Mechanistic insights into biology through scaling studies
Some of the most fruitful endeavours to port physical approaches to biology have involved questions of scale. Selective pressures may drive species to grow to different sizes, take on various shapes, and adopt different energetic lifestyles and behaviours, but the laws of physics provide insurmountable boundaries to what is possible, and govern both the internal workings of life, and all interactions with the external environment.
In this talk, I will discuss how scaling studies can provide insight into complex biological questions, focusing on two examples: The mechanisms which allow animals to climb on smooth inverted surfaces, and the foraging behaviour of leaf-cutter ants.