In contrast, the arguments for a scaling factor are based on resource transport network models, where the limiting resources are distributed via some optimized network to all resource consuming cells or organelles. These models are based on the assumption that metabolism is proportional to the rate at which an organism's distribution networks (such as circulatory systems in animals or xylem and phloem in plants) deliver nutrients and energy to body tissues. Larger organisms are necessarily less efficient because more resource is in transport at any one time than in smaller organisms: size of the organism and length of the network imposes an inefficiency due to size. It therefore takes somewhat longer for large organisms to distribute nutrients throughout the body and thus they have a slower mass-specific metabolic rate. An organism that is twice as large cannot metabolize twice the energy—it simply has to run more slowly because more energy and resources are wasted being in transport, rather than being processed. Nonetheless, natural selection appears to have minimized this inefficiency by favoring resource transport networks that maximize rate of delivery of resources to the end points such as cells and organelles. This selection to maximize metabolic rate and energy dissipation results in the allometric exponent that tends to "D"/("D+1"), where "D" is the primary dimension of the system. A three dimensional system, such as an individual, tends to scale to the 3/4 power, whereas a two dimensional network, such as a river network in a landscape,tends to scale to the 2/3 power.