Metabolic Ecology E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1039

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Metabolic Ecology

Most of ecology is about metabolism, the ways that organisms use energy and materials. The energy requirements of individuals (their metabolic rates) vary predictably with their body size and temperature. Ecological interactions are exchanges of energy and materials between organisms and their environments. Therefore, metabolic rate affects ecological processes at all levels: individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems. Each chapter focuses on a different process, level of organization, or kind of organism. It lays a conceptual foundation and presents empirical examples. Together, the chapters provide an integrated framework that holds the promise for a unified theory of ecology.

The book is intended to be accessible to upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, but also of interest to senior scientists. Its easy-to-read chapters and clear illustrations can be used in lecture and seminar courses. This is an authoritative treatment that will inspire future generations to study metabolic ecology.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

COMPANION WEBSITE

Title page

Copyright page

Notes on contributors

Preface

Introduction: Metabolism as the basis for A theoretical unification of ecology

I METABOLISM IS TO ECOLOGY AS GENETICS IS TO EVOLUTION?

II METABOLIC ECOLOGY IS MORE THAN SCALING AND MTE

III ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

IV A FINAL COMMENT

Part I: Foundations

Chapter 1: Methodological Tools

1.1 INTRODUCTION

1.2 VISUALIZING MTE RELATIONSHIPS

1.3 FITTING MTE MODELS TO DATA

1.4 ARE THE FITTED PARAMETERS CONSISTENT WITH THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS?

1.5 IS THE SHAPE OF THE RELATIONSHIP CONSISTENT WITH THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS?

1.6 THOUGHTS ON TESTING ECOLOGICAL THEORIES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 2: The Metabolic Theory of Ecology and its Central Equation

