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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

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

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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
  • 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.

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