Metabolism of land arthropods (RMR or SMR):

  Land-dwelling arthropods (insects, spiders, mites, scorpions, etc.) are highly diverse and their resting metabolism shows similar diversity. According to some recent data, variation in metabolism in these groups is more related to activity levels than to taxonomic affiliation (but see the Chown et al. 2007 paper for an alternate view within insects). Ticks and scorpions do appear to have low metabolic rates.


• Lighton and Fielden examined metabolic data from ants, spiders, ticks, and beetles; their results suggest that all non-flying land arthropods -- except ticks -- have similar resting metabolic rates (they note that RMR's of flight-capable species may be considerably higher).

   Lighton JRB, Fielden LJ (1995) Physiological Zoology 68:43-62  and (1996) Journal of Insect Physiology 42:347-357


• Chown et al. performed an extensive analysis on 391 insect species, including phylogenetic correction. In contrast to some previous studies, they found no effect of flight on resting metabolism (i.e., insects that fly do not have higher RMR than non-volant forms once phylogeny is taken into account).

   Chown SL, Marais E, Terblanche JS, Klok CJ, Lighton JRB, Blackburn TM (2007) Functional Ecology 21: 282-290


• Lighton et al. extended their previous data set to include several species of scorpions. Like ticks, scorpions have very low RMR (they also have a rather high Q10 of nearly 3).

   Lighton JRB, Brownell PH, Joos B, Turner RJ (2000) Journal of Experimental Biology 204:607-613


• Bartholomew and Casey looked at metabolism in tropical beetles and various moth species (note that the moths and many of the beetles were flight-capable, so SMRs may be higher than predicted for non-flying arthropods).

   Bartholomew GA, Casey TM (1977) Journal of Thermal Biology 2:173-176

   Bartholomew GA, Casey TM (1978) Journal of Experimental Biology 76:11-25