Comments on: Mathematics Behind Metabolism

Mathematics Behind Metabolism

mcgraw — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:13:03 -0800

By: carmen

carmen — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:22:24 -0800

Really neat post! It's an interesting model, and I love that they've come up with an alternative to the time-based mutation clock that's yielding interesting results. I'm not sure if they are claiming that their equation accounts for biodiversity within species or if it accounts for the biodiversity of species: "Most evolutionary biologists have tended to approach biodiversity questions in terms of historical events, such as landmasses separating, Kaspari says. The idea that size and temperature are the driving forces behind biodiversity is radical, he says." Mutation isn't enough to account for a speciation event; we can't just throw out the importance of reproductive isolation. It's possible that this model would account for diversity within species (especially if small organisms tend to be more diverse), and for the speed of speciation, but not for speciation itself. I also wonder how useful this will be for pinpointing speciation if the weakness in the model occurs with similarly sized animals.

By: cyrusdogstar

cyrusdogstar — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:04:48 -0800

Nice post, mcgraw! I'm not well-versed enough in ecology or biology to further espouse on the topic like carmen did, but I still find the subject terribly interesting.

By: shoepal

shoepal — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:15:49 -0800

Fascinating stuff! Thanks, Mcgraw!

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:24:33 -0800

Really interesting. Thanks! I also wonder how useful this will be for pinpointing speciation if the weakness in the model occurs with similarly sized animals. Probably not useful at all as speciation is an incredibly vague concept.

By: Zurishaddai

Zurishaddai — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:06:25 -0800

I can't read these ideas about the mathematics and engineering of biology without thinking of D'Arcy Thompson and his great book On Growth and Form, a great example, at the same time, of profound scientific thinking expressed more literately than we've come to expect these days, and of what has looked relatively like a scientific dead-end—though Thompson's emphasis on the larger questions (rather than on the microscopic analyses that came to define the frontiers of our biological knowledge) makes it more likely that his contributions may yet be taken up as spurs to the imagination of thinkers in this area.

By: carmen

carmen — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 13:28:34 -0800

fshgrl: should I have stuck with "divergence in the phylogenetic tree?" As far as I remember, that's speciation, but I have been wrong before :) What do you think of their claim that size and temperature may be more important in explaining biodiversity than "historical events like landmasses separating"? Are they suggesting that mutations take hold in the populations of small organisms so quickly that reproductive isolation can happen without physical separation? Or are they suggesting that you can get divergence in the phylogenetic tree without reproductive isolation, in which case I'm totally floored.

By: Balisong

Balisong — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:50:43 -0800

Thanks for this!! I've been reading a lot about scaling with regards to quantum physics and especially chaos-fractals... It's good to see other sciences looking into using similar analytical tools to compare data.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 16:32:14 -0800

McGraw scores again!

By: billsaysthis

billsaysthis — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 16:45:17 -0800

McGraw scores again! But he left out the related JPEG linked to the terminal punctuation!

By: mcgraw

mcgraw — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:41:56 -0800

For your enjoyment...

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Tue, 15 Feb 2005 21:02:54 -0800

Way cool man. Thanks!