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An optimum body size for mammals? Comparative evidence from bats
Author(s) -
JONES K. E.,
PURVIS A.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
functional ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.272
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1365-2435
pISSN - 0269-8463
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2435.1997.00149.x
Subject(s) - biology , life history theory , zoology , life history , allometry , taxon , ecology , offspring , reproduction , population dynamics , fecundity , demography , pregnancy , population , genetics , sociology
1. The distribution of body sizes among mammalian species has been modelled by Brown, Marquet & Taper (1993), who suggest that reproductive power (the rate at which energy from the environment is channelled into offspring production) is maximized at a size of 100 g, and the observed size distribution among species reflects the way reproductive power depends on size. The model makes a testable prediction about life‐history allometries: namely, that components of reproductive power should not scale linearly with body size but should change sign at the optimum size. 2. A large set of life‐history data from a single clade of small mammals, the bats (Order: Chiroptera), was analysed to test this key prediction. The analyses in this study offer no support for the idea that allometries of reproductive power change sign in bats, either at 100 g or at any other size. Furthermore the life‐history allometries of bats, which are mostly below the 100 g optimum, were broadly the same as in mammalian taxa larger than the optimum size. 3. These findings together contradict a key prediction of Brown et al. ’s (1993) model to explain the skewed body size distribution across mammalian species.