Linking scaling laws across eukaryotes
Hatton, Ian (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Dobson, Andy P. (Santa Fe Institute (USA))
Storch, David (Charles University. Department of Ecology (Czech Republic))
Galbraith, Eric (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Loreau, Michel (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Station Eco Théorique Et Expérimentale (France))

Date:	2019
Abstract:	Scaling laws relating body mass to species characteristics are among the most universal quantitative patterns in biology. Within major taxonomic groups, the 4 key ecological variables of metabolism, abundance, growth, and mortality are often well described by power laws with exponents near 3/4 or related to that value, a commonality often attributed to biophysical constraints on metabolism. However, metabolic scaling theories remain widely debated, and the links among the 4 variables have never been formally tested across the full domain of eukaryote life, to which prevailing theory applies. Here we present datasets of unprecedented scope to examine these 4 scaling laws across all eukaryotes and link them to test whether their combinations support theoretical expectations. We find that metabolism and abundance scale with body size in a remarkably reciprocal fashion, with exponents near ±3/4 within groups, as expected from metabolic theory, but with exponents near ±1 across all groups. This reciprocal scaling supports "energetic equivalence" across eukaryotes, which hypothesizes that the partitioning of energy in space across species does not vary significantly with body size. In contrast, growth and mortality rates scale similarly both within and across groups, with exponents of ±1/4. These findings are inconsistent with a metabolic basis for growth and mortality scaling across eukaryotes. We propose that rather than limiting growth, metabolism adjusts to the needs of growth within major groups, and that growth dynamics may offer a viable theoretical basis to biological scaling.
Grants:	European Commission 666971 European Commission 682602
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Macroecology ; Biological scaling ; Metabolic theory
Published in:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 116, Issue 43 (October 2019) , p. 21616-21622, ISSN 1091-6490

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900492116
PMID: 31591216

7 p, 3.6 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > Integrated Earth System Dynamics Laboratory (IESD)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles