Understanding stoichiometric constraints on growth using resource use efficiency imbalances.

ABSTRACT: Growth is a function of the net accrual of resources by an organism. Energy and elemental contents of organisms are dynamically linked through their uptake and allocation to biomass production, yet we lack a full understanding of how these dynamics regulate growth rate. Here, we develop a multivariate imbalance framework, the growth efficiency hypothesis, linking organismal resource contents to growth and metabolic use efficiencies, and demonstrate its effectiveness in predicting consumer growth rates under elemental and food quantity limitation. The relative proportions of carbon (%C), nitrogen (%N), phosphorus (%P), and adenosine triphosphate (%ATP) in consumers differed markedly across resource limitation treatments. Differences in their resource composition were linked to systematic ch

SUBMITTER: Prater C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11087777 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature