ReviewJournal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology2017
How low can you go? An adaptive energetic framework for interpreting basal metabolic rate variation in endotherms.
Review in Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Allometric scaling and social modulation of resting metabolic rate in a eusocial mammal (Heterocephalus glaber).Biology open · 2026Article
- Same species, different risks: predation shapes hormonal profiles in a breeding sea duck, the common eider.Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- Tissue-specific Thermal Acclimation in Chinese Bulbuls: Differential Physiological Response Rates to Temperature Increases.Zoological studies · 2025Article
- Energetics and Oxidative Status: Seasonal Variation in Blood Oxidative Stress Metrics in Four Species of Small Birds from a Cold Winter Climate.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Effects of sublethal methylmercury and food stress on songbird energetic performance: metabolic rates, molt and feather quality.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Rapid adaptation of cellular metabolic rate to the MicroRNA complements of mammals and its relevance to the evolution of endothermy.iScience · 2024Article
- Born in the cold: contrasted thermal exchanges and maintenance costs in juvenile and adult snow buntings on their breeding and wintering grounds.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2023Article
- Individual response in body mass and basal metabolism to the risks of predation and starvation in passerines.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Prehatching temperatures drive inter-annual cohort differences in great tit metabolism.Oecologia · 2022Article
- Energetic dissociation of individual and species ranges.Biology letters · 2022Article
- Early life neonicotinoid exposure results in proximal benefits and ultimate carryover effects.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Continuous growth through winter correlates with increased resting metabolic rate but does not affect daily energy budgets due to torpor use.Current zoology · 2021Article
- Sportive lemurs elevate their metabolic rate during challenging seasons and do not enter regular heterothermy.Conservation physiology · 2021Article
- Differential Expression of Metabolism-Related Genes in Plateau Pika (Frontiers in genetics · 2021Article
- Metabolic rate, context-dependent selection, and the competition-colonization trade-off.Evolution letters · 2020Article
- The metabolic performance predicts home range size of bank voles: a support for the behavioral-bioenergetics theory.Oecologia · 2020Article
- Consequences of being phenotypically mismatched with the environment: rapid muscle ultrastructural changes in cold-shocked black-capped chickadees (American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology · 2020Article
- The decoupled nature of basal metabolic rate and body temperature in endotherm evolution.Nature · 2019Article
- Ecological and evolutionary consequences of metabolic rate plasticity in response to environmental change.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Adaptive explanations for both high and low body mass-independent basal metabolic rate (BMR) in endotherms are pervasive in evolutionary physiology, but arguments implying a direct adaptive benefit of high BMR are troublesome from an energetic standpoint. Here, we argue that conclusions about the adaptive benefit of BMR need to be interpreted, first and foremost, in terms of energetics, with particular attention to physiological traits on which natural selection is directly acting. We further argue from an energetic perspective that selection should always act to reduce BMR (i.e., maintenance costs) to the lowest level possible under prevailing environmental or ecological demands, so that high BMR per se is not directly adaptive. We emphasize the argument that high BMR arises as a correlated response to direct selection on other physiological traits associated with high ecological or environmental costs, such as daily energy expenditure (DEE) or capacities for activity or thermogenesis. High BMR thus represents elevated maintenance costs required to support energetically demanding lifestyles, including living in harsh environments. BMR is generally low under conditions of relaxed selection on energy demands for high metabolic capacities (e.g., thermoregulation, activity) or conditions promoting energy conservation. Under these conditions, we argue that selection can act directly to reduce BMR. We contend that, as a general rule, BMR should always be as low as environmental or ecological conditions permit, allowing energy to be allocated for other functions. Studies addressing relative reaction norms and response times to fluctuating environmental or ecological demands for BMR, DEE, and metabolic capacities and the fitness consequences of variation in BMR and other metabolic traits are needed to better delineate organismal metabolic responses to environmental or ecological selective forces.
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