An examination of cetacean brain structure with a novel hypothesis correlating thermogenesis to the evolution of a big brain

Article Abstract:

The aspect of cetacean brain structure is examined related to behaviour and evolution. It shows that a combination of an unusually high number of glial cells and unihemispheric sleep phenomenology make the cetacean brain an efficient thermogenetic organ, which is needed to counteract heat loss to the water and these observations provide an alternative to the widely held belief of a correlation between brain size and intelligence in cetaceans.

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Heterochrony and allometry: The analysis of evolutionary change in ontogeny

Article Abstract:

Much research has focused on the connection between development and evolution, with heterochrony being the key concept, defined as evolutionary changes in rates and timing of developmental processes. The methods of analysing heterochrony are examined, and ancestral and descendant ontogenies are compared. Allometry does not deal with time explicitly, unlike heterochrony, and two main approaches to the study of allometry are reviewed.

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Plant allometry: is there a grand unifying theory?

Article Abstract:

Allometric derivations that predict process of the annual growth in total body biomass of plant, which is partitioned to construct new leaf, stem, and root tissues at the level of an individual plan are highlighted. The predictions emerging from these derivations are then examined empirically by comparing predicted and observed truth.

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