Avian egg incubation period: Revisiting existing allometric relationships via surface area-to-volume ratio of an egg

Highlights

• Duration of incubation (I) of bird eggs depends on their geometric characteristics.

• We used digital images from museum collections of bird eggs across the class Aves.

• We found a significant relation of I and the egg surface area-to-volume ratio (S/V).

• This dependence formula can serve as the standard incubation period for a given egg.

• Influence of other factors can cause a change in the incubation period.

Abstract

The incubation period (I) for bird eggs varies among species and is used in establishing allometric relationships. Research on variations in I shed light on the evolutionary mechanisms that gave rise to the differentiation of embryonic development in distinct taxa of birds. Here, using a sampling of 444 images from 444 avian species, 89 families and 30 orders, we calculated their major geometric dimensions: volume (V) and surface area (S). An assessment of the relationship between I and the measured and calculated egg parameters demonstrated the closest and most significant correlation (R = −0.760) between I and the S/V ratio that was adopted as a conditional indicator and reflects the embryo's metabolic rate. Approximation of the values of these parameters made it possible to derive a power-law dependence for the prediction of I depending on the S/V value of a particular egg (R2 = 0.757). The prediction accuracy was higher (R2 = 0.783) if the eggs of the family Procellariiformes (petrels), whose I value is characterized by a longer time, were removed from the general sampling computation. We conclude that the value of the S/V ratio can characterize both the metabolism of an embryo and the conditional thermal conductivity of an egg, which aids in ensuring the temperature regime of egg incubation.