Consumer-resource body-size relationships in natural food webs.

By U. Brose, T. Jonsson, Eric L Berlow, P. Warren, Carolin Banašek-Richter, Louis-Félix Bersier, J. Blanchard, Thomas Brey, Stephen R. Carpenter, Marie-France Cattin Blandenier and 19 more. Ecology, 2006

627 citations recorded by the source corpus.

It has been suggested that differences in body size between consumer and resource species may have important implications for interaction strengths, population dynamics, and eventually food web structure, function, and evolution. Still, the general distribution of consumer-'resource body-size ratios in real ecosystems, and whether they vary systematically among habitats or broad taxonomic groups, is poorly understood. Using a unique global database on consumer and resource body sizes, we show that the mean body-size ratios of aquatic herbivorous and detritivorous consumers are several orders of magnitude larger than those of carnivorous predators. Carnivorous predator-prey body-size ratios vary across different habitats and predator and prey types (invertebrates, ectotherm, and endotherm vertebrates). Predator-prey body-size ratios are on average significantly higher (1) in freshwater habitats than in marine or terrestrial habitats, (2) for vertebrate than for invertebrate predators, and (3) for invertebrate than for ectotherm vertebrate prey. If recent studies that relate body-size ratios to interaction strengths are general, our results suggest that mean consumer-resource interaction strengths may vary systematically across different habitat categories and consumer types.

Subfields: Ecology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/351a46d86f2d75a05b44285710da400d9609ffb2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Citations in the corpus

Deep danger: intra-specific predation risk influences habitat use and aggregation formation of juvenile lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris (2012, background): “For gape-limited predators, such as teleost fishes, this pattern is particularly strong (Brose et al. 2006), and evidence from a number of marine fishes indicates that anti-predator behaviour (use of shallow water refuges) can be size-dependent (Halpin 2000, Linehan et al. 2001, Manderson et al.…”
Nine quick tips for analyzing network data (2019, background): “, depending on body mass in food webs [39]), etc.”
On the relationship between trophic position, body mass and temperature: reformulating the energy limitation hypothesis (2007, background): “…and few discrete trophic levels, where individuals present large variations in body size and, consequently, in energetic demands, and with attributes that vary according to habitat and predator and prey types (Cohen et al. 2003, Arim and Marquet 2004, Arim and Jaksic 2005, Brose et al. 2006b).”
Parasites in food webs: the ultimate missing links (2008, methodology): “Advances in the field of allometric scaling relationships (see West & Brown 2005) provide tools for approximating energy flow through a network as a function of the absolute and relative body masses of the species in the web (e.g. Brose et al. 2006a).”
Human Involvement in Food Webs (2010, background): “However, the connections between body size and the influence of consumers in food webs are varied (109).”