Birds have colonized almost every terrestrial habitat on the planet-from the poles to the
tropics, and from deserts to high mountain tops. Ecological and Environmental Physiology of …

The metabolic cost of breathing at rest has never been successfully measured in birds, but
has been hypothesized to be higher than in mammals of a similar size because of the …

Both mass (as a measure of body reserves) during breeding and adult survival should reflect
variation in food availability. Those species that are adapted to less seasonally variable …

Phenotypic flexibility across the annual cycle allows birds to adjust to fluctuating ecological
demands. Varying energetic demands associated with time of year have been demonstrated …

This paper describes how climate variation in time and space can constrain community
structure on a global scale. We explore body size scaling and the energetic consequences …

Birds in the lowland tropical rain forest are expected to have low energy turnover. Here, we
used heart rate telemetry to estimate nighttime resting metabolic rate (RMR), daily energy …

Based on aerodynamic considerations, the energy use–flight speed relationship of all
airborne animals and aircraft should be U-shaped. However, measures of the metabolic rate …

Many birds exhibit seasonal phenotypic flexibility in basal metabolic rate (BMR) and summit
metabolism (M sum), but very little information is available for species from subtropical …

Birds have body temperatures that are typically higher than those of mammals, and thus
spend a large proportion of their total energy budget maintaining these temperatures …

We call into question the idea that birds have not evolved unique physiological adaptations
to desert environments. The rate at which desert larks metabolize energy is lower than in …