Metabolic scaling in adult white-spotted pygmy filefish (Rudarius ercodes) from a wild population in Japan
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Metabolic rate is a critical determinant of energy flux in organisms, influencing both physiological and ecological performance. Despite its importance, intraspecific metabolic scaling in wild adult populations remains poorly understood. This study measured whole-animal metabolic rate in wild-caught adult white-spotted pygmy filefish (Rudarius ercodes) to assess metabolic scaling under natural conditions. The results indicated that whole-animal metabolic rate increased with body mass, following a pattern of negative allometry. This suggests that larger individuals have a lower metabolic demand relative to their body mass compared to smaller individuals. Consistent with this observation, mass-specific metabolic rate decreased with increasing body size. Although body mass explained some of the variation in metabolic rate, significant inter-individual heterogeneity was observed among individuals of similar size, highlighting substantial physiological diversity beyond the effects of body size. These findings provide population-level evidence for size-dependent metabolic structuring in a natural adult fish population and support a context-dependent interpretation of metabolic scaling exponents. By incorporating individual-level variation observed under ecologically realistic conditions, this study offers empirically grounded insights that refine metabolic scaling theory beyond idealized interspecific comparisons or captive-derived datasets.
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