A mechanistic model of how metabolic rate can interact with resource environment to influence foraging success and lifespan

Abstract

Metabolic rate, the biological rate of energy processing, is often considered to be the fundamental determinant of pace of life in biological systems. Assuming foraging performance to be the central link between metabolic rate and pace of life, we modeled the behavior of biological units with different metabolic rate, as foraging groups with or without within-group variation in metabolic rate, in environments of various resource configurations, with or without group-level behaviors such as information sharing and division of labor. Our results show how metabolic rate can interact with the resource environment to produce differences in energy gain and lifespan. The results also suggest that in a group context, rather than the average metabolic rate of the group, it is the composition of the group that matters such that metabolically diverse groups outperform metabolically homogenous groups. With a proposed experimental approach to test these predictions, these findings bring new insights to possible gene environment interactions that may be involved in the evolution of intraspecific differences in metabolic rates and how metabolic diversity may contribute to the evolution of group living.