Evidence for a maintenance cost for birds maintaining highly flexible basal, but not summit, metabolic rates.

ABSTRACT: Reversible phenotypic flexibility allows organisms to better match phenotypes to prevailing environmental conditions and may produce fitness benefits. Costs and constraints of phenotypic flexibility may limit the capacity for flexible responses but are not well understood nor documented. Costs could include expenses associated with maintaining the flexible system or with generating the flexible response. One potential cost of maintaining a flexible system is an energetic cost reflected in the basal metabolic rate (BMR), with elevated BMR in individuals with more flexible metabolic responses. We accessed data from thermal acclimation studies of birds where BMR and/or M_sum (maximum cold-induced metabolic rate) were measured before and after acclimation, as a measure of metabolic f

SUBMITTER: Swanson DL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10238479 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature