Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 366, Issue 1576, Pages 2364-2378Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2011.0067
Keywords
macroecology; temporal scales; spatial scales; mammalian body mass; biogeography; the comparative method
Categories
Funding
- International Biogeography Society
- National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1059521] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Macroecology was developed as a big picture statistical approach to the study of ecology and evolution. By focusing on broadly occurring patterns and processes operating at large spatial and temporal scales rather than on localized and/or fine-scaled details, macroecology aims to uncover general mechanisms operating at organism, population, and ecosystem levels of organization. Macroecological studies typically involve the statistical analysis of fundamental species-level traits, such as body size, area of geographical range, and average density and/or abundance. Here, we briefly review the history of macroecology and use the body size of mammals as a case study to highlight current developments in the field, including the increasing linkage with biogeography and other disciplines. Characterizing the factors underlying the spatial and temporal patterns of body size variation in mammals is a daunting task and moreover, one not readily amenable to traditional statistical analyses. Our results clearly illustrate remarkable regularities in the distribution and variation of mammalian body size across both geographical space and evolutionary time that are related to ecology and trophic dynamics and that would not be apparent without a broader perspective.
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