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Fig. 3 | BMC Ecology and Evolution

Fig. 3

From: Cell size, body size and Peto’s paradox

Fig. 3

Plots of the logarithm of erythrocytes area versus the logarithm of body mass and standardized phylogenetically independent contrasts (PIC) for this relation in mammals and birds. The size of erythrocytes significantly depends on the body mass in mammals, both in conventional (A) and phylogeny-corrected (B) analyses (n = 298, p = 0.01 and n = 297, p < 0.0001, respectively). Analogous relation is observed for birds; classic (C) and phylogeny-corrected (D) correlation plot (n = 393, p < 0.0001, n = 364, p < 0.0001, respectively). In both analyzes, the exponent values are close, albeit different from 0 (mammals and birds conventional method respectively 0.019 ± 0.0074, 0.0629 ± 0.0033 and phylogenetically informed methods, respectively 0.062 ± 0.0096, 0.1720 ± 0.0181). The analysis of the slopes among 8 orders of mammals (for n ≥ 7 species in each order) and 12 orders of birds (for n ≥ 12 species in each order) showed that these relationships are strongly heterogenic (mammals: F1.7 = 20.5374, p < 0.0001; birds: F1.11 = 3.608, p < 0.0001); see Additional files 2 and 3. Chosen orders: Artiodactyla for mammals and Passeriformes for birds are shown (red rhombs)

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