Animal Body Size: Linking Pattern and Process Across Space, Time, and Taxonomic Group

280 Pages·2014·2.26 MB·English

by  Felisa A. Smith, S Kathleen Lyons

Animal Body Size

Animal Body Size
Linking Pattern and Process across Space,
Time, and Taxonomic Group
edited by felisa a. smith
and s. kathleen lyons
the university of chicago press chicago and london
felisa a. smith is professor of biology at the University of New Mexico. s. kathleen lyons
is a research scientist in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natu-
ral History.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2013 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01214-8 (cloth)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-01228-5 (e-book)
doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226012285.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Animal body size : linking pattern and process across space, time, and taxonomic group /
edited by Felisa A. Smith and S. Kathleen Lyons.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-226-01214-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978–0-226–01228-5
(e-book) 1. Body size. 2. Variation (Biology) 3. Macroecology. I. Smith,
Felisa A. II. Lyons, S. Kathleen.
ql799.a55 2013
591.4′1—dc23
201204212
This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: On Being the Right Size: The Importance
of Size in Life History, Ecology, and Evolution 1
Felisa A. Smith and S. Kathleen Lyons
PART I. Body Size Patterns across Space and Time
chapter 1 Macroecological Patterns in Insect Body Size 13
Kevin J. Gaston and Steven L. Chown
chapter 2. Latitudinal Variation of Body Size in Land Snail
Populations and Communities 62
Jeffrey C.Nekola, Gary M. Barker, Robert A. D.
Cameron, and Beata M. Pokryszko
chapter 3. Geographic Variation in Body Size Distributions of
Continental Avifauna 83
Brian A. Maurer
chapter 4. Evolution of Body Size in Bats 95
Kamran Safi , Shai Meiri, and Kate E. Jones
chapter 5. Macroecological Patterns of Body Size in Mammals
across Time and Space 116
S. Kathleen Lyons and Felisa A. Smith
PART II. Mechanisms and Consequences Underlying Body Size
Distributional Patterns
chapter 6. Using Size Distributions to Understand the Role of Body
Size in Mammalian Community Assembly 147
S. K. Morgan Ernest
chapter 7. Processes Responsible for Patterns in Body Mass
Distributions 168
Brian A. Maurer and Pablo A. Marquet
chapter 8. The Infl uence of Flight on Patterns of Body Size Diversity
and Heritability 187
Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, Kate E. Jones,
Brian A. Maurer, and James H. Brown
chapter 9. On Body Size and Life History of Mammals 206
James H. Brown, Astrid Kodric-Brown, and
Richard M. Sibly
Conclusion: The Way Forward 235
Felisa A. Smith and S. Kathleen Lyons
Contributors 247
Index 249
Preface
The idea of a book synthesizing patterns of body size across different
taxa was an outgrowth of the working group “Body Size in Ecology
and Paleoecology: Linking Pattern and Process across Taxonomic, Spa-
tial, and Temporal Scales,” supported by the National Center for Eco-
logical Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) during 1999–2003. This group,
composed of a diverse set of scientists working on different taxa at differ-
ent taxonomic and scientifi c scales, had been inspired by and organized
during a 1998 Penrose conference aimed at integrating ecology and pale-
ontology. Despite our divergent backgrounds, our common research in-
terests all revolved around body size: Just how similar are large-scale
body size patterns across plant and animal species and across evolution-
ary time? How does the relative magnitude of these important factors
change for different taxa? And what mechanisms underlie the body size
patterns observed? To address these questions, we compiled what is now
a widely cited global database of mammalian body size, distribution, and
taxonomy (MOM v.3.1; Smith et al. 2003) as well as several other body
size datasets at regional and global scales on plants, birds, and other taxa
(http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/projects/2182). Our efforts led to several
dozen papers, several organized symposia at meetings of both the Eco-
logical Society of America and the American Society of Mammalogists
and, ultimately, an NSF-sponsored Research Coordination Network
(RCN) concentrating on macroecological patterns of mammalian body
size (IMPPS; http://biology.unm.edu/impps_rcn/). More important, the
interactions profoundly changed the scientifi c approaches, perspectives,
and research interests of some of the individual members.
Our original NCEAS group faced a number of daunting challenges.
First, ten years ago there was a paucity of comprehensive data on body
viii Preface
