Metabolic Rate, Generation Time, and the Rate of Molecular Evolution in Birds

Abstract

A recent hypothesis suggests that resting metabolic rate, measured as energy expended per unit body mass per unit time, might be implicated in the rate of nucleotide substitution in animals. Using relative rate tests on DNA–DNA hybridization data from birds, we show that generation time is significantly correlated with genetic distance between members of an ingroup and an out-group taxon, but that neither metabolic rate nor body mass explain variation consistent with the hypothesis, either alone or with generation time.