Thyroid hormones correlate with resting metabolic rate, not daily energy expenditure, in two charadriiform seabirds

Thyroid hormones affect in vitro metabolic intensity, increase basal metabolic rate (BMR) in the lab, and are sometimes correlated with basal and/or resting metabolic rate (RMR) in a field environment. Given the difficulty of measuring metabolic rate in the field—and the likelihood that capture and long-term restraint necessary to measure metabolic rate in the field jeopardizes other measurements—we examined the possibility that circulating thyroid hormone levels were correlated with RMR in two free-ranging bird species with high levels of energy expenditure (the black-legged kittiwake, Rissa tridactyla, and thick-billed murre, Uria lomvia). Because BMR and daily energy expenditure (DEE) are purported to be linked, we also tested for a correlation between thyroid hormones and DEE. We examined the relationships between free and bound levels of the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) with DEE and with 4-hour long measurements of post-absorptive and thermoneutral resting metabolism (resting metabolic rate; RMR). RMR but not DEE increased with T3 in both species; both metabolic rates were independent of T4. T3 and T4 were not correlated with one another. DEE correlated with body mass in kittiwakes but not in murres, presumably owing to the larger coefficient of variation in body mass during chick rearing for the more sexually dimorphic kittiwakes. We suggest T3 provides a good proxy for resting metabolism but not DEE in these seabird species.