corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 104 » Issue 4
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 048702 (2010) [4 pages]

Optimal Form of Branching Supply and Collection Networks

Download: PDF (175 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Peter Sheridan Dodds*
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Center for Complex Systems, and the Vermont Advanced Computing Center, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05401, USA

Received 9 February 2009; published 27 January 2010

See accompanying Physics Focus

For the problem of efficiently supplying material to a spatial region from a single source, we present a simple scaling argument based on branching network volume minimization that identifies limits to the scaling of sink density. We discuss implications for two fundamental and unresolved problems in organismal biology and geomorphology: how basal metabolism scales with body size for homeotherms and the scaling of drainage basin shape on eroding landscapes.

© 2010 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.048702
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.048702
PACS:
89.75.Hc, 87.19.U-, 92.40.Gc

*peter.dodds@uvm.edu

 
< Previous Article | Next Article >