Animal Body Size: Linking Pattern and Process across Space, Time, and Taxonomic Group
Animal Body Size: Linking Pattern and Process across Space, Time, and Taxonomic Group
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Abstract
Galileo wrote that “nature cannot produce a horse as large as twenty ordinary horses or a giant ten times taller than an ordinary man unless by miracle or by greatly altering the proportions of his limbs and especially of his bones”—a statement that wonderfully captures a long-standing scientific fascination with body size. Why are organisms the size that they are? And what determines their optimum size? This volume explores animal body size from a macroecological perspective, examining species, populations, and other large groups of animals in order to uncover the patterns and causal mechanisms of body size throughout time and across the globe. The chapters represent diverse scientific perspectives and are divided into two sections. The first includes chapters on insects, snails, birds, bats, and terrestrial mammals and discusses the body size patterns of these various organisms. The second examines some of the factors behind, and consequences of, body size patterns and includes chapters on community assembly, body mass distribution, life history, and the influence of flight on body size.
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Front Matter
- Introduction On Being the Right Size: The Impor tance of Size in Life History, Ecology, and Evolution
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Part I Body Size Patterns across Space and Time
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One
Macroecological Patterns in Insect Body Size
Kevin J. Gaston andSteven L. Chown
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Two
Latitudinal Variation of Body Size in Land Snail Populations and Communities
Jeffrey C. Nekola and others
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Three
Geographic Variation in Body Size Distributions of Continental Avifauna
Brian A. Maurer
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Four
Evolution of Body Size in Bats
Kamran Safi and others
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Five
Macroecological Patterns of Body Size in Mammals across Time and Space
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One
Macroecological Patterns in Insect Body Size
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Part II Mechanisms and Consequences Underlying Body Size Distributional Patterns
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Six
Using Size Distributions to Understand the Role of Body Size in Mammalian Community Assembly
S. K. Morgan Ernest
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Seven
Processes Responsible for Patterns in Body Mass Distributions
Brian A. Maurer andPablo A. Marquet
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Eight
The Influence of Flight on Patterns of Body Size Diversity and Heritability
Felisa A. Smith and others
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Nine
On Body Size and Life History of Mammals
James H. Brown and others
- Conclusion The Way Forward
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Six
Using Size Distributions to Understand the Role of Body Size in Mammalian Community Assembly
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End Matter
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