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Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate
The allometry of maximum somatic growth rate has been used in prior studies to classify the metabolic state of both extant vertebrates and dinosaurs. The most recent such studies are reviewed, and their data is reanalyzed. The results of allometric regressions on growth rate are shown to depend on t...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2016
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5102473/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27828977 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0163205 |
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author | Myhrvold, Nathan P. |
author_facet | Myhrvold, Nathan P. |
author_sort | Myhrvold, Nathan P. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The allometry of maximum somatic growth rate has been used in prior studies to classify the metabolic state of both extant vertebrates and dinosaurs. The most recent such studies are reviewed, and their data is reanalyzed. The results of allometric regressions on growth rate are shown to depend on the choice of independent variable; the typical choice used in prior studies introduces a geometric shear transformation that exaggerates the statistical power of the regressions. The maximum growth rates of extant groups are found to have a great deal of overlap, including between groups with endothermic and ectothermic metabolism. Dinosaur growth rates show similar overlap, matching the rates found for mammals, reptiles and fish. The allometric scaling of growth rate with mass is found to have curvature (on a log-log scale) for many groups, contradicting the prevailing view that growth rate allometry follows a simple power law. Reanalysis shows that no correlation between growth rate and basal metabolic rate (BMR) has been demonstrated. These findings drive a conclusion that growth rate allometry studies to date cannot be used to determine dinosaur metabolism as has been previously argued. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5102473 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-51024732016-11-18 Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate Myhrvold, Nathan P. PLoS One Research Article The allometry of maximum somatic growth rate has been used in prior studies to classify the metabolic state of both extant vertebrates and dinosaurs. The most recent such studies are reviewed, and their data is reanalyzed. The results of allometric regressions on growth rate are shown to depend on the choice of independent variable; the typical choice used in prior studies introduces a geometric shear transformation that exaggerates the statistical power of the regressions. The maximum growth rates of extant groups are found to have a great deal of overlap, including between groups with endothermic and ectothermic metabolism. Dinosaur growth rates show similar overlap, matching the rates found for mammals, reptiles and fish. The allometric scaling of growth rate with mass is found to have curvature (on a log-log scale) for many groups, contradicting the prevailing view that growth rate allometry follows a simple power law. Reanalysis shows that no correlation between growth rate and basal metabolic rate (BMR) has been demonstrated. These findings drive a conclusion that growth rate allometry studies to date cannot be used to determine dinosaur metabolism as has been previously argued. Public Library of Science 2016-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5102473/ /pubmed/27828977 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0163205 Text en © 2016 Nathan P. Myhrvold http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Myhrvold, Nathan P. Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate |
title | Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate |
title_full | Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate |
title_fullStr | Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate |
title_full_unstemmed | Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate |
title_short | Dinosaur Metabolism and the Allometry of Maximum Growth Rate |
title_sort | dinosaur metabolism and the allometry of maximum growth rate |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5102473/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27828977 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0163205 |
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