Potential respiration is a better respiratory predictor than biomass in young Artemia salina

Abstract

These experiments test whether respiration can be predicted better from biomass or from potential respiration, a measurement of the mitochondrial and microsomal respiratory electron transport systems. For nearly a century Kleiber's law or a similar precursor have argued the importance of biomass in predicting respiration. In the last decade, a version of the Metabolic Theory of Ecology has elaborated on Kleiber's Law adding emphasis to the importance of biomass in predicting respiration. We argue that Kleiber's law works because biomass packages mitochondria and microsomal electron transport complexes. On a scale of five orders of magnitude we have shown previously that potential respiration predicts respiration as well as biomass in marine zooplankton. Here, using cultures of the branchiopod, Artemia salina and on a scale of less than 2 orders of magnitude, we investigated the power of biomass and potential respiration in predicting respiration. We measured biomass, respiration and potential respiration in Artemia grown in different ways and found that potential respiration (Ф) could predict respiration (R), both in µlO 2 h −1 (R =0.924Φ +0.062, r 2 = 0.976), but biomass (as mg dry mass) could not (R = 27.02DM + 8.857, r 2 = 0.128). Furthermore the R/Ф ratio appeared independent of age and differences in the food source.

Metabolic Scaling in Complex Living Systems

“…The early history of RD theory was reviewed by Kleiber ([8], pp. [194][195][196][197][198]. In 1925, Wels [148] promoted the view (attributed to Rubner) that species-specific differences in metabolic rate are intrinsically set at the tissue level.…”

“…Some recent models and hypotheses focus on how molecular or subcellular processes may drive the metabolic rates of cells and their scaling with multicellular body size. The mechanisms proposed include thermodynamic processes [190], membrane molecular activity (including proton and ion flux rates) modulated by membrane phospholipid composition [70,191,192], quantum mechanical energy transduction in cellular membranes [21,71,72] and ontogenetic changes in mitochondrial density or protein concentrations [193][194][195] or in the activity of metabolic enzymes or respiratory electron transport systems [196,197].…”

Understanding tetrazolium reduction and the importance of substrates in measuring respiratory electron transport activity

“…From many studies (Hernández-León and King and Packard, 1975b;Martínez et al, 2010;Packard and Gómez, 2008) The velocity of the reaction is proportional to concentration. Note that no enzyme is involved in this reaction.…”

Effect of starvation and feeding on respiratory metabolism in Leptomysis lingvura (G.O. Sars, 1866)

“…The enzyme-kinetic-model (EKM) developed by (Packard et al, 1996(Packard et al, , 2004 and Roy and Packard (2001) proposed that R is the product of F and substrate availability that regulates it. These are the fundamental bases for regulating R. Biomass is indirectly related to R because it packages the mitochondria and the ETS enzymes (Martínez et al, 2010), but by itself biomass is an irrelevant factor. Here, the ETS-biomass relationship in the three treatments showed a better fit than the R-biomass ratio (figures 4, 5, 6, table 5).…”