Allometry, in a broad sense, describes how phenotypic traits change with changes in overall body size. Biological variation in a large range of physiological, morphological, ecological, and life-history traits is highly correlated with variation in organism size, and the concept of allometry represents important hypotheses for understanding this trait variation.
The Allometric Model
Allometric scaling relationships are described by power functions, often referred to as allometric equations. They have the form Y = aX b, where b is the scaling exponent that describes how the trait Y relates to changes in the overall size variable X. When b = 1, traits enlarge proportionally to overall size, a case which is referred to as isometry. The shape of the organism will not change with changes in overall size if traits scale isometrically. When b≠1, the size of the trait will change in different proportions to changes in overall size, and the shape of the organism will change with changes in...
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Voje, K.L. (2017). Allometry. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1229-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1229-1
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