On Tuesday, December 15 at 11h, Cristina Fernández, a predoctoral researcher in the Biological Oceanography Group of CIM-UVigo, will present, within the “Café con Sal” series, the lecture Size matters, at least speaking about phytoplankton.
Why does it matter whether a cell is large or small? For more than a century, size has concerned the scientific community so much that, even today, we still cannot answer that question with certainty. However, there are factors that determine the preference for one size or another, such as heat loss, predation, or food acquisition. All of them combined describe the reactions and metabolic rates of each organism.
At the beginning of the 30, a Swiss biologist named Max Kleiber established a rule that has endured to this day as a cornerstone of biology. Kleiber’s rule states that the metabolic rate of an organism is proportional to its size raised to the power of 3/4, so that if an organism doubles its size, its metabolic rate will not double but will increase somewhat less. This rule has been verified for a large number of species, but it remains a great enigma for one of the smallest groups of organisms we know: phytoplankton.
The conference will be held virtually and will be broadcast live through the Remote Campus of the University of Vigo. To access, follow the following instructions:
- Click the access URL to the virtual room “S00-Auditorio Principal”: https://campusremotouvigo.gal/access/public/meeting/928607699
- Access as a student using the following password: 6rAsLWyz
- Select the access mode with microphone and keep it muted until the Q&A session.
The presentation will be permanently available on the CIM-UVigo and UVigoTV websites and channels.
