scholarly journals All Sizes Fit the Red Queen

Paleobiology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-494
Author(s):  
Indrė Žliobaitė ◽  
Mikael Fortelius
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Large Species ◽  
Red Queen ◽  
Metabolic Scaling ◽  
Physiological Time ◽  
Time Modeling ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
The Red Queen

AbstractThe Red Queen's hypothesis portrays evolution as a never-ending competition for expansive energy, where one species’ gain is another species’ loss. The Red Queen is neutral with respect to body size, implying that neither small nor large species have a universal competitive advantage. Here we ask whether, and if so how, the Red Queen's hypothesis really can accommodate differences in body size. The maximum population growth in ecology clearly depends on body size—the smaller the species, the shorter the generation length, and the faster it can expand given sufficient opportunity. On the other hand, large species are more efficient in energy use due to metabolic scaling and can maintain more biomass with the same energy. The advantage of shorter generation makes a wide range of body sizes competitive, yet large species do not take over. We analytically show that individuals consume energy and reproduce in physiological time, but need to compete for energy in real time. The Red Queen, through adaptive evolution of populations, balances the pressures of real and physiological time. Modeling competition for energy as a proportional prize contest from economics, we further show that Red Queen's zero-sum game can generate unimodal hat-like patterns of species rise and decline that can be neutral in relation to body size.

scholarly journals The body-size dependence of mutual interference

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 20140261 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. DeLong
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Size Dependence ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Mutual Interference ◽  
The Body ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Stabilizing Effect ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Size Scales

The parameters that drive population dynamics typically show a relationship with body size. By contrast, there is no theoretical or empirical support for a body-size dependence of mutual interference, which links foraging rates to consumer density. Here, I develop a model to predict that interference may be positively or negatively related to body size depending on how resource body size scales with consumer body size. Over a wide range of body sizes, however, the model predicts that interference will be body-size independent. This prediction was supported by a new dataset on interference and consumer body size. The stabilizing effect of intermediate interference therefore appears to be roughly constant across size, while the effect of body size on population dynamics is mediated through other parameters.

Primary productivity, deoxygenation, and the Gulliver-absence effect determine bivalve body size following the end-Permian mass extinction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Tietje ◽  
William J. Foster ◽  
Jana Gliwa ◽  
Clara Lembke ◽  
Autumn Pugh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
Mass Extinction ◽  
The Body ◽  
Large Species ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Shell Size ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Permian Mass Extinction ◽  
The Impact

<p> The impact of mass extinctions on the body sizes of animals has received considerable attention and debate, as to whether the reduced size of post-extinction organisms is due to the selective extinction of large species, absence of large species as a stochastic effect of low-diversity faunas, or a size decrease within surviving genera and species. Here, we investigated the body sizes of bivalves following the end-Permian mass extinction event and show that the shell size increase of bivalve genera was driven by both evolutionary and ecophenotypic responses. First, some genera show significant increases in body size with the evolution of new species. Further, the same genera record significant within-species increases in average and maximum body size into the late Induan, indicating that ecophenotypic changes were also involved on long-term body size trends. These increases are associated with invigorated ocean circulation, improved oxygenation of the seafloor, and probably increased food supply.</p>

Avian Egg Morphometrics - Allometric Models of Egg Volume, Clutch Volume and Shape

1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 307 ◽  
Author(s):  
PD Olsen ◽  
RB Cunningham ◽  
CF Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Body Weight ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Sexual Dimorphism ◽  
Clutch Size ◽  
Egg Volume ◽  
Simple Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Body Weights ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Simple Power Function

