Universal Model of Ontogenetic Growth: Substantiation and Development of Schmalhausen's Model

TL;DR

This paper generalizes Schmalhausen's ontogenetic growth model, proposing a universal power-function-based equation valid initially and throughout growth, offering new insights into allometry and biological timing.

Contribution

It develops a generalized growth model that extends Schmalhausen's original, providing a more accurate description of biological growth over the entire ontogenetic period.

Findings

The model accurately describes growth at all stages.

It offers new insights into allometry relationships.

The model relates biological time to growth dynamics.

Abstract

A hypothesis of singleness of the growth equation for biological objects on different organizational levels and dimensional analysis are used in order to substantiate Schmalhausen's model of ontogenetic growth (the mass of a growing organism is a power function of time). It is stated that such a model is valid only in the initial period of growth. For the whole period of growth, a generalization of Schmalhausen's model is advanced; it provides the same accuracy as previously known models of quantitative description of kinetic curves. Within the scope of the developed model, a number of interesting results related to an allometry and biological time are obtained.