A case of non-scaling in mammalian physiology? Body size, digestive capacity, food intake, and ingesta passage in mammalian herbivores☆

As gut capacity is assumed to scale linearly to body mass (BM), and dry matter intake (DMI) to metabolic body weight (BM0.75), it has been proposed that ingesta mean retention time (MRT) should scale to BM0.25 in herbivorous mammals. We test these assumptions with the most comprehensive literature data collations (n=74 species for gut capacity, […]