This paper describes three comprehensive new models of the allometric relationships between egg volume, clutch volume and shape, and body weight. Mean egg dimensions, clutch sizes and adult body weights were obtained for 326 species, mainly of four bird types: raptors (including owls), shorebirds, frogmouths (including nightjars), and storks (including the New World vultures). These are groups in which there is a wide range of body sizes and of sexual dimorphism in body size (in direction and degree). Female body weight alone accounted for 92% of the variation in egg volume. Sexual dimorphism in body size, phylogenetic relationship, and clutch size were significant contributors to the model of egg volume; their addition increased the explained variance to over 98%. The model was curvilinear (quadratic) in form, rather than linear as assumed in previous models. Larger species laid smaller eggs than expected under a simple power function. For the fitted model, within bird types, generic groupings had parallel curvilinear slopes but differing intercepts. Between bird types, the slopes differed. Clutch volume was scaled to body weight; all the bird types had a common slope, which was curvilinear. Body weight and dimorphism accounted for 89.5% of the variation in clutch volume. For all bird types, eggs became proportionally longer in shape as body weight increased, according to a simple power law. The relevance of these relationships to hypotheses on the evolution and adaptive significance of sexual dimorphism and to the trade-off between egg size and clutch size is discussed briefly.

scholarly journals The scaling of expansive energy under the Red Queen predicts Cope’s Rule

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indrė Žliobaitė ◽  
Mikael Fortelius
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Large Species ◽  
Small Species ◽  
Evolutionary Advantage ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
The Red Queen ◽  
Cope’S Rule

AbstractThe Red Queen’s hypothesis portrays evolution as a never-ending competition for expansive energy, where one species’ gain is another species’ loss. The Red Queen is neutral with respect to body size, implying that neither small nor large species have a universal competitive advantage. The maximum population growth in ecology; however, clearly depends on body size – the smaller the species, the shorter the generation length, and the faster it can expand. Here we ask whether, and if so how, the Red Queen’s hypothesis can accommodate a spectrum of body sizes. We theoretically analyse scaling of expansive energy with body mass and demonstrate that in the Red Queen’s zero-sum game for resources, neither small nor large species have a universal evolutionary advantage. We argue that smaller species have an evolutionary advantage only when resources in the environment are not fully occupied, such as after mass extinctions or following key innovations allowing expansion into freed up or previously unoccupied resource space. Under such circumstances, we claim, generation length is the main limiting factor for population growth. When competition for resources is weak, smaller species can indeed expand faster, but to sustain this growth they also need more resources. In the Red Queen’s realm, where resources are fully occupied and the only way for expansion is to outcompete other species, acquisition of expansive energy becomes the limiting factor and small species lose their physiological advantage. A gradual transition from unlimited resources to a zero-sum game offers a direct mechanistic explanation for observed body mass trends in the fossil record, known as Cope’s Rule. When the system is far from the limit of resources and competition is not maximally intense, small species take up ecological space faster. When the system approaches the limits of its carrying capacity and competition tightens, small species lose their evolutionary advantage and we observe a wider range of successful body masses, and, as a result, an increase in the average body mass within lineages.

scholarly journals Will giant polar amphipods be first to fare badly in an oxygen-poor ocean? Testing hypotheses linking oxygen to body size

2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1778) ◽  
pp. 20190034 ◽  
Author(s):  
John I. Spicer ◽  
Simon A. Morley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Oxygen Limitation ◽  
Amphipod Species ◽  
Evolutionary Innovation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Body Sizes

It has been suggested that giant Antarctic marine invertebrates will be particularly vulnerable to declining O 2 levels as our ocean warms in line with current climate change predictions. Our study provides some support for this oxygen limitation hypothesis, with larger body sizes being generally more sensitive to O 2 reductions than smaller body sizes. However, it also suggests that the overall picture is a little more complex. We tested predictions from three different, but overlapping, O 2 -related hypotheses accounting for gigantism, using four Antarctic amphipod species encompassing a wide range of body sizes. We found a significant effect of body size, but also of species, in their respiratory responses to acutely declining O 2 tensions. The more active lifestyle of intermediate-sized Prostebbingia brevicornis was supported by a better respiratory performance than predicted by the oxygen limitation hypothesis alone, but consistent with the symmorphosis hypothesis. We suggest that giant polar amphipods are likely to be some of the first to fare badly in an O 2 -poor ocean. However, the products of past evolutionary innovation, such as respiratory pigments that enhance O 2 -transport and novel gas exchange structures, may in some species offset any respiratory disadvantages of either large or small body size. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Physiological diversity, biodiversity patterns and global climate change: testing key hypotheses involving temperature and oxygen’.

