These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Shifts in metabolic demands in growing altricial nestlings illustrate context-specific relationships between basal metabolic rate and body composition.
    Author: Vézina F, Love OP, Lessard M, Williams TD.
    Journal: Physiol Biochem Zool; 2009; 82(3):248-57. PubMed ID: 19341350.
    Abstract:
    Basal metabolic rate (BMR) in animals is interpreted as reflecting the size and metabolic intensity of energy-consuming tissues. However, studies investigating relationships between the mass of specific organs and interindividual variation in BMR have produced inconsistent patterns with regard to which organs have the largest impact on BMR variation. Because of the known flexibility in organ mass and metabolic intensity within individual organs, relationships between BMR and body-composition variables are bound to be context specific. Altricial nestlings are excellent models to illustrate this phenomenon because of the extreme variation in body composition occurring during growth. Using European starlings at three age classes, we studied changes in body composition together with its effect on variation in resting metabolic rate (RMR) in order to highlight the context-specific nature of these relationships. Our data suggest a transition in metabolic costs during growth in starling nestlings. During the linear phase of growth, energy is mainly consumed by tissue-synthesis processes, with fast-growing organs having a large influence on RMR. In the plateau phase of growth, the energy expenditure is transferred to functional costs, with high-intensity organs having a predominant effect on RMR variation. Our data illustrates the context-specific nature of organ mass-metabolic rate correlations, which complicates inter- and intraspecific comparisons of BMR. In the future, such comparisons must be done while taking the physiological state of the study animal into account.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]