Adaptive explanations for both high and low body mass-independent basal metabolic rate
(BMR) in endotherms are pervasive in evolutionary physiology, but arguments implying a …

A persistent controversy has concerned the identification of the factors that influence the
quantitative variation in the physiological characters of species, an example of which is the …

The evolution of endothermy is a controversial topic in evolutionary biology, although
several hypotheses have been proposed to explain it. To a great extent, the debate has …

Mitochondrial genes are placed on one molecule, which implies that they should carry
consistent phylogenetic information. Following this advantage, we present a well-supported …

Maintenance metabolism as the minimum energy expenditure needed to maintain
homeothermy (a high and stable body temperature, T b), reflects the magnitude of metabolic …

Bird species exhibit great diversity in digestive tract morphology and enzymatic activity that
is partly correlated with the chemical composition of their natural diets. However, no studies …

Due to the higher energy requirements of birds during winter, it is predicted that the activities
of metabolic enzymes (eg, citrate synthase, CS and cytochrome C oxidase, COX) should …

Recent experiments on shorebirds have demonstrated that maintaining an active
osmoregulatory machinery is energetically expensive. This may, in part, explain diet and …

Inter-specific differences in animal defence mechanisms against toxic substances are
currently poorly understood. The ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) enzyme plays an …

The field metabolic rate (FMR) of an endothermic animal represents its energy expenditure
in a natural environment, or its energy budget, and its field water flux (FWF) reflects the …