Evidence against universal metabolic allometry

1. A long-standing theoretical problem in biology is the relation between organism size M and metabolic rate Q. 2. This long history of research into such a basic pattern is due to the particular shape of the relationship: it is generally observed that the relation is well described as Q proportional to M-b where b is most often between 0.5 and 1. 3. Numerous analyses have focused on determining b using interspecific data, in particular to test whether b = (2)/(3) or b = (3)/(4). 4. Here a large amount of intraspecific data on fish are analysed, which show that b not equal(2)/(3), b not equal (3)/(4), and especially that there is no single, universal value of b.