Ontogenetic Changes in Body Shape and the Scaling of Metabolic Rate in the American Eel ().

AbstractThe body mass () scaling of resting metabolic rate (RMR) may vary significantly throughout ontogeny for multiple reasons that are not perfectly understood. To compare two major geometric theories of metabolic scaling, surface area (SA) theory and resource transport network (RTN) theory, we tested whether ontogenetic shifts in metabolic scaling relate to changes in body shape in the American eel (). To do so, we compared the log-linear scaling exponents of RMR to () and to body length () in juvenile and subadult eels (glass and yellow eel life stages, respectively).