Phylogeny and metabolic scaling in mammals

Capellini, Isabella; Venditti, Chris; Barton, Robert A.

Abstract

The scaling of metabolic rates to body size is widely considered to be of great biological and ecological importance, and much attention has been devoted to determining its theoretical and empirical value. Most debate centers on whether the underlying power law describing metabolic rates is 2/3 (as predicted by scaling of surface area/volume relationships) or 3/4 ("Kleiber's law''). Although recent evidence suggests that empirically derived exponents vary among clades with radically different metabolic strategies, such as ectotherms and endotherms, models, such as the metabolic theory of ecology, depend on the assumption that there is at least a predominant, if not universal, metabolic scaling exponent. Most analyses claimed to support the predictions of general models, however, failed to control for phylogeny. We used phylogenetic generalized least-squares models to estimate allometric slopes for both basal metabolic rate (BMR) and field metabolic rate (FMR) in mammals. Metabolic rate scaling conformed to no single theoretical prediction, but varied significantly among phylogenetic lineages. In some lineages we found a 3/4 exponent, in others a 2/3 exponent, and in yet others exponents differed significantly from both theoretical values. Analysis of the phylogenetic signal in the data indicated that the assumptions of neither species-level analysis nor independent contrasts were met. Analyses that assumed no phylogenetic signal in the data (species-level analysis) or a strong phylogenetic signal (independent contrasts), therefore, returned estimates of allometric slopes that were erroneous in 30% and 50% of cases, respectively. Hence, quantitative estimation of the phylogenetic signal is essential for determining scaling exponents. The lack of evidence for a predominant scaling exponent in these analyses suggests that general models of metabolic scaling, and macro-ecological theories that depend on them, have little explanatory power.

Citation

Capellini, I., Venditti, C., & Barton, R. A. (2010). Phylogeny and metabolic scaling in mammals. Ecology, 91(9), 2783-2793. https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0817.1

• Acceptance Date: Dec 21, 2009
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 18, 2015
• Journal: Ecology
• Electronic ISSN: 0012-9658
• Publisher: Ecological Society of America
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 91
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 2783-2793
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0817.1
• Keywords: Allometry; Basal metabolic rate (BMR); Field metabolic rate (FMR); Kleiber’s law; Metabolic theory of ecology (MTE); Phylogenetic comparative analysis; Hylogenetic generalized least squares; Hylogenetically independent contrasts; Hylogeny; Power law; Sc
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/371734
• Publisher URL: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/09-0817.1
• Additional Information: Copy of article: Isabella Capellini, Chris Venditti, and Robert A. Barton 2010. Phylogeny and metabolic scaling in mammals. Ecology 91:2783–2793. Copyright by the Ecological Society of America.
• Contract Date: Mar 18, 2015