Stochastic Ontogenetic Allometry: The Statistical Dynamics of Relative Growth

摘要

BackgroundIn the absence of stochasticity, allometric growth throughout ontogeny is axiomatically described by the logarithm-transformed power-law model, , where and are the logarithmic sizes of two traits at any given time t. Realistically, however, stochasticity is an inherent property of ontogenetic allometry. Due to the inherent stochasticity in both and , the ontogenetic allometry coefficients, and k, can vary with t and have intricate temporal distributions that are governed by the central and mixed moments of the random ontogenetic growth functions, and . Unfortunately, there is no probabilistic model for analyzing these informative ontogenetic statistical moments.