An adjacency list couples memory usage directly to the number of existing connections, whereas a matrix allocates for all potential connections. What follows from this distinction when choosing an architecture for dynamic networks?

C. List memory scales with edge growth instead of worst-case capacity

Matrix sizes depend strictly on vertex count regardless of sparsity, while lists allocate only for real edges. At extreme density, list node overhead can surpass simple tabular arrays, but edge lookup costs remain bounded by vertex degree rather than whole-graph scale.