Abstract
Abstract Costs associated with avian incubation are poorly understood. Whether incubation is energetically costly remains controversial and has rarely been examined in precocial species. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that mass specific incubation metabolic rate (IMR) is greater than resting metabolic rate (RMR) using open-circuit respirometry in 8 red junglefowl ( Gallus gallus spadiceus ). Mean respiratory quotient was 0.842. Incubation by junglefowl involved a significant increase in metabolic rate and IMR averaged 2.14 × RMR (15.6 ± 3.9 vs. 7.3 ± 1.7 kJ/hr/kg). We also tested whether IMR varies with clutch mass using a series of clutch manipulation experiments. IMR of junglefowl ( N = 7) was unrelated to clutch mass. Overall, our results suggest that incubation entails a metabolic cost to females, but factors other than metabolic costs of incubation likely determine clutch size in junglefowl.
Published Version
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