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Metabolic rate covaries with fitness and the pace of the life history in the field

Pettersen, Amanda K. LU orcid ; White, Craig R. and Marshall, Dustin J. (2016) In Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283(1831).
Abstract

Metabolic rate reflects the ‘pace of life’ in every organism. Metabolic rate is related to an organism’s capacity for essential maintenance, growth and reproduction-all of which interact to affect fitness. Although thousands of measurements of metabolic rate have been made, the microevolutionary forces that shape metabolic rate remain poorly resolved. The relationship between metabolic rate and components of fitness are often inconsistent, possibly because these fitness components incompletely map to actual fitness and often negatively covary with each other. Here we measure metabolic rate across ontogeny and monitor its effects on actual fitness (lifetime reproductive output) for a marine bryozoan in the field.We also measure key... (More)

Metabolic rate reflects the ‘pace of life’ in every organism. Metabolic rate is related to an organism’s capacity for essential maintenance, growth and reproduction-all of which interact to affect fitness. Although thousands of measurements of metabolic rate have been made, the microevolutionary forces that shape metabolic rate remain poorly resolved. The relationship between metabolic rate and components of fitness are often inconsistent, possibly because these fitness components incompletely map to actual fitness and often negatively covary with each other. Here we measure metabolic rate across ontogeny and monitor its effects on actual fitness (lifetime reproductive output) for a marine bryozoan in the field.We also measure key components of fitness throughout the entire life history including growth rate, longevity and age at the onset of reproduction.We found that correlational selection favours individuals with higher metabolic rates in one stage and lower metabolic rates in the other-individuals with similar metabolic rates in each developmental stage displayed the lowest fitness. Furthermore, individuals with the lowest metabolic rates lived for longer and reproduced more, but they also grew more slowly and took longer to reproduce initially. That metabolic rate is related to the pace of the life history in nature has long been suggested by macroevolutionary patterns but this study reveals the microevolutionary processes that probably generated these patterns.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Fitness, Longevity, Metabolism, Ontogeny, Reproduction, Selection
in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
volume
283
issue
1831
article number
20160323
pages
8 pages
publisher
Royal Society Publishing
external identifiers
  • scopus:84969759610
  • pmid:27226476
ISSN
0962-8452
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2016.0323
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
d54e61ef-86e7-4275-b0de-4358464deacf
date added to LUP
2018-06-13 09:10:19
date last changed
2024-02-13 21:53:01
@article{d54e61ef-86e7-4275-b0de-4358464deacf,
  abstract     = {{<p>Metabolic rate reflects the ‘pace of life’ in every organism. Metabolic rate is related to an organism’s capacity for essential maintenance, growth and reproduction-all of which interact to affect fitness. Although thousands of measurements of metabolic rate have been made, the microevolutionary forces that shape metabolic rate remain poorly resolved. The relationship between metabolic rate and components of fitness are often inconsistent, possibly because these fitness components incompletely map to actual fitness and often negatively covary with each other. Here we measure metabolic rate across ontogeny and monitor its effects on actual fitness (lifetime reproductive output) for a marine bryozoan in the field.We also measure key components of fitness throughout the entire life history including growth rate, longevity and age at the onset of reproduction.We found that correlational selection favours individuals with higher metabolic rates in one stage and lower metabolic rates in the other-individuals with similar metabolic rates in each developmental stage displayed the lowest fitness. Furthermore, individuals with the lowest metabolic rates lived for longer and reproduced more, but they also grew more slowly and took longer to reproduce initially. That metabolic rate is related to the pace of the life history in nature has long been suggested by macroevolutionary patterns but this study reveals the microevolutionary processes that probably generated these patterns.</p>}},
  author       = {{Pettersen, Amanda K. and White, Craig R. and Marshall, Dustin J.}},
  issn         = {{0962-8452}},
  keywords     = {{Fitness; Longevity; Metabolism; Ontogeny; Reproduction; Selection}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{05}},
  number       = {{1831}},
  publisher    = {{Royal Society Publishing}},
  series       = {{Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences}},
  title        = {{Metabolic rate covaries with fitness and the pace of the life history in the field}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0323}},
  doi          = {{10.1098/rspb.2016.0323}},
  volume       = {{283}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}