Essay Database

Scaling is described as the structural and functional consequences of changes in size and scale among otherwise similar organisms. What this means is that similar organisms are affected differently by the influence of gravity, depending on their size. If an animal was doubled in size, then spherical body of the larger animal would have twice the radius of the smaller original. The volume of a sphere is (4π/3)r3 and the surface area of a …

…cross sectional area, and thus total strength, as the original. That means the pressure on the legs increases 100 times. The animal's bones would probably break and it would die. In these few examples we can see that evolution is greatly limited by scaling. We can be reassured that it would be impossible for some sci-fi mutation to occur in which insects become 1,000 times their normal size due to the physical effects of scaling on organisms.