Erratum to: Yolky eggs prepare for metabolic acceleration

Abstract

After correction of an error in the code that was used to prepare the publication, it appears that yolky eggs do not prepare for metabolic acceleration. The error concerned the initial amount of egg mass, which now behaves consistently with theoretical predictions and roughly scales with body length to the power 4 among species. Yolkiness of an egg is defined as the ratio of a largest and the smallest freshly laid egg, where the largest egg is produced by a well-fed mother and the smallest one has so little initial mass that it can invest just enough in maturation to reach birth, i.e. when assimilation is switched on. Metabolic acceleration is the factor with which the values for the maximum surface-area specific assimilation rate and the energy conductance of before birth, have to be multiplied to arrive at the values after metamorphosis. The maximum reserve capacity, i.e. the ratio of the maximum surfacearea specific assimilation rate and the energy conductance, is not affected by metabolic acceleration. For many species, this factor equals one, but for about one third of the now 240 species in the add_my_pet collection, the factor is larger than one. This collection includes representatives of most larger (>400 species) animal phyla and all 13 chordate classes. Accelerating species include most species with a larval stage and a morphological metamorphosis in the juvenile period. Some accelerating species, such as the cephalopods, however, do not have such a distinct larval stage.