In ecosystems, the efficiency of energy transfer from resources to consumers determines the biomass structure of food webs. As a general rule, about 10% of the energy produced in one trophic level makes it up to the next. Recent theory suggests that this energy transfer could be further constrained if rising temperatures increase metabolic growth costs, although experimental confirmation in whole ecosystems is lacking. Here we quantify...
**1.** Growth rates directly influence individual fitness and constrain the flow of energy within food webs. Determining what factors alter the energetic cost of growth is therefore fundamental to ecological and evolutionary models. **2.** Here, we used theory to derive predictions about how the cost of growth varies over ontogeny and with temperature...
The allocation of metabolic energy to growth fundamentally influences all levels of biological organisation. Here we use a first‐principles theoretical model to characterise the energetics of fish growth at distinct ontogenetic stages and in distinct thermal regimes...
Linking biological levels of organisation through energetics.