UBM Group - Investigating the Mathematical Biology of Metabolic Scaling using Manduca InSTaRs (Interdisciplinary Science Training and Research)

Kenyon College, Gambier OH

Investigators

Abstract

Project Abstract - UBM Group - Investigating the Mathematical Biology of Metabolic Scaling using Manduca InSTaRs (Interdisciplinary Science Training and Research) Metabolism is ?the fire of life.? Animals take in food from their environment and transform it metabolically to fuel all living processes, including growth, maintenance, foraging, defense, and reproduction. Thus, the rate of metabolism provides a fundamental index of how fast an organism lives. Principally, we are interested in the problem of metabolic scaling; that is, how the rate of metabolism changes with the size of the organism. Across over 20 orders of magnitude in size, spanning creatures as different as bacteria and blue whales, metabolic scaling takes on a consistent mathematical form known as an allometric power law. However, we currently lack a complete explanation for why the pattern takes the form that it does. To meet this challenge, we will establish a collaborative group of undergraduate and faculty researchers in mathematical biology to study metabolic scaling in larvae of the tobacco hawkmoth, Manduca sexta, which is the familiar ?hornworm? known by many gardeners as the bane of their tomato plants. Small interdisciplinary research teams will use molecular, morphological, and physiological approaches combined with mathematical modeling and statistics to investigate factors that underpin metabolic scaling. Manduca is an ideal experimental platform for the study of metabolic scaling, because the larvae grow approximately 10,000-fold in mass in less than three weeks, without large changes in morphology or behavior. The ability to address metabolic scaling in an experimental setting provides a unique opportunity to test recent theories proposed to explain the origin of metabolic scaling, including those focused on the importance of fractal-like exchange surfaces and resource distribution networks inside organisms. Mathematical biology presents one of the most exciting interdisciplinary research frontiers of the 21st century. However, at the undergraduate level, interdisciplinary collaborations are challenged by the limited disciplinary background and ongoing cognitive development of young researchers. By convening student-faculty teams applying a diversity of biological and mathematical approaches to a common model organism, we will engage undergraduates with a wide range of interests in cutting-edge research while also helping them to develop a more integrative understanding of biological phenomena and the interface between biology and mathematics. Based on a competitive proposal review process, six biology and math majors will be grouped into teams of two or three to participate in an intensive ten-week summer research program, followed by presentations to peers, faculty, parents, and the college trustees at an autumn poster session. Throughout the academic year and summer, research team interactions will be supplemented by regular whole group meetings, which will help place team projects in the context of the larger research goals described above. Metabolic scaling provides an ideal focus for this research and training program because it involves fundamental biological processes at multiple levels of organization, from molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems, and because this fertile and active area of current research has already benefited from and advanced the integration of mathematical and biological approaches.