scholarly journals Carnivorous mammals from the middle Eocene Washakie Formation, Wyoming, USA, and their diversity trajectory in a post-warming world

2021 ◽  
Vol 95 (S82) ◽  
pp. 1-115
Author(s):  
Susumu Tomiya ◽  
Shawn P. Zack ◽  
Michelle Spaulding ◽  
John J. Flynn
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Middle Eocene ◽  
Cladistic Analysis ◽  
Imperfect Detection ◽  
Crown Group ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Land Mammal ◽  
Diversity Dynamics

AbstractThe middle Eocene Washakie Formation of Wyoming, USA, provides a rare window, within a single depositional basin, into the faunal transition that followed the early Eocene warming events. Based on extensive examination, we report a minimum of 27 species of carnivorous mammals from this formation, more than doubling the previous taxic count. Included in this revised list are a new species of carnivoraform, Neovulpavus mccarrolli n. sp., and up to ten other possibly new taxa. Our cladistic analysis of early Carnivoraformes incorporating new data clarified the array of middle Eocene taxa that are closely related to crown-group Carnivora. These anatomically relatively derived carnivoraforms collectively had an intercontinental distribution in North America and east Asia, exhibiting notable variations in body size and dental adaptation. This time period also saw parallel trends of increase in body size and dental sectoriality in distantly related lineages of carnivores spanning a wide range of body sizes. A new, model-based Bayesian analysis of diversity dynamics accounting for imperfect detection revealed a high probability of substantial loss of carnivore species between the late Bridgerian and early Uintan North American Land Mammal ‘Ages’, coinciding with the disappearance of formerly common mammals such as hyopsodontids and adapiform primates. Concomitant with this decline in carnivore diversity, the Washakie vertebrate fauna underwent significant disintegration, as measured by patterns of coordinated detection of taxa at the locality level. These observations are consistent with a major biomic transition in the region in response to climatically induced opening-up of forested habitats.UUID: http://zoobank.org/9162f1a6-a12c-4d55-ba1d-dc66e8cda261

scholarly journals Fish Diversity as a Function of Depth and Body Size

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus M. Stiefel ◽  
Timothy Joseph R. Quimpo
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Scaling Laws ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Neutral Theory ◽  
Fish Diversity ◽  
Large Species ◽  
Species Numbers ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Reduced Rate

AbstractWe analyze the number of marine fish species as a function of fish body size and occurrence depth. For this purpose, we analyze the FishBase database. We compare these data to predictions of fish species numbers derived from the neutral theory of biodiversity combined with well-established ecological scaling laws, and measured oceanic biomass data. We consider several variants of these scaling laws, and we find that more large fish species exist compared to the prediction, which is especially true for elasmobranchs, possibly due to their overwhelmingly predatory niches. We find species numbers decreasing with occurrence depth somewhat quicker than our predictions based on the decrease of the number of individuals with depth indicates. This is especially true for the elasmobranchs. This is unsurprising, since the individuals versus depth data did not specifically determine elasmobranch biomass, and since sharks are known to be limited to depths < 3,000 m.Finally, we discuss how a reduced rate of speciation in larger animals could explain why large species are rare, in spite of the advantages of large body sizes outlined in Cope’s rule.

scholarly journals Within-host competition drives energy allocation trade-offs in an insect parasitoid

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e8810
Author(s):  
J. Keaton Wilson ◽  
Laura Ruiz ◽  
Goggy Davidowitz
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Life History Theory ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Life History Strategies ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Body Sizes

