Allometric scaling in biological and ecological systems

Several biological variables (such as lifespan, metabolic rate, biomass production rate) were observed to depend on body mass through a simple power law, a phenomenon known as allometric scaling. Despite the bewildering diversity of living organisms, these allometric relations are typically found to hold over a range of masses spanning roughly 20 orders of magnitude. The mot famous allometric scaling law is probably Kleiber’s law, which states that the metabolic rate scales as body mass to the power 3/4. In this work, after presenting some empirical evidence of allometric scaling, I discuss some consequences of Kleiber’s law both at a level of individual organisms and whole ecosystems, in particular for forest communities. Also, a recently proposed model of oxygen consumption for in-vitro cell cultures, which aims to derive an allometric scaling relation for such constructs, is presented and discussed.