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Evolutionary drivers and constraints of growth laws

Identify the evolutionary drivers behind empirical growth laws and quantify the constraints these laws impose on cellular physiology and adaptation across diverse environments and species.

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Background

While empirical growth laws are robust across conditions, their evolutionary origins and constraints are not established. The authors call for understanding why such laws emerge and persist.

Addressing this question would bridge physiological models with evolutionary theory, explaining observed trade-offs and resource-allocation strategies.

References

Many open questions remain, e.g.: Which regulatory mechanisms determine responses in fluctuating or stressful environments? To what extent are growth laws conserved across organisms? Can we integrate growth laws for population averages with single-cell observations to uncover new complexities? Can the framework developed for describing physiology be extended to ecologically interacting organisms? What are the evolutionary drivers behind these laws, and what constraints do they impose? We believe these questions will drive many of the future advances in quantitative biology.

— The Hands-On Growth Laws Theory Cookbook (2507.19194 - Droghetti et al., 25 Jul 2025) in Section 1, A Brief Introduction to Growth laws (Where is the frontier?)