Metabolism of three species of herbivorous loricariid catfishes: influence of size and diet

Abstract

The questions of whether herbivorous loricariid catfishes are hypometabolic or reduce metabolic demand in response to poor dietary quantity and quality were addressed by comparing resting routine metabolic rates in the presence and absence of different fibre content diets for three loricariid species. Metabolic rates of the three species scaled inter‐specifically as body mass0·736, similar to most other vertebrates. Metabolic rates did not vary with diet quality for two species; one Panaque species had a significantly lower metabolic rate when fed only wood. Comparisons with the literature led to the conclusions that loricariids in general and Panaque in particular do not have unusually low metabolic rates for quiescent catfishes of their size.