Costs and benefits of a high work rate

Metabolic rate (MR) is a fundamental trait in evolution and ecology since it sets the limits for the rate at which an animal can produce the energy required for growth, reproduction and survival.

The metabolic phenotype determines how the total MR might be divided between maintenance MR and MR related to different aspects of work, e.g. thermogenic capacity (winter survival) and parental effort (reproductive success).

Knowledge is still scarce about the mechanistic links between energy management and the costs generated by these management protocols during work.

My aim is to disentangle how different aspects of MR co-vary and if selection acts on each MR trait separately or in a correlated way on a suit of traits in bird model systems.

I will experimentally manipulate work rate; both investment in flight as during breeding and in thermogenesis as for surviving winter nights, to estimate the within-individual (flexibility) and between-individual variation (potential genetic component).

I also aim to estimate selection in the wild (both in relation to survival and to reproduction) on the combination of these traits within an individual and to test for potential trade-offs between MRs forming the metabolic phenotype. Thus, I will be able to predict evolution of the metabolic phenotype in different environmental settings.

In an era of rapid environmental change, the potential to adjust the metabolic phenotype will be instrumental for retaining viable population sizes.