Economy of organ shapes and function

This is a chapter from the free textbook "Economic Principles in Cell Biology" Among the major economical concepts that present a degree of analogy with biological systems, the question of costs and their minimization is of crucial importance. Minimizing the costs, especially at the macroscopic level of the organ, implies that this organ is constrained by one or more variables, such as nutrients availability, shape or energy consumption. By taking the lung as an example of organ development under constraints, we show that its range of function is optimized under the energy consumption constraint. Furthermore, we explore the ventilation optimization in the whole mammalian class, and show that the mechanisms governing the lung function in human can be extended, with caution and in the framework of allometric relations, to other species of mammals, all guided by the same major principles of economy