ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Metabolic scaling, energy allocation tradeoffs, and the evolution of humans' unique metabolism.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Longitudinal and cross-sectional evidence that daily resting and activity energy expenditures are independent in humans.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Energy Expenditure Optimization in the Echolocation ofBiology · 2026Article
- Why Do Humans Exercise? A Neuro-Evolutionary Framework for Discretionary Physical Effort.Evolutionary anthropology · 2026Review
- Parental investment and body temperature explain encephalization in vertebrates.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
All organisms use limited energy to grow, survive, and reproduce, necessitating energy allocation tradeoffs, but there is debate over how selection impacted metabolic budgets and tradeoffs in primates, including humans. Here, we develop a method to compare metabolic rates as quotients of observed relative to expected values for mammals corrected for size, body composition, environmental temperature, and phylogenetic relatedness. Contrary to previous analyses, these quotients reveal that nonhuman primates have total metabolic rates expected for similar-sized mammals in similar environments. In addition, data from several small-scale societies show that humans evolved exceptionally high resting, activity, and total metabolic rates apparently by overcoming tradeoffs between resting and active energy expenditures that constrain other primates. Enhanced metabolic rates help humans fuel expanded brains, faster reproductive rates, extended longevity, and high percentage of body fat.
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