Abundance-body mass relationships in size-structured food webs

Jennings, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2390-7225 and Mackinson, Steven (2003) Abundance-body mass relationships in size-structured food webs. Ecology Letters, 6 (11). pp. 971-974. ISSN 1461-0248

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Abstract

In communities sharing a common energy source, the energetic equivalence hypothesis predicts that numerical abundance (N) scales with body mass (M) as M-0.75. However, in size-structured food webs all individuals do not share a common energy source, and the energy available (E) to larger individuals is constrained by inefficient energy transfer through the food chains that support them. This is expected to lead to steeper scalings of N with M. Here, we formalize and test an existing model for predicting abundance-body mass scaling, where the decline in E with M is calculated from the mean predator-prey body mass ratio (from size-based nitrogen stable isotope analysis) and trophic transfer efficiency. We show that the steep predicted scalings of abundance and body mass (N scales as M-1.2, B scales as M-0.2) in a marine food web are consistent with empirical estimates and can be attributed to the small predator-prey body mass ratio (106 : 1). As a previous study has shown that environmental stability may favour low predator-prey mass ratios and long food chains, we predict that steeper abundance-body mass relationships will be found in more stable environments.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 14 - life below water ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/life_below_water
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (former - to 2017)
Depositing User:	Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited:	02 Jun 2011 08:14
Last Modified:	09 Mar 2023 10:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/31731
DOI:	10.1046/j.1461-0248.2003.00529.x

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