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.

中文翻译：

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新陈代谢缩放、能量分配权衡和人类独特新陈代谢的进化


所有生物体都使用有限的能量来生长、生存和繁殖，因此需要进行能量分配权衡，但关于选择如何影响灵长类动物（包括人类）的代谢预算和权衡存在争议。在这里，我们开发了一种方法来比较代谢率作为观察到的商，相对于哺乳动物的预期值，校正了大小、身体成分、环境温度和系统发育相关性。与之前的分析相反，这些商表明，非人类灵长类动物的总代谢率与相似环境中相似大小的哺乳动物的预期总代谢率相同。此外，来自几个小规模社会的数据表明，人类进化出异常高的静息、活动和总代谢率，这显然是通过克服限制其他灵长类动物的静息和主动能量消耗之间的权衡。提高的新陈代谢率有助于人类为扩张的大脑、更快的生殖速度、延长寿命和高体脂百分比提供燃料。