Growth scaling laws across levels of biological organization

Recent empirical research has revealed striking regularities in growth that apply from algae to elephants and across levels of organization from embryos to ecosystems. Across these very distinct systems, growth scales with mass raised to a power near ¾, suggestive of a universal dynamical process that is not well understood. I will review the ubiquity of these patterns and highlight their surprising implications in ecological and evolutionary theory. I will also outline some directions we are exploring to understand this pattern, including a simple model that could offer insight into the basic processes generating these scaling laws.