Food habits, energetics, and the reproduction of marsupials

Abstract

Basal rate of metabolism in marsupials and in eutherian mammals is principally correlated with body mass, food habits and activity. Feeding on fruit, the leaves of woody plants, or invertebrates is associated with low basal rates, especially at large masses, in both groups of mammals. These foods lead to low basal rates because they are seasonally unavailable, are indigestible, or need to be detoxified. The depression in basal rate associated with frugivory and folivory is increased when coupled with sedentary, arboreal habits in both marsupials and eutherians. In contrast, eutherians that feed on vertebrates or herbs generally have high basal rates, while marsupials that eat these foods do not have high basal rates. These foods permit high basal rates, which are exploited by eutherians because high basal rates in these mammals lead to high rates of reproduction. Marsupials have, at best, a limited correlation of reproduction with rate of metabolism, so that feeding on vertebrates or herbs does not lead to high basal rates in these mammals. This difference between marsupials and eutherians in the coupling of reproduction to energetics has at least two ecological consequences. 1) Marsupials generally do not tolerate cold‐temperate environments because they do not accelerate growth and development to complete reproduction within a short spring and summer. 2) Marsupials coexist with ecologically similar eutherians as long as marsupials have food habits that are correlated with low rates of metabolism in eutherians (i.e. they feed on fruit, the leaves of woody plants, or invertebrates), but they tend to be displaced by eutherians when marsupials have food habits that are associated with high rates of metabolism in eutherians (i.e. when they feed on vertebrates and, probably, herbs).