Resource acquisition in diel cycles and the cost of growing quickly
Fig 2
(A) The flowchart of the model.
The C-biomass comprises a metabolic pool (MC) and a structural core (CC). Resource, here as C-fixation, enters at a maximum rate set by Amax (per capita) and is constrained by feedback from the size of MC, as controlled by a sigmoidal term, ACu. Resources from MC are used to make CC at a maximum rate set by the maximum organism growth rate, Umax, constrained by the size of MC via sigmoidal term CCu. The resource acquisition rate is potentially higher than the core biomass production rate, hence the difference in the horizontal arrow thickness. Respiration costs are withdrawn to support catabolic (basal) and anabolic activities (see the main text for details). (B) Typical behaviour of the feedback functions ACu and CCu (defined by (Eqs 5) and (6)) plotted against the relative size of the metabolite pool R defined by (Eq 4). Full description of model parameters and model functions used is given in Table 1.