Organismal body size is an important biological trait that has broad impacts across scales of biological organization, from cells to ecosystems. Size is also deeply embedded in life history theory, as the size of an individual is one factor that governs the amount of available resources an individual is able to allocate to different structures and systems. A large body of work examining resource allocation across body sizes (allometry) has demonstrated patterns of allocation to different organismal systems and morphologies, and extrapolated rules governing biological structure and organization. However, the full scope of evolutionary and ecological ramifications of these patterns have yet to be realized. Here, we show that density-dependent larval competition in a natural population of insect parasitoids (Drino rhoeo: Tachinidae) results in a wide range of body sizes (largest flies are more than six times larger (by mass) than the smallest flies). We describe strong patterns of trade-offs between different body structures linked to dispersal and reproduction that point to life history strategies that differ between both males and females and individuals of different sizes. By better understanding the mechanisms that generate natural variation in body size and subsequent effects on the evolution of life history strategies, we gain better insight into the evolutionary and ecological impacts of insect parasitoids in tri-trophic systems.

scholarly journals The evolution and role of the hyposphene-hypantrum articulation in Archosauria: phylogeny, size and/or mechanics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 190258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candice M. Stefanic ◽  
Sterling J. Nesbitt
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Convergent Evolution ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Alternative Mechanism ◽  
Large Body Size ◽  
Terrestrial Vertebrate ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
And Shifts

Living members of Archosauria, the reptile clade containing Crocodylia and Aves, have a wide range of skeletal morphologies, ecologies and body size. The range of body size greatly increases when extinct archosaurs are included, because extinct Archosauria includes the largest members of any terrestrial vertebrate group (e.g. 70-tonne titanosaurs, 20-tonne theropods). Archosaurs evolved various skeletal adaptations for large body size, but these adaptations varied among clades and did not always appear consistently with body size or ecology. Modification of intervertebral articulations, specifically the presence of a hyposphene-hypantrum articulation between trunk vertebrae, occurs in a variety of extinct archosaurs (e.g. non-avian dinosaurs, pseudosuchians). We surveyed the phylogenetic distribution of the hyposphene-hypantrum to test its relationship with body size. We found convergent evolution among large-bodied clades, except when the clade evolved an alternative mechanism for vertebral bracing. For example, some extinct lineages that lack the hyposphene-hypantrum articulation (e.g. ornithischians) have ossified tendons that braced their vertebral column. Ossified tendons are present even in small taxa and in small-bodied juveniles, but large-bodied taxa with ossified tendons reached those body sizes without evolving the hyposphene-hypantrum articulation. The hyposphene-hypantrum was permanently lost in extinct crownward members of both major archosaur lineages (i.e. Crocodylia and Aves) as they underwent phyletic size decrease, changes in vertebral morphology and shifts in ecology.

Gape and energy limitation determine a humped relationship between trophic position and body size

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angel Manuel Segura ◽  
Valentina Franco-Trecu ◽  
Paula Franco-Fraguas ◽  
Matías Arim
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Body Mass ◽  
Nitrogen Isotopes ◽  
Trophic Position ◽  
Negative Slope ◽  
Large Species ◽  
Metabolic Demand ◽  
Southwestern Atlantic Ocean ◽  
Body Sizes ◽  
Energy Limitation

We found a segmented pattern, increasing for small sizes and decreasing for larger sizes, in the relationship between trophic position and body size. This pattern provides support for a recently developed theoretical model whose derivation was based on consumers’ metabolic requirements and on basic assumptions about feeding relationships. We combined original and published information about stable nitrogen isotopes, a proxy of trophic position, for a broad range of animal body sizes (10−3–105 kg) inhabiting the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Linear, polynomic, and piecewise segmented models were fit to species trophic position and body mass. The segmented model had the best fit, presenting a positive slope (β1 = 0.33 ± 0.08) for small organisms (<200 kg) and a negative slope (β2 = −1.93 ± 0.16) for larger ones. This suggests that there are morphological restrictions to prey consumption in smaller organisms and energetic constraints to trophic position in larger ones. Furthermore, the predator–prey body mass ratio (BMR = 1.31; 95% CI = 0.9–2.40) estimated here is similar to previous reports of direct observations (BMR = 1.64 and 1.82). However, the trophic position of larger organisms decreases at a faster rate (β2 = −1.93) than expected by metabolic demand (β2expected = −0.16 to −0.82), suggesting that additional processes should be considered. Our results suggest that large species could be more vulnerable to global change than previously thought.

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