2.1 INTRODUCTION

2.2 THE CENTRAL EQUATION OF METABOLIC ECOLOGY

2.3 ANALYZING, PLOTTING, AND EVALUATING DATA

2.4 THE EFFECT OF BODY SIZE AND THE RIDDLE OF QUARTER-POWER SCALING

2.5 THE MODELS OF WEST, BROWN, AND ENQUIST

2.6 THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE

2.7 INCORPORATING STOICHIOMETRY

2.8 CONCLUSION

Chapter 3: Stoichiometry

3.1 INTRODUCTION

3.2 BUILDING ORGANISMS USING ENERGY AND STUFF

3.3 WHAT DO ALL THESE ELEMENTS DO?

3.4 HOW ARE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS DISTRIBUTED?

3.5 MODELS AND APPLICATIONS OF STOICHIOMETRY TO METABOLISM

3.6 A FEW APPLICATIONS OF LIEBIG LOGIC

3.7 BEYOND LIEBIG: WHEN METABOLISM IS LIMITED BY MULTIPLE ELEMENTS

3.8 LINKING ES AND MTE MODELS OF METABOLIC ECOLOGY

3.9 OPPORTUNITIES

Chapter 4: Modeling Metazoan Growth and Ontogeny

4.1 INTRODUCTION TO ONTOGENETIC SCALING

4.2 ALLOMETRIC MODELS OF ONTOGENETIC GROWTH

4.3 INFLUENCES OF TEMPERATURE AND STOICHIOMETRY

4.4 CAVEATS AND CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 5: Life History

5.1 INTRODUCTION

5.2 WHAT IS A LIFE HISTORY?

5.3 PREDICTING HOW LIFE HISTORIES CHANGE WITH BODY SIZE

5.4 DATA

5.5 EVOLUTIONARY CONSIDERATIONS

5.6 CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 6: Behavior

6.1 INTRODUCTION

6.2 THE ROLE OF METABOLISM

6.3 FORAGING AND RESOURCE ACQUISITION

6.4 COMMUNICATION

6.5 REPRODUCTION

6.6 COOPERATION AND GROUP LIVING

6.7 CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 7: Population and Community Ecology

7.1 INTRODUCTION

7.2 PARAMETERIZING POPULATION DYNAMIC MODELS

7.3 ENERGY AND COMMUNITY STRUCTURE

7.4 CAN ECOLOGY EXPLAIN THE SCATTER IN METABOLIC SCALING?

7.5 PROSPECTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 8: Predator–Prey Relations and Food Webs

8.1 INTRODUCTION

8.2 TROPHIC RELATIONS

8.3 FOOD WEB STRUCTURE

8.4 FOOD WEB DYNAMICS AND STABILITY

8.5 WAYS FORWARD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 9: Ecosystems

9.1 INTRODUCTION

9.2 BODY SIZE

9.3 TEMPERATURE

9.4 WATER

9.5 NUTRIENTS

9.6 CONCLUSION

Chapter 10: Rates of Metabolism and Evolution

10.1 INTRODUCTION

10.2 METHODS FOR MEASURING EVOLUTIONARY RATES

10.3 PROBLEMS AND HYPOTHESES

10.4 CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Chapter 11: Biodiversity and Its Energetic and Thermal Controls

11.1 INTRODUCTION

11.2 THE MORE-INDIVIDUALS HYPOTHESIS AND ITS LIMITATIONS

11.3 METABOLIC THEORY OF BIODIVERSITY

11.4 CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS OF THE CURRENT FORMULATION OF THE METABOLIC THEORY OF BIODIVERSITY

11.5 EMPIRICAL PATTERNS: EVIDENCE AND COUNTEREVIDENCE

11.6 MERITS OF THE METABOLIC THEORY OF BIODIVERSITY

11.7 TEMPERATURE AGAIN: WHICH EFFECTS AND WHEN?

11.8 CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Part II: Selected Organisms and Topics

Chapter 12: Microorganisms

12.1 INTRODUCTION

12.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF METABOLIC ECOLOGY OF MICROBES

12.3 PHYSIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

12.4 QUANTITATIVE OUTLINE OF THE DIMENSIONS OF METABOLISM

12.5 DIMENSION 1: THERMODYNAMICS

12.6 DIMENSION 2: CHEMICAL KINETICS

12.7 DIMENSION 3: PHYSIOLOGICAL HARSHNESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS

12.8 DIMENSION 4: CELL SIZE

12.9 DIMENSION 5: LEVELS OF BIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

12.10 COMMUNITY METABOLISM AND THE INTERPLAY OF DIMENSIONS

12.11 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Chapter 13: Phytoplankton

13.1 INTRODUCTION

13.2 SCALING OF PHYTOPLANKTON PHYSIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY

13.3 SCALING OF PHYTOPLANKTON COMMUNITIES

13.4 EFFECTS OF GLOBAL CHANGE

13.5 FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Chapter 14: Land Plants: New Theoretical Directions and Empirical Prospects

14.1 INTRODUCTION

14.2 PLANT SCALING: HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

14.3 EXAMPLES OF BOTANICAL SCALING: FROM ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY TO ECOSYSTEMS

14.4 ORIGIN OF BOTANICAL SCALING EXPONENTS: WEST, BROWN, AND ENQUIST MODEL

14.5 ORIGIN OF BOTANICAL SCALING NORMALIZATIONS: MERGING OF WBE2 WITH TRAIT-BASED PLANT ECOLOGY

14.6 WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED SINCE 1997 AND 1999?

14.7 SCALING UP TO POPULATIONS, COMMUNITIES, AND ECOSYSTEMS

14.8 CONCLUSIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 15: Marine Invertebrates

15.1 INTRODUCTION

15.2 OVERVIEW OF METABOLIC THEMES IN MARINE INVERTEBRATE ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

15.3 PATTERNS IN METABOLIC RATE WITH DEPTH, AND SELECTION FOR HIGH RATES IN SURFACE WATERS

15.4 TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE OF DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED PHENOTYPIC COMPENSATION

15.5 MOVING FORWARD: A NEW GENERATION OF MARINE METABOLIC ECOLOGY IN A TIME OF GLOBAL CHANGE

Chapter 16: Insect Metabolic Rates

16.1 INTRODUCTION

16.2 ENVIRONMENTAL AND BEHAVIORAL EFFECTS ON INSECT METABOLIC RATES

16.3 CORRELATIONS BETWEEN BODY SIZE AND METABOLIC RATE

16.4 BROADER IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 17: Terrestrial Vertebrates

17.1 METABOLISM OF TERRESTRIAL VERTEBRATES VARIES PREDICTABLY WITH DIFFERENCES IN BODY SIZE AND TEMPERATURE

17.2 MECHANISTIC CORRELATES OF METABOLISM VS. SIZE IN TERRESTRIAL VERTEBRATES

17.3 MECHANISTIC CORRELATES OF RESOURCE ACQUISITION AND ALLOCATION VS. SIZE IN TERRESTRIAL VERTEBRATES

17.4 IMPLICATIONS OF METABOLIC SCALING FOR VERTEBRATE POPULATION ECOLOGY

17.5 OTHER IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS OF METABOLIC SCALING IN VERTEBRATE BIOLOGY

17.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Chapter 18: Seabirds and Marine Mammals

18.1 INTRODUCTION

18.2 GENERAL PATTERNS OF ENERGY INTAKE AND EXPENDITURE, FORAGING, AND REPRODUCTION

18.3 COMPARISONS AMONG SEABIRDS

18.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 19: Parasites

19.1 INTRODUCTION

19.2 WHY CONSIDER PARASITES AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE?

19.3 PARASITE INDIVIDUALS

19.4 PARASITES IN HOSTS

19.5 PARASITES AND FREE-LIVING SPECIES IN ECOSYSTEMS

19.6 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Chapter 20: Human Ecology

20.1 INTRODUCTION

20.2 COMPARATIVE HUMAN LIFE HISTORY

20.3 COMPARATIVE HUMAN POPULATION ECOLOGY

20.4 HUMAN ECOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ENERGETICS

20.5 CONCLUSIONS

Part III: Practical Applications

Chapter 21: Marine Ecology and Fisheries

21.1 INTRODUCTION

21.2 LIFE HISTORIES

21.3 FOOD WEBS

21.4 FOOD WEB COMPLEXITY

21.5 FISHING IMPACTS

21.6 FISHERY ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT

21.7 CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 22: Conservation Biology

22.1 INTRODUCTION

22.2 METABOLIC LINKAGES TO EXTINCTION RISK

22.3 BROAD-SCALE CONSERVATION APPLICATIONS OF MTE

22.4 CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 23: Climate Change

23.1 INTRODUCTION

23.2 INDIVIDUALS

23.3 COMMUNITIES

23.4 ECOSYSTEMS

23.5 CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 24: Beyond Biology

24.1 INTRODUCTION

24.2 CITIES

24.3 COMPUTERS

24.4 BACK TO BIOLOGY

Chapter 25: Synthesis and Prospect

SYNTHESIS

PROSPECT

Glossary

References

Index

Cover image

Photograph of a Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) by D. Costa. Drawings and photographs of organisms courtesy of R. Beckett, S. R. Jennings and J. H. Nichols.

COMPANION WEBSITE

This book is accompanied by a companion website:

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With figures and tables from the book for downloading, together with updates and additional resources

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Notes on contributors

Ken H. Andersen is a professor in theoretical marine ecology at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark. He studies how the marine ecosystem responds to perturbations, in particular fishing, using size-spectrum models and metabolic arguments. ttp://ken.haste.dk

Kristina J. Anderson-Teixeira received her PhD in Biology under James H. Brown and also studied under Marcy E. Litvak at the University of New Mexico. She is currently working as a postdoctoral research associate with Evan H. DeLucia at the University of Illinois. Her research focuses on understanding how climate shapes terrestrial ecosystems, quantifying the climate regulation services of terrestrial ecosystems, and applying knowledge of ecosystem–climate interactions to inform land-use decisions in an era of climate change.

Lisa Patrick Bentley is currently an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona. She works on extending metabolic scaling theory to account for additional aspects of plant hydraulics, xylem function, and carbon flux. Her aim is to integrate key plant physiological processes that affect ecosystem-level dynamics. Her approach addresses an increasing need for predictive models that scale from the leaf to globe in order to inform future research and government policy decisions.

