Relationship between Maximal Oxygen Consumption (VO2max) and Home Range Area in Mammals

Abstract

Home range is defined as the area traversed during normal daily activities, such as foraging, avoiding predators, and social or antagonistic behaviors. All else being equal, larger home ranges should be associated with longer daily movement distances and/or higher average movement speeds. The maximal rate of oxygen consumption (VO2max) generally sets an upper limit to the intensity of work (e.g., speed of locomotion) that an animal can sustain without fatigue. Therefore, home range area and VO2max are predicted to evolve in concert (coadapt). We gathered literature data on home range and VO2max for 55 species of mammals. We computed residuals from log-log (allometric) regressions on body mass with two different regression models: ordinary least squares (OLS) and phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS). Residuals were weakly positively related for both the OLS (r = 0.278, one-tailed P < 0.05) and PGLS (r = 0.210, P > 0.05) regressions. For VO2max, the PGLS regression model had a slightly higher likelihood than the OLS model, but the situation was reversed for home range area. In addition, for both home range area and VO2max, models that fit better than either OLS or PGLS were obtained by modeling residual variation with the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process to mimic stabilizing selection (RegOU), indicating that phylogenetic signal is present in both size-adjusted traits, consistent with findings of previous studies. (However, residuals from the RegOU models cannot be tested for correlation due to mathematical complexities.) We conclude that the best estimate of the residual correlation is probably somewhere between these two values reported above. Possible reasons for the low correlation between residual home range area and VO2max are discussed.