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Phenotypic flexibility in basal metabolic rate and the changing view of avian physiological diversity: a review
  • A. McKechnie
  • Biology, Environmental Science
    Journal of Comparative Physiology B
  • 1 March 2008
TLDR
The within-individual variation observed in avian BMR demands a critical re-examination of approaches used for comparisons across taxa, and hypotheses concerning metabolic adaptation should explicitly account for phenotypic flexibility.
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AVIAN FACULTATIVE HYPOTHERMIC RESPONSES: A REVIEW
TLDR
It is argued that emphasis should be placed on understanding the relationship between metabolic and Tb reduction and the capacity to respond to external stimuli and the role of torpor should be put on understanding.
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Climate change increases the likelihood of catastrophic avian mortality events during extreme heat waves
TLDR
A model of avian evaporative water requirements and survival times during the hottest part of day reveals that the predicted increases in maximum air temperatures will result in large fractional increases in water requirements (in small birds, equivalent to 150–200 % of current values), which will severely reduce survival time during extremely hot weather.
View on Royal Society
The Allometry of Avian Basal Metabolic Rate: Good Predictions Need Good Data
TLDR
The analyses using a data set that included only BMR with n ≥ 3 were consistent with the conclusion that BMR does not differ between passerine and nonpasserine birds after taking phylogeny into account.
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Avian seasonal metabolic variation in a subtropical desert: basal metabolic rates are lower in winter than in summer
The work was facilitated by funding from the DST ⁄ NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute to AEM.
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Phenotypic plasticity in the scaling of avian basal metabolic rate
TLDR
The results reveal that phenotypic plasticity is a major contributor to avian interspecific metabolic variation, and the finding that metabolic scaling in birds is partly determined by environmental factors provides further support for models that predict variation in scaling exponents, such as the allometric cascade model.
View on Royal Society
Adaptive thermoregulation in endotherms may alter responses to climate change.
TLDR
There is, in fact, considerable variation in the ability of endotherms to tolerate high body temperatures and/or high environmental temperatures, but a better understanding of this variation will likely be critical for predicting responses to future climatic scenarios.
View on PubMed
Sources and significance of variation in basal, summit and maximal metabolic rates in birds
TLDR
The understanding of avian metabolic diversity would benefit from future studies of the functional and mechanistic links between lower and upper limits of metabolic power output, the environmental and ecological cues driving phenotypically flexible metabolic responses, and how responses to such cues might impact population responses to climate change.
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Phenotypic flexibility in the basal metabolic rate of laughing doves: responses to short-term thermal acclimation
TLDR
The within-individual BMR variation of up to 26% that is observed in laughing doves reveals that BMR is a highly flexible trait in this species, and reiterates the need to take phenotypic plasticity into account in comparative analyses of avian energetic parameters.
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Environment, Migratory Tendency, Phylogeny and Basal Metabolic Rate in Birds
TLDR
The findings indicate that migratory tendency need not necessarily be invoked to explain the higher BMR of migrants, and a weaker phylogenetic signal observed in migrants supports the notion of strong phenotypic flexibility in this group which facilitates migration-related BMR adjustments that occur above and beyond environmental conditions.
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