Julia Blanchard is a Lecturer in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield and an Honorary Research Fellow of Imperial College London. Julia teaches and researches both the fundamental and applied ecology of marine populations, communities, and ecosystems. Her current research involves linking macroecology, food webs and fisheries ecology to inform marine ecosystem management. www.sheffield.ac.uk/aps/staff-and-students/acadstaff/blanchard-julia

Alison Boyer is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology asd Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. She uses ecological informatics and the fossil record to examine community ecology and extinction risk in island birds. She is also engaged in research at broader scales to examine processes governing biological diversity. http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/boyer/index.html

James H. Brown is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. He led the development of the Metabolic Theory of Ecology on which this book is largely based. He has a long history of research in biogeography and macroecology, taking a large-scale statistical approach to questions about abundance, distribution, and diversity. http://biology.unm.edu/jhbrown/index.shtml

John Bruno is a marine ecologist in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research is focused on marine biodiversity, coral reef ecology and conservation and the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. John earned his PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University and was a postdoctoral fellow in disease ecology at Cornell University. www.brunolab.net

Oskar Burger is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. He has many interests in both the social and natural sciences centered around understanding large-scale evolutionary constraints on human/primate life history. His latest projects include the evolution of the post-reproductive lifespan, cross-species primate mortality patterns, life-history invariants across the tree of life, and the effects of variation in energy consumption on human demographics.

Chris Carbone works at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, and is interested in understanding drivers of species distributions and abundance. His work focuses particularly on the role of body size and consumer–resource relationships in shaping organism ecology and population processes, and he is developing a fondness for dinosaurs.

Daniel Costa is a Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He research focuses on the ecology and physiology of marine mammals and seabirds. He has worked in almost every habitat from the Galapagos to the Antarctic with a broad range of animals including penguins, albatross, seals, sea lions, whales, and dolphins. http://bio.research.ucsc.edu/people/costa/

Jennifer Dunne is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute (www.santafe.edu) and Co-Director of the Pacific Ecoinformatics and Computational Ecology Lab (www.foodwebs. org). Her research seeks to identify fundamental patterns and principles of ecological network structure, robustness, and dynamics at multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Brian Enquist is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona (www. salvias.net/∼brian). He uses physiological, theoretical, computational, and informatics approaches in order to discover general principles that shape the: (i) origin of biological scaling laws; (ii) scaling of plant functional traits to ecology and evolution; and (iii) origin and maintenance of functional and phylogenetic diversity. He addresses these questions in tropical forests and alpine ecosystems.

S. K. Morgan Ernest is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Utah State University. She teaches courses on Animal Community Ecology, Macroecology, and non-majors courses in Biology. While she has been involved in research spanning from life-history theory to paleoecology, she is particularly interested in how energetic constraints impact the structure and dynamics of communities. http://ernestlab.weecology.org

Stephanie Forrest is Professor of Computer Science, University of New Mexico, and External Professor of the Santa Fe institute. Her research studies adaptive systems, including immunology, evolutionary computation, biological modeling, and computer security. http://www.cs.unm.edu/∼forrest/

Jamie Gillooly is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Florida. Jamie played a primary role in developing the Metabolic Theory of Ecology, and is currently working to extend these energy-based models in new directions. Current projects include the study of animal communication, animal migration, and aging and disease. In addition, Jamie has been working to foster collaboration between artists and scientists as a “scholar-in-residence” in the School of Fine Arts and Art History at the University of Florida.

John Gittleman is Dean and Professor of Ecology in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia where he teaches Macroecology and Conservation Ecology. His research interests are large-scale ecological and evolutionary problems, specifically related to speciation, extinction, and global biodiversity. http://blackbear.ecology.uga.edu/gittleman/

Marcus Hamilton is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on general principles that drive the structure, dynamics, and diversity of human societies in the past, present, and future, integrating perspectives from across the social, biological, and physical sciences. http://www.unm.edu/∼marcusj/home.htm

Jon F. Harrison is a Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University where he teaches a variety of courses in biology and physiology. His research focuses on environmental and ecological physiology of insects. http://jharrison.faculty.asu.edu

April Hayward is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Florida whose research ultimately focuses on understanding how complex biological systems emerged from a prebiotic soup. Current efforts toward this end center on understanding the flow and retention of matter and energy through different levels of biological organization.

