Here, we argue that metabolic regulation has evolved to maximise the organism growth rate along gradients of nutrient availability and translated this assumption into an optimality model that links CUE to substrate and organism stoichiometry. The optimal CUE is predicted to decrease with increasing substrate C-to-nutrient ratio, and increase with nutrient amendment. These predictions are generally confirmed by empirical evidence from a new database of c. 2200 CUE estimates, lending support to the hypothesis that CUE is optimised
across levels of organisation (microorganisms and animals), in aquatic and terrestrial systems, and when considering nitrogen or phosphorus as limiting nutrients.
New Paper in Ecology Letters: Optimal metabolic regulation along resource stoichiometry gradients
25.08.2017
