Scaling and Animal Abundance - SCCS - Swarthmore College 缩放和动物丰富SCCS -斯沃斯莫尔学院.pptVIP

Scaling and Animal Abundance Isn’t ecology the study of the factors that affect the abundance of animals? Scaling and ecology vs. scaling and individuals The individual implications of scaling can take on a different form. Excretion, ingestion, growth, and reproduction are physiological processes that scale to body size. When applied to a population of animals they can become nutrient regeneration, prey mortality, and production. Community structure Sheldon, Prakash, and Sutcliffe (1972) found that when marine communities are divided into logarithmic size classes, the amount of matter in each class is approx. constant. (Remember that if metabolism and abundance have relationships with (body size)^(3/4) and (body size)^(-3/4) this is true) Bacteria biomass = whale biomass Biomass =7,200(individual body mass)^(-1) Number individuals = 7,200(individual body mass)^(-2) Number of species = 230 (individual body mass)^(-1) But all of the numbers kind of sketchy My image sucks! Other studies Schwunghamer (1981) tested model to marine benthic communities. There were 3 biomass peaks, which correspond to bacteria, meiofauna, and macrofauna. This makes sense and is predictable. But there was not constant biomass across all logarithmicly increasing size classes. Schwinghamer suggested that a given environment would favor some parts of the spectrum, but that there would still be no trend in overall logarithmic size classes. Janzen and Schoener (1968) found nearly constant biomass across insect communities divided into logarithmic length classes. Side note: may be evidence that connects the size of organisms to resource availability (limited resources = more small organisms) Overall = sketchy Need more research Mean density Not well studied Mohr (1947) found that per unit area, the number of animals in a species (all North American mammal) is inversely proportional to their body mass. So biomass per unit area is constant Damuth (1981) suggests that global herbivore density decr