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Unifying elemental stoichiometry and metabolic theory in predicting species abundances
Author(s) -
Ott David,
Digel Christoph,
Rall Björn C.,
Maraun Mark,
Scheu Stefan,
Brose Ulrich
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/ele.12330
Subject(s) - ecological stoichiometry , allometry , ecology , biomass (ecology) , context (archaeology) , population , scaling , population density , biology , stoichiometry , ecosystem , mathematics , chemistry , paleontology , demography , geometry , sociology , organic chemistry
While metabolic theory predicts variance in population density within communities depending on population average body masses, the ecological stoichiometry concept relates density variation across communities to varying resource stoichiometry. Using a data set including biomass densities of 4959 populations of soil invertebrates across 48 forest sites we combined these two frameworks. We analyzed how the scaling of biomass densities with population‐averaged body masses systematically interacts with stoichiometric variables. Simplified analyses employing either only body masses or only resource stoichiometry are highly context sensitive and yield variable and often misleading results. Our findings provide strong evidence that analyses of ecological state variables should integrate allometric and stoichiometric variables to explain deviations from predicted allometric scaling and avoid erroneous conclusions. In consequence, our study provides an important step towards unifying two prominent ecological theories, metabolic theory and ecological stoichiometry.