Data compilation of respiration, feeding, and growth rates of marine pelagic organisms@en

The metabolic rate of organisms may either be viewed as a basic property from which other vital rates and many ecological patterns emerge and that follows a universal allometric mass scaling law; or it may be considered a property of the organism that emerges as a result of the organism's adaptation to the environment, with consequently less universal mass scaling properties. Data on body mass, maximum ingestion and clearance rates, respiration rates and maximum growth rates of animals living in the ocean epipelagic were compiled from the literature, mainly from original papers but also from previous compilations by other authors. Data were read from tables or digitized from graphs. Only measurements made on individuals of know size, or groups of individuals of similar and known size were included. We show that clearance and respiration rates have life-form-dependent allometries that have similar scaling but different elevations, such that the mass-specific rates converge on a rather narrow size-independent range. In contrast, ingestion and growth rates follow a near-universal taxa-independent ~3/4 mass scaling power law. We argue that the declining mass-specific clearance rates with size within taxa is related to the inherent decrease in feeding efficiency of any particular feeding mode. The transitions between feeding mode and simultaneous transitions in clearance and respiration rates may then represent adaptations to the food environment and be the result of the optimization of tradeoffs that allow sufficient feeding and growth rates to balance mortality.生物体的代谢率（metabolic rate）既可被视为一项基础属性，其他生命速率与诸多生态格局均由其衍生而来，且遵循普适性异速质量缩放定律（allometric mass scaling law）；也可被看作生物体适应环境所涌现出的属性，因此其质量缩放特性的普适性相对较弱。本数据集汇编了来自文献的海洋上层带（ocean epipelagic）动物的相关数据，涵盖体重（body mass）、最大摄食率（maximum ingestion rate）、清滤率（clearance rate）、呼吸率（respiration rate）与最大生长率（maximum growth rate），数据来源以原始研究论文为主，同时也参考了其他学者此前的汇编成果。数据均从表格中摘录，或从图表数字化提取，仅纳入针对已知个体大小的单个个体，或尺寸相近且个体大小已知的群体的测量数据。本研究表明，清滤率与呼吸率存在依赖于生活型（life-form）的异速关系：二者的缩放指数相近，但截距存在差异，最终使得质量比速率（mass-specific rates）收敛于一个相对狭窄的、与体型无关的区间内；与之相反，摄食率与生长率遵循近乎普适、与类群（taxa）无关的约3/4次幂质量缩放幂律。我们认为，同一类群内质量比清滤率随体型增大而下降的现象，与特定摄食模式（feeding mode）固有的摄食效率降低存在关联；摄食模式的转变，以及伴随清滤率与呼吸率的同步变化，或许代表了对食物环境的适应，亦是权衡（tradeoffs）优化的结果——这种权衡可确保足够的摄食与生长速率，从而平衡死亡率。