Current Research

An apparent power-law relationship between standard metabolic rate and body mass obtains for many if not all groups of organisms. Explanations have proved elusive and current ideas are controversial. In collaboration with Lloyd Demetrius and his colleagues (Harvard University, Boston, MA and Max Planck Institute, Berlin), we are developing an account of metabolic allometry based on quantum metabolism and directionality theory. The key references are as follows.

 

Agutter PS & Wheatley DN (2004) Metabolic scaling: consensus or controversy? Theor Biol Med Model 1:13. PMID: 15546492

 

Demetrius L (2006) The origin of allometric scaling laws in biology. J Theor Biol 233, 455-467. PMID: 16989867

 

Demetrius L & Ziehe M (2007) Darwinian fitness. Theor Popul Biol 72, 323-345. PMID: 17804030

 

Demetrius L, Tuszynski JA (2010) Quantum metabolism explains the allometric scaling of metabolic rates. J R Soc Interface 7, 507-514. PMID: 19734187

 

Agutter PS & Tuszynski JA (2011) Allometric theories of metabolic scaling. J Exp Biol 214, 1055-1062. PMID: 21389188

 

Quantum metabolism (QM) is an analytic theory based on molecular-cellular processes. It shares the same mathematical formalism as the quantum theory of solids. It predicts the large variations in allometric scaling exponent found empirically and also predicts the temperature dependence of the proportionality constant, issues that have eluded alternative models based on macroscopic and network properties of organisms. It also predicts that the relationship between metabolic rate and body mass does not exactly fit a two-variable power law (the log-log plots are curved), and this is consistent with recent empirical evidence.

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