The Open Applied Mathematics Journal

2008, 2 : 26-30
Published online 2008 April 11. DOI: 10.2174/1874114200802010026
Publisher ID: TOAMJ-2-26

A Fractional Model for the Allometric Scaling Laws

Zhengang Zhao , Qian Guo and Changpin Li
Department of Mathematics, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, P. R. China.

ABSTRACT

From the available literature, the allometric scaling laws generally exist in biology, ecology, etc. These scaling laws obey power law distributions. A possibly better approach to characterize the power law is to utilize fractional derivatives. In this paper, we establish a fractional differential equation model for this allometry by using the Caputo fractional derivatives.

Keywords:

Biology, Allometric scaling law, Caputo fractional derivative, Fractional differential equation.