Mammalian endothermy optimally restricts fungi and metabolic costs

Abstract

Endothermy and homeothermy are mammalian characteristics whose evolutionary origins are poorly understood. Given that fungal species rapidly lose their capacity for growth above ambient temperatures, we have proposed that mammalian endothermy enhances fitness by creating exclusionary thermal zones that protect against fungal disease. According to this view, the relative paucity of invasive fungal diseases in immunologically intact mammals relative to other infectious diseases would reflect an inability of most fungal species to establish themselves in a mammalian host. In this study, that hypothesis was tested by modeling the fitness increase with temperature versus its metabolic costs. We analyzed the tradeoff involved between the costs of the excess metabolic rates required to maintain a body temperature and the benefit gained by creating a thermal exclusion zone that protects against environmental microbes such as fungi. The result yields an optimum at 36.7°C, which closely approximates mammalian body temperatures. This calculation is consistent with and supportive of the notion that an intrinsic thermally based resistance against fungal diseases could have contributed to the success of mammals in the Tertiary relative to that of other vertebrates.

FIG 1

Organism fitness as a function of body temperature. We normalized fitness, $\mathit{W}(\mathit{T})$, to attain a maximum value of 1 and plotted body temperature in degrees Celsius over a range of 27°C to 60°C. Fitness reaches a maximum value at ${\mathit{W}}_{\mathrm{M}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{X}}(\mathit{T})\approx 36.7°\mathrm{C}$.