Africa: Why Are Bigger Animals More Energy-Efficient? A New Answer to a Centuries-Old Biological Puzzle

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Why Are Bigger Animals More Energy-Efficient? A New Answer to a Centuries-Old Biological Puzzle TC_Africa: Africa

While previous efforts to explain this relationship have relied on physics and geometry, we believe the real answer is evolutionary. This relationship is what maximises an animal's ability to produce offspring.The earliest explanation for the disproportionate relationship between metabolism and size was proposed nearly 200 years ago.energy metabolism should scale with surface area, rather than body mass or volume.

They argued their model offers"a theoretical, mechanistic basis for understanding the central role of body size in all aspects of biology"., they try to explain biological patterns by invoking physical and geometric constraints.Living organisms cannot defy the laws of physics. Yet evolution has proven to be remarkably good at finding ways to overcome physical and geometric constraints.

So we developed a mathematical model of how animals use energy over their lifetimes. In our model, animals devote energy to growth early in their lives and then in adulthood devote increasing amounts of energy to reproduction.

 

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