Mean mass-specific metabolic rates are strikingly similar across life's major domains: Evidence for life's metabolic optimum.

ABSTRACT: A fundamental but unanswered biological question asks how much energy, on average, Earth's different life forms spend per unit mass per unit time to remain alive. Here, using the largest database to date, for 3,006 species that includes most of the range of biological diversity on the planet-from bacteria to elephants, and algae to sapling trees-we show that metabolism displays a striking degree of homeostasis across all of life. We demonstrate that, despite the enormous biochemical, physiological, and ecological differences between the surveyed species that vary over 10(20)-fold in body mass, mean metabolic rates of major taxonomic groups displayed at physiological rest converge on a narrow range from 0.3 to 9 W kg(-1). This 30-fold variation among life's disparate forms represents a rema

SUBMITTER: Makarieva AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2572558 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature