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Here is a cube. Each edge measures two inches long.
| side of cube | side*side | Area of Side | side*side*6 | Area of Cube's Surface | side*side*side | Volume | Ratio of Surface Area to Volume |
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3 to 1 |
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3 to 2 |
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3 to 3 |
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3 to 4 |
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3 to 6 |
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3 to 10 |
Let's look at the numbers here. I
notice something very odd. When the inside of the cube (the volume)
is small, the outside (the surface area) is large by comparison.
What does this mean?
In practical terms for world builders, it means that small animals, like mice, have a lot of skin on the outside compared to a small volume of bones, blood, and internal organs on the inside. So a mouse or a baby bird looses heat rapidly.
When an animal has a large interior volume (big bones, muscles, lungs, digestive system) the skin on the outside (the surface area) gets progressively smaller when it is compared to the volume inside. This means that large animals tend to maintain their temperatures and to get cooler or warmer slowly.
Let's Apply These Ideas
Single-Celled Organisms
Why are single-celled organisms so small? Look at the table above. Tiny organisms have to take in food, water, gases, and chemicals, and they have to excrete waste products. They are full of organic molecules that have to be moved around and processed. In small cells, all parts of the cell are near the cell membrane, and chemical exchanges with the environment are simplified. As single cells grow larger, the contents increase in volume, and making everything work together becomes more complex. The cell wall, the interface between the living cell and the world, does not increase in area as quickly as the volume of the cell contents. At some point, the structures and processes in the cell will become inefficient if the cell becomes too large.
A sphere is a strong, efficient shape.
Cells that are shaped like tiny bubbles contain the greatest
volume for their surface area. However, cells come in a great
variety of shapes. We have seen many cells that are shaped like
tiny rods. Rod-shaped cells will have more surface area compared
to their contents than spherical ones. However, as cells evolve
to increase their surface area, they risk becoming increasingly
fragile.
Small Animals
If you look at the table above, you can see that very small organisms have a lot of surface compared to their volumes. Small warm-blooded animals (endotherms), like mice and hummingbirds, have to eat a lot in proportion to their weights in order to keep themselves warm. In cold weather, a small animal loses heat rapidly because so much of it is in contact with the environment. It needs to eat a lot, stay in a warm area, and have good insulating fur or feathers.
On earth many small animals are cold-blooded (exothermic). Amphibians and fish, reptiles and insects, all deal with being small by metabolizing at the temperature of the environment. A small cold-blooded animal can warm up quickly on a sunlit rock, and requires little food to stay alive. This is certainly efficient. However, cold-blooded animals react more slowly than warm-blooded ones when they are cold. They need to find refuges safe from predators as the environment cools.
Large Animals 
Being large also has consequences. Large animals can hold heat well, but may have trouble getting rid of body heat in very hot weather. This is an important problem, because proteins break down if the body gets too hot, and the organism may die if overheated. Many animals have developed ways of getting rid of extra heat by sweating or panting. Elephants can dissipate heat from their large, thin ears.
There is some disagreement about whether the dinosaurs were warm blooded or cold blooded, or in some intermediate stage. A large, warm dinosaur body could probably stay warm overnight, but if it ever got really chilled, it would take a very long time to warm it up!
Being large poses problems for supporting
structures in the body. If you look at the table above you can
see that if you double the measurements and then multiply the
size by itself (this is called squaring the side, e.g.,
6*6) you certainly get more surface area. However, when you multiply
to get the volume you multiply side one by side two by
side three, e.g., 6*6*6, which is called cubing the number. Therefore
you get an important increase in volume, and weight. (We have
used cubes for our example, but irregular shapes follow the same
pattern of increase.) A larger animal needs more massive bones.
More body cells need to be nourished: that means that the animal
needs to have, and pump, more blood. It will need to enlarge
lung size, and increase digestive capacity to get the extra food
to support a larger body.
Animals adapt to their environments. Ponies are horses who have developed smaller bodies so that they can live where the pasture is sparse. The Science Series Nova has a program on the extinction of the mammoth. The last mammoths were pygmies, only three feet tall, living in an environment where there was not enough food to support their larger ancestors.
Things to Think About
A small increase in size leads to a larger increase in weight. Think about this when you are designing flying creatures.
What effect does the gravity of your planet have on the weight of your life forms? How will that affect their structure?
Remember that an environment must provide enough food to support its animals. Where would you expect to find large animals? Where would you expect only small ones?
Photograph from a Corel CD-ROM : for viewing only, not for downloading. More Information.
Copyright © 1999. Elizabeth Anne Viau and her licensors. All rights reserved. This material may be used by individuals for instructional purposes but not sold. Please inform the author if you use it at t eviau@earthlink.net