Ryan Hechinger is a research scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has three overarching and related research goals. One is to evaluate the importance of parasites in ecosystems. Another is to use parasites to test and refine general ecological and evolutionary theory. The third is to “keep it real.”http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/∼hechinge/

Nick Isaac works at the Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, on questions about species’ distribution and abundance over large scales, using data on mammals, insects, and birds. Of particular interest is the relative contribution of intrinsic biological traits and extrinsic environmental drivers in shaping biodiversity, and how these patterns change at different spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales.

Simon Jennings is a Principal Scientist at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft, and Professor of Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia. His research focuses on assessing the sustainability of human and environmental impacts on marine populations, communities, and ecosystems as well as developing and applying tools to support marine environmental management.

Walter Jetz is Associate Professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Yale University. Using mostly terrestrial vertebrates and plants as study systems, his interdisciplinary research draws on elements of biogeography, community ecology, landscape ecology, macroecology, global change ecology, evolution, comparative biology, biodiversity informatics, and conservation, aiming to integrate across scales of geography and ecological organization – from local to global assemblages. http://www.yale.edu/jetz/

William Karasov is Professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches Animal Physiological Ecology. He researches digestive physiology, nutritional ecology, animal energetics, and ecotoxicology of vertebrates. http://forestandwildlifeecology. wisc.edu/facstaff/karasov.html

Michael Kaspari is a Presidential Professor and Director of the EEB graduate program at the University of Oklahoma where he teaches Community Ecology and Introduction to Biology. He uses metabolic approaches to understand the structure of brown, or detrital, food webs and how their structure and function varies geographically. He is particularly fond of tropical forests and ants. http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/K/Michael.E.Kaspari-1/AntLab_Home.htm

Drew Kerkhoff is Associate Professor in the Departments of Biology and Mathematics at Kenyon College. He teaches Ecology, Statistics, Biogeography, and Mathematical Biology, as well as introductory and non-majors courses. His research includes experimental, field, and macroecological studies of biological scaling and biodiversity, mostly focused on plants and, more recently, insects. http://biology.kenyon.edu/kerkhoff

Astrid Kodric-Brown is a Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Her research interests include the behavioral ecology of freshwater fishes, especially the evolution of mate recognition systems and their role in speciation in pupfishes (Cyprinodon); the allometry of sexually selected traits; and community structure and conservation of desert fishes. http://biology.unm.edu/biology/kodric/

Armand Kuris is Professor of Zoology at the University of California Santa Barbara where he teaches Parasitology, Invertebrate Zoology, Higher Invertebrates and Evolutionary Medicine. With Kevin Lafferty and Ryan Hechinger, he researches the role of infectious processes in ecosystems. They focus on the flow of energy through trophic levels and the evolution of parasitism, investigating biological control of schistosomiasis and exotic marine pests. http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/eemb/labs/kuris/index.html

Kevin Lafferty is an ecologist with the US Geological Survey and adjunct faculty at University of California Santa Barbara. He studies the ecology of infectious disease and conservation biology, primarily in marine systems. http://www.werc.usgs.gov/person.aspx?personID=166.

Elena Litchman is an associate professor at Michigan State University. Her research interests are ecology and evolution of freshwater and marine phytoplankton and aquatic ecosystem responses to global environmental change. She uses experiments, field studies, and mathematical models to investigate how abiotic factors and biotic interactions jointly determine phytoplankton community structure. http://www.kbs.msu.edu/people/faculty/litchman

Brian McGill works at the School of Biology and Ecology & Sustainability Solutions Initiative, University of Maine, where he studies biodiversity and organism–environment interactions at large scales (large areas, long time periods). A primary question is understanding how geographic ranges will shift in response to climate change. He also uses a heavily informatic approach involving large datasets and advanced statistics to analyze them.

