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The von Bertalanffy growth function (VBGF), or von Bertalanffy curve, is a type of growth curve for a time series and is named after Ludwig von Bertalanffy. It is a special case of the generalised logistic function. The growth curve is used to model mean length from age in animals. The function is commonly applied in ecology to model fish growth and in paleontology to model sclerochronological parameters of shell growth.

The model can be written as the following:

${\displaystyle L(a)=L_{\infty }(1-\exp(-k(a-t_{0})))}$

where ${\displaystyle a}$ is age, ${\displaystyle k}$ is the growth coefficient, ${\displaystyle t_{0}}$ is the theoretical age when size is zero, and ${\displaystyle L_{\infty }}$ is asymptotic size. It is the solution of the following linear differential equation:

${\displaystyle {\frac {dL}{da}}=k(L_{\infty }-L)}$

Seasonally-adjusted von Bertalanffy

The seasonally-adjusted von Bertalanffy is an extension of this function that accounts for organism growth that occurs seasonally. It was created by I. F. Somers in 1988.

See also

• Gompertz function
• Monod equation
• Michaelis–Menten kinetics

References

1. Daniel Pauly; G. R. Morgan (1987). Length-based Methods in Fisheries Research. WorldFish. p. 299. ISBN 978-971-10-2228-0.
2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2005). Management Techniques for Elasmobranch Fisheries. Food & Agriculture Org. p. 93. ISBN 978-92-5-105403-1.
3. Moss, D.K.; Ivany, L.C.; Jones, D.S. (2021). "Fossil bivalves and the sclerochronological reawakening". Paleobiology. 47 (4): 551–573. doi:10.1017/pab.2021.16. S2CID 234844791.
4. John K. Carlson; Kenneth J. Goldman (5 April 2007). Special Issue: Age and Growth of Chondrichthyan Fishes: New Methods, Techniques and Analysis. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4020-5570-6.
5. Somers, I.F. (1988). "On a seasonally oscillating growth function". Fishbyte. 6 (1): 8–11.

• Growth curves
• Mathematical modeling