Ecological emergence of thermal clines in body size
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
| Publié dans: | Global change biology. - 1999. - 19(2013), 10 vom: 22. Okt., Seite 3062-8 |
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| Auteur principal: | |
| Autres auteurs: | , , , |
| Format: | Article en ligne |
| Langue: | English |
| Publié: |
2013
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| Accès à la collection: | Global change biology |
| Sujets: | Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Bergmann's rule community interactions food-web structure life history metabolic theory of ecology niche theory predator-prey size ratio size distributions plus... |
| Résumé: | © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The unprecedented rate of global warming requires a better understanding of how ecosystems will respond. Organisms often have smaller body sizes under warmer climates (Bergmann's rule and the temperature-size rule), and body size is a major determinant of life histories, demography, population size, nutrient turnover rate, and food-web structure. Therefore, by altering body sizes in whole communities, current warming can potentially disrupt ecosystem function and services. However, the underlying drivers of warming-induced body downsizing remain far from clear. Here, we show that thermal clines in body size are predicted from universal laws of ecology and metabolism, so that size-dependent selection from competition (both intra and interspecific) and predation favors smaller individuals under warmer conditions. We validate this prediction using 4.1 × 10(6) individual body size measurements from French river fish spanning 29 years and 52 species. Our results suggest that warming-induced body downsizing is an emergent property of size-structured food webs, and highlight the need to consider trophic interactions when predicting biosphere reorganizations under global warming |
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| Description: | Date Completed 18.03.2014 Date Revised 04.09.2013 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1365-2486 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/gcb.12299 |