Biology 599 - Scaling in Biology
Course materials:
          syllabus
          scaling data

Texts:
Schmidt-Nielsen, K. (1984) Scaling: Why is animal size so important? Cambridge      University Press. 241 pp.


Date
Discussion Leader
Topic
Readings
April 6
Deb
Organization, topics

April 13
Deb
Mathematics and statistics of scaling Schmidt-Nielsen Ch. 1-3
April 20
Deb
Body size, metabolism, and the universal scaling laws Schmidt-Nielsen, Ch 6-7

White, C.R. & R.S. Seymour. 2005. Allometric scaling of mammalian metabolism.  J. Exp. Biol. 208:1611-1619.  JEB website

West, G.B. & J.H. Brown. 2004. Life’s universal scaling laws.  Physics Today 57:36-42.

Darveau, C.-A., R.K. Suarez, R.D. Andrews, & P.W. Hochachka. 2002. Allometric cascade as a unifying principle of body mass effects on metabolism. Nature 417: 166-170.
April 27
Deb
Biomechanics
Schmidt-Nielsen, Ch. 5

Biewener, A.A. (2005) Biomechanical consequences of scaling. J. Exp. Biol. 208: 1665-1676. JEB website

Niklas, K.J. and H.-C. Spatz. 2004. Growth and hydraulic (not mechanical) constraints govern the scaling of tree height and mass. PNAS. 101: 15661-15663.

Denny, M.W. 1999. Are there mechanical limits to size in wave-swept organisms? J. Exp. Biol. 202: 3463-3467.
May 4

Avram
Reproduction
Calder book, Ch. 9 pp. 245-251.

Brown, G.P. and R. Shine. 2007.  Rain, prey, and predators: climatically driven shifts in forg abundance modify reporductive allometry in snakes. Oecologia. 154: 361-368.

Kratochvil, L. and L. Kubicka. 2007. Why reduce clutch size to one or two eggs? Reproductive allometries reveal different evolutionary causes of invariant clutch size in lizards.  Functional Ecology. 21: 171-177.
May 11

Ginny

Otto, S.B., B.C. Rall and U. Brose. 2007. Allometric degree distributions facilitate food-web stability. Nature 450: 1226-1230.

Blanchard, J.L., S. Jennings, R. Law, M.D. Castle, P. McCloghrie, M.-J. Rochet and E. Benoit. 2009. How does abundance scale with body size in coupled size-structured food webs? J. Anim. Ecol. 78: 270-280.

Woodward, G., B. Ebenman, M. Emmerson, J.M. Montoya, J.M. Olesen, A. Valido, and P.H. Warren. 2006. Body size in ecological networks. TREE 20: 402-409.
May18

Deb

Scaling assignment - morphological and metabolic scaling of the limpet Acmea mitra.

TBA



Holiday
June 1
Kelley

Koehl, M.A.R. 2001. Transitions in function at low Reynolds number: hair-bearing appendages. Math. Meth. Appl. Sci. 24: 1523-1532.

Kingsolver, J.G. and M.A.R. Koehl. 1985. Aerodynamics, thermoregulation, and the evolution of insect wings: differential scaling and evolutionary change. Evolution 39: 488-504.

Glasheen, J.W. and T.A. McMahon. 1996. Size-dependence of water-running ability in basilisk lizards (Basilicus basilicus). J. Exp. Biol. 199: 2611-2618.