size that made examining emergent patterns very diffi cult. Indeed, much
of our time and resources went into collecting and analyzing such data.
Second, we found that we spoke different “scientifi c languages”; hence,
considerable effort went into fi guring out how to integrate divergent tax-
onomic, hierarchical, and biological perspectives. Because we were scat-
tered around the world and many of us attended different national meet-
ings, there was little opportunity for dialogue outside our working group.
Yet we found that the development of interpersonal relationships was
very important to overcoming scientifi c isolationism and creating a pro-
ductive working relationship. We were fortunate that the funding struc-
ture in place at that time for NCEAS working groups led to a total of
eight meetings; twice what is supported now. These “extra” meetings al-
lowed us to overcome many of these social and scientifi c barriers. Third,
there was limited institutional and fi nancial support to continue projects
that spanned diverse disciplinary and conceptual boundaries beyond the
tenure of the working group. Our ability to do so was especially ham-
pered by the rigid structure of universities and funding agencies (such as
the NSF). The physical and philosophical segregation of paleoecological
from ecological and evolutionary disciplines made it diffi cult to conduct
or fund synthetic work spanning these traditional boundaries. Thus, we
encountered substantial obstacles in our efforts to sustain and broaden
collaborations.
Over the past ten years, a number of other groups have been formed to
examine body size patterns and evolution. These include a recent work-
ing group at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (N ESCent),
“Phanerzoioc Body Size Trends in Time and Space,” organized by Jon-
athan Payne, Jennifer Stempien, and Michał Kowalewski, and the NSF-
sponsored Research Coordination Network, “Integrating Macroecologi-
cal Patterns and Process across Scales” (IMPPS; http://biology.unm.edu/
impps_rcn/) organized by Felisa Smith, Kate Lyons, and Morgan Ernest.
Although the taxonomic scope of these two groups is different, both
aim to synthesize emergent organismal and ecological data and patterns
across multiple spatial and temporal scales, and both include paleontolo-
gists and ecologists, theoreticians and empiricists. These efforts are lead-
ing to important new data compilations and contributions. For example,
the NESCent group recently published a paper synthesizing body size
trends across the entire history of life on earth, a span of some 3.6 bil-
lion years (Payne et al. 2009) and our RCN group has examined patterns
of mammalian body size for each order on each continent over its evolu-
Preface ix
tionary history (Smith et al. 2010). The continued interest in the patterns
of body size evolution over space and time highlights its acknowledged
importance in physiology, ecology, and community and ecosystem struc-
ture. It also indicates a continued lack of synthetic knowledge about the
universality of patterns and processes across taxonomic, temporal, and
spatial scales. We sincerely hope our volume will help bridge some of
these gaps.
Finally, as is often the case, this volume took much longer to come to
fruition than we originally (and perhaps naively!) intended. We thank all
the authors for their patience, but especially those authors who met our
deadlines, particularly considering that we did not meet them ourselves.
Sadly, a series of serious health and other issues impeded our efforts. We
hope they agree that the result was worth the delay.
Felisa Smith and Kate Lyons
December 2009
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Washington, DC
References
Payne, J. L., A. G. Boyer, J. H. Brown, S. Finnegan, M. Kowalewski, R. A.
Krause, S. K. Lyons, C. R. McClain, D. W. McShea, P. M. Novack-Gottshall,
F. A. Smith, J. A. Stempien, and S. C. Wang. 2009. “Two-phase increase in
the maximum size of life over 3.5 billion years refl ects biological innovation
and environmental opportunity.” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America 106 (1): 24–27.
Smith, F. A., A. G. Boyer, J. H. Brown, D. P. Costa, T. Dayan, S. K. M. Ernest,
A. R. Evans, M. Fortelius, J. L. Gittleman, M. J. Hamilton, L. E. Harding,
K. Lintulaakso, S. K. Lyons, C. McCain, J. G. Okie, J. J. Saarinen, R. M.
Sibly, P. R. Stephens, J. Theodor, and M. D. Uhen. 2010. “The evolution of
maximum body size of terrestrial mammals.” Science 330 (6008): 1216–1219.
doi: 10.1126/science.1194830.
Smith, F. A., S. K. Lyons, S. K. M. Ernest, K. E. Jones, D. M. Kaufman, T. Dayan,
P. A. Marquet, J. H. Brown, and J. P. Haskell. 2003. “Body mass of late Qua-
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