Abstract
Metabolic rate is commonly thought to scale with body mass (M) to the 3/4 power. However, the metabolic scaling exponent (b) may vary with activity state, as has been shown chiefly for interspecific relationships. Here I use a meta-analysis of literature data to test whether b changes with activity level within species of ectothermic animals. Data for 19 species show that b is usually higher during active exercise (mean ± 95% confidence limits = 0.918 ± 0.038) than during rest (0.768 ± 0.069). This significant upward shift in b to near 1 is consistent with the metabolic level boundaries hypothesis, which predicts that maximal metabolic rate during exercise should be chiefly influenced by volume-related muscular power production (scaling as M 1). This dependence of b on activity level does not appear to be a simple temperature effect because body temperature in ectotherms changes very little during exercise.
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Abbreviations
- b :
-
Metabolic scaling exponent (slope of log metabolic rate in relation to log body mass)
- AMR:
-
Maximal or near maximal metabolic rate during activity
- L :
-
Metabolic level or elevation of a scaling relationship
- M :
-
Live body mass
- RMR:
-
Resting or standard metabolic rate
- T B :
-
Body temperature
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Acknowledgments
I thank Shaun S. Killen for providing me with unpublished data on study temperatures and body-mass ranges for Cyclopterus lumpus L., Macrozoarces americanus (Bloch and Schneider) and Myoxocephalus scorpius (L.), Jan Ohlberger for providing me with unpublished data on active metabolic rates in relation to body mass in the vendace Coregonus albula (L.), James H. Jones, Hans Hoppeler and Ewald R. Weibel for kindly allowing me to see their unpublished data on temporal changes in metabolic rate and body temperature in running horses, and two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.
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Communicated by G. Heldmaier.
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Glazier, D.S. Activity affects intraspecific body-size scaling of metabolic rate in ectothermic animals. J Comp Physiol B 179, 821–828 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-009-0363-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-009-0363-3