Figure 1

A hypothetical example of the effect of temperature change on a unicellular organism which adheres to the TSR, where M_A=adult mass (mother cell), M_P=progeny mass (daughter cell) and subscript numbers represent generation number. The organism starts at 17 °C, M_A/M_P is a fixed ratio and thus g/D is fixed too. The organism is then displaced into an environment at 25 °C (indicated by the vertical arrow), as cell size must change, the g/D ratio must become temporarily decoupled. Finally, g/D returns to a fixed state of ln2 (0.69, in this example at the fourth generation, between M_P4 and M_A4) and adult and progeny size attain an acclimated size (M_Pn to M_An).