Winberg revisited: convergence of routine metabolism in larval and juvenile fish

We examined whether Winberg's concept of a single general model describing the relationship between mass and respiration rate in fish can be reliably extended to include larval stages (<1 mg dry weight) that were not assessed in his original analysis. To address this question, we developed an independent data set consisting of 42 sets and incor - porating 25 species. Sensitivity analysis (Monte Carlo simulation) verified that the number of data sets used was more than sufficient to establish a general equation of the form sought. The resulting model converged with extrapolation of Winberg's model to the size range of interest and to extrapolation of the Clarke and Johnston model, which, like Winberg's, was restricted to postlarval fish. Thus, the generalization sought by Winberg exists. A single general model derived from first principles of the form