What determines the basal metabolic rate of vertebrate cells in vivo?

Do vertebrate cells dictate basal metabolic rate or does the organism have some influence over this decision? In this paper we advance the idea that the rate of delivery of essential nutrients to cells could be a key regulatory mechanism, a concept which originates for Coulson (Comp. Biochem, Physiol., 84A, 1986, 217-229) that we have extended to the delivery of substrates to enzymes at the intracellular level.