Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 16, Issue 1, Pages 64-71Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12013
Keywords
Environmental variation; growth rate; metabolic theory of ecology; thermal dependence; universal temperature dependence
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The Metabolic Theory of Ecology predicts that the slope of the ratetemperature relationship, E, remains consistent across traits and organisms, acting as a major determinant of large-scale ecological patterns. Although E has recently been shown to vary systematically, we have a poor understanding of its ecological significance. To address this question, we conducted a common-garden experiment involving six damselfly species differing in distribution, estimating E at the level of full-sib families. Each species was sampled throughout its latitudinal range, allowing us to characterise variation in E along a latitudinal gradient spanning 3600 km. We show that E differs among populations and increases with latitude. E was right-skewness across species, but this was largely an artefact of the latitudinal trend. Increased seasonality towards higher latitude may contribute to the latitudinal trend in E. We conclude that E should be seen as a trait involved in local adaptation.
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