biology, 2017, vol. 117, issue C, 23-42

Abstract: The exponents of inter-specific allometries for several life history (metabolism, lifespan, reproductive rate, survival) and ecological (population density, home range) traits may evolve from the spatial dimensionality (d) of the intra-specific interactive competition that selects net assimilated energy into mass, with 1∕4 exponents being the two-dimensional (2D) case of the more general 1∕2d (Witting, 1995). While the exponents for mass-specific metabolism cluster around the predicted -1/4 and -1/6 in terrestrial and pelagic vertebrates, the allometries of mobile organisms are more diverse than the prediction. An exponent around zero has been reported for protists and protozoa (Makarieva et al., 2005, 2008), and the exponent appears to be strongly positive in prokaryotes with a value of about 5/6 (DeLong et al., 2010).

Keywords: Evolution; Metabolism; Body mass; Life history; Allometry; Major transitions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:117:y:2017:i:c:p:23-42

DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2017.08.005

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