The Fourth Dimension of Life: Fractal Geometry and Allometric Scaling of Organisms

Geoffrey B. West, James H. Brown and Brian J. Enquist

Working Papers from Santa Fe Institute

Abstract: The existence of fractal-like networks effectively endows life with an additional fourth spatial dimension. This is the origin of quarter-power scaling which is so pervasive in biology. Organisms have evolved hierarchical networks which terminate in invariant units, such as capillaries, leaves, mitochondria, and oxidase molecules, which are independent of organism size. Natural selection has tended to maximize both metabolic capacity by maximizing the scaling of exchange surface areas, and internal efficiency by minimizing the scaling of transport distances and times. These design principles are independent of detailed dynamics and explicit models and should apply to virtually all organisms.

Keywords: Allometry; fractal geometry; scaling in biology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:safiwp:99-07-047

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Santa Fe Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Krichel ().