Data from: Mammalian metabolic allometry: do intraspecific variation, phylogeny, and regression models matter?

Power scaling relationships between body mass and organismal traits are
fundamental to biology. Compilations of mammalian masses and basal
metabolic rates date back over a century and are used both to support and
to assail the universal quarter‐power scaling invoked by the metabolic
theory of ecology. However, the slope of this interspecific allometry is
typically estimated without accounting for intraspecific variation in body
mass or phylogenetic constraints on metabolism. We returned to the
original literature and culled nearly all unique measurements of body mass
and basal metabolism for 695 mammal species and (1) phylogenetically
corrected the data using the fullest available phylogeny, (2) applied
several different regression analyses, (3) resampled regressions by
drawing randomly selected species from each of the polytomies in the
phylogenetic hypothesis at each iteration, and (4) ran these same analyses
independently on separate clades. Overall, 95% confidence intervals of
slope estimates frequently did not include 0.75, and clade‐specific slopes
varied from 0.5 to 0.85, depending on the clade and regression model. Our
approach reveals that the choice of analytical model has a systematic
influence on the estimated allometry, but irrespective of the model
applied, we find little support for a universal metabolic rate–body mass
scaling relationship.

体重与生物性状间的幂律缩放关系（power scaling relationships）是生物学的核心基础命题。哺乳动物体重与基础代谢率（basal metabolic rates）的数据集汇编可追溯至一个多世纪以前，相关数据既被用于支持生态学代谢理论（metabolic theory of ecology）提出的普适性四分之一幂律缩放假说，也被用来驳斥该假说。然而，这类种间异速生长（interspecific allometry）的斜率估计通常未考虑体重的种内变异（intraspecific variation）或代谢过程的系统发育约束（phylogenetic constraints）。本研究回溯原始文献，筛选出695个哺乳动物物种的全部独有体重与基础代谢测量数据，并开展四项工作：(1) 采用当前最完整的系统发育树对数据进行系统发育校正；(2) 应用多种不同的回归分析方法；(3) 在每次迭代中，从系统发育假说的各多歧节点（polytomies）中随机抽取物种，对回归分析进行重采样；(4) 针对不同演化支（clades）独立开展上述相同分析。整体而言，斜率估计值的95%置信区间（confidence intervals）大多未包含0.75；且特定演化支对应的斜率值介于0.5至0.85之间，具体数值取决于演化支类型与回归模型。本研究方法表明，分析模型的选择对异速生长的估计结果存在系统性影响，但无论采用何种模型，我们均未发现足够证据支持普适性的代谢率-体重缩放关系。