The theory provides constraints on the metabolic organization of sub-cellular processes. Together with rules for interaction between individuals, it also provides a basis to understand population and ecosystem dynamics. The theory, therefore, links various levels of biological organization. It applies to all species of organisms and offers explanations to body-size scaling relationships of natural history parameters that are difficult to understand otherwise.
A considerable number of popular empirical models turn out to be special cases of the DEB model, or very close numerical approximations. Strong and weak homeostasis and the partionability of reserve kinetics are cornerstones of the theory and essential to understand the evolution of metabolic organization.