Final answer:
Rats consume a significant portion of food relative to their size daily, related to their high metabolic rate. The exact food consumption rate for rats per 100 grams of body weight isn't provided; however, their metabolic rate suggests a proportionally large intake.
Step-by-step explanation:
On average, a laboratory rat consumes a significant amount of food relative to its body weight each day, which is closely related to its metabolic rate. The metabolic rate is a measure of how quickly an organism uses energy, and smaller animals like mice and rats generally have higher metabolic rates compared to larger animals like elephants. For example, a mouse has a metabolic rate of 890 mm³ O₂/g body mass/hr. While the provided information does not specify the exact amount of food in grams that a rat consumes per 100 grams of body weight per day, we can infer that, due to similar metabolic necessities, a rat would also have a proportionally large intake of food relative to its size.
A rat's diet is a crucial factor in experiments, as different food formulas can affect their weight gain, as seen in nutritional experiments like the one Linda, Tuan, and Javier are conducting. Understanding the relationship between caloric intake and metabolic rate is essential in such experiments as well as in the broader context of animal physiology.