Avian Incubation Times
Has their been a comparative study of what factors determine bird incubation times? One factor that probably hasn't been taken into account is phylogeny. Another is body size; how does incubation period scale? A third is metabolic rate, which is by no means independent of size or even phylogeny. Clutch size and thus clutch mass probably has some effect as well. Incubation period increases with body size, but past a certain point all pattern seems to disappear (this means extrapolations which estimate the incubation time of giant extinct birds based only on body mass are probably not very useful),