Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Size and power in mammals.

A A Heusner1

  • 1Department of Physiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis 95616.

The Journal of Experimental Biology
|October 1, 1991
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Evaluation of serum fructosamine concentration as an index of blood glucose control in cats with diabetes mellitus.

American journal of veterinary research·1992
Same author

Relation of fructosamine to serum protein, albumin, and glucose concentrations in healthy and diabetic dogs.

American journal of veterinary research·1992
Same author

Body mass, maintenance and basal metabolism in dogs.

The Journal of nutrition·1991
Same author

A theory of similitude may predict a metabolic mass exponent.

The American journal of physiology·1988
Same author

What does the power function reveal about structure and function in animals of different size?

Annual review of physiology·1987
Same author

Log-normal variation belts for growth curves.

Biometrics·1986

Basal metabolic rate in mammals scales with body mass. While the 2/3 exponent is explained by dimensional theory, the mass coefficient

Area of Science:

  • Comparative physiology
  • Metabolic scaling
  • Allometry

Background:

  • Basal metabolism (P) in mammals is known to scale with body mass (M) as a power function (P = aMb).
  • The mass exponent (b) is consistently found to be approximately 2/3 across many studies.
  • Understanding the factors influencing this relationship is crucial in comparative physiology.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze the relationship between basal metabolism and body mass in 391 mammalian species.
  • To investigate the physiological significance of the mass exponent and mass coefficient.
  • To identify the central question in comparative physiology regarding metabolic scaling.

Main Methods:

  • Least-squares regression analysis
  • Robust regression analysis

Related Experiment Videos

  • Covariance analyses
  • Analysis of 391 mammalian species data

    • Main Results:

    • The mass-scaling relationship is confirmed as a power function: P = aMb.
    • The mass exponent (b) was determined to be 0.678 ± 0.007.
    • Measurement theory explains the 2/3 mass exponent through dimensional relationships between mass and power.

    Conclusions:

    • The 2/3 mass exponent is a consequence of dimensional constraints and not the primary physiological question.
    • The location of the metabolic regression line, determined by the mass coefficient (a), is the key factor requiring explanation.
    • Explaining the variation in the mass coefficient remains the central challenge in comparative physiology.