Melanie Moses is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department, with a joint appointment in Biology, at the University of New Mexico. She uses mathematical models and computational concepts to understand complex biological systems. Her research focuses on networks, including scaling in cardiovascular networks and networks of information exchange in ant colonies and immune systems. http://cs.unm.edu/∼melaniem

Mary O’Connor is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she teaches Advanced Ecology and Marine Ecology. She researches the ecosystem-level consequences of environmental temperature change, and explores the contribution of ecological theory to a stronger understanding of climate change impacts. http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/∼oconnor

Jordan G. Okie is a NASA Astrobiology Institute and Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration postdoctoral fellow. He is interested in biological scaling, macroecology, macroevolution, microbial ecology and biogeography, astrobiology, and the role of metabolism in ecology and evolution.

Owen Petchey is Professor of Integrative Ecology at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich. His group’s research about biodiversity and ecological networks aims to improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of extinctions.

Scott Shaffer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at San Jose State University. He teaches Physiological Ecology and Introductory Biology and his research focuses on the ecological energetics, functional morphology, and behavioral ecology of seabirds and marine mammals. http://www.biology.sjsu.edu/facultystaff/sshaffer/sshaffer.aspx

Richard Sibly is Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading where he teaches Behavioural Ecology and Population Biology. He researches metabolic ecology questions with members of Jim Brown’s laboratory at the University of New Mexico and also works to promote the use of Agent-Based Models (ABMs) more widely in ecology. http://www.reading.ac.uk/biologicalsciences/about/staff/r-m-sibly.aspx

Felisa Smith is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico. She studies factors influencing mammalian body size across time, space, and hierarchical scales. Current projects include field investigations of the physiological and morphological trade-offs to life in an extreme environment, paleomiddens investigations of microevolutionary response to late Quaternary climate change, and macroecological studies of mammalian body size across evolutionary time and geographic space. http://biology.unm.edu/fasmith/

Patrick R. Stephens is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. He uses phylogenetic methods to explore questions that lie at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology, and is particularly interested in the origins of large-scale patterns of community structure and diversity. http://www. ecology.uga.edu/facultyMember.php?Stephens- 348/

David Storch is based at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. His interests embrace macroecology, biogeography, and evolutionary ecology, namely patterns in species richness, null models of species abundances and distributions, and geometrical issues concerning biological diversity. He has edited the book Scaling Biodiversity (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and has coauthored several other books on ecology and evolution. http://www.cts.cuni.cz/∼storch/

Peter Vitousek is Clifford G. Morrison Professor of Popula­tion and Resources in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, where he teaches ecology and biogeochemistry. His research focuses on the biogeochemistry of nitrogen, the ecosystems of the Hawaiian Islands, and the dynamics of Polynesian agriculture prior to European contact. http//www.stanford.edu/group/Vitousek/

Robert Walker is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Missouri. He researches the evolution of human bio-cultural variation with a focus on phylogenetic methods, kin co-residence patterns, marriage practices, and life-history variation across human populations. http://anthropology. missouri.edu/people/walker.html

James S. Waters is a Biology PhD candidate in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University working under the guidance and mentorship of Jon F. Harrison. His dissertation research focuses on how the functional integration of social insect colonies scales with colony size. He is also involved with research on the biomechanics and respiratory physiology of insect tracheal systems.

Ethan White is an Assistant Professor with joint appointments in the Department of Biology and the Ecology Center at Utah State University. His research addresses a broad range of questions in macroecology and quantitative ecology, and he is actively involved in the development of tools to facilitate environmental informatics. http://whitelab.weecology.org

Xiao Xiao is a graduate student in the Department of Biology and the Ecology Center at Utah State University. Her research focuses on the application of mathematics, statistics, and informatics in the study of macroecological patterns.

Part I Foundations

Chapter 1

Methodological Tools

Ethan P. White, Xiao Xiao, Nick J. B. Isaac, and Richard M. Sibly

SUMMARY

1 In this chapter we discuss the best methodological tools for visually and statistically comparing predictions of the metabolic theory of ecology to data.