Organism Surface Area from Volume

The function estimates surface area (m²) from volume (m³) for a variety of taxa following Mitchell (1976) .

surface_area_from_volume(V, taxon)

Arguments

V

numeric vector of volume (m³). Can be one or more values.

taxon

character taxon of organism, current choices: "lizard", "frog", "sphere".

Value

numeric surface area (m²).

Details

All models follow (SA = Ka V^2/3) with surface area and volume in meters.

• Lizards: Norris (1965) :
  
  \(Ka = 11.0\)

• Frogs: Tracy (1972) :
  
  \(Ka = 11.0\)

• Sphere: Mitchell (1976) :
  
  \(Ka = 4.83\)

References

Mitchell JW (1976). “Heat transfer from spheres and other animal forms.” Biophysical Journal, 16(6), 561-569. ISSN 0006-3495, doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(76)85711-6 .

Norris KS (1965). “Color adaptation in desert reptiles and its thermal relationships.” In Symposium on Lizard Ecology, 162- 229. U. Missouri Press.

Tracy CR (1972). “Newton's Law: Its Application for Expressing Heat Losses from Homeotherms.” BioScience, 22(11), 656-659. ISSN 0006-3568, doi:10.2307/1296267 .

See also

Other allometric functions: mass_from_length(), proportion_silhouette_area_shapes(), proportion_silhouette_area(), surface_area_from_length(), surface_area_from_mass(), volume_from_length()

Examples

  surface_area_from_volume(V     = 0.001, 
                           taxon = "lizard")
#> [1] 0.11
  surface_area_from_volume(V     = 0.001,  
                           taxon = "frog")
#> [1] 0.11
  surface_area_from_volume(V     = 0.001,  
                           taxon = "sphere")
#> [1] 0.0483