Stepping in Elton’s footprints: a general scaling model for body masses and trophic levels across ecosystems

  1. Jens O. Riede1,*,
  2. Ulrich Brose1,
  3. Bo Ebenman2,
  4. Ute Jacob3,
  5. Ross Thompson4,
  6. Colin R. Townsend5,
  7. Tomas Jonsson6

Article first published online: 27 DEC 2010

DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01568.x

Issue

Ecology Letters

Ecology Letters

Volume 14, Issue 2, pages 169–178, February 2011

Additional Information

How to Cite

Riede, J. O., Brose, U., Ebenman, B., Jacob, U., Thompson, R., Townsend, C. R. and Jonsson, T. (2011), Stepping in Elton’s footprints: a general scaling model for body masses and trophic levels across ecosystems. Ecology Letters, 14: 169–178. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2010.01568.x

Author Information

  1. 1

    J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Systemic Conservation Biology Group, Georg-August University Goettingen, 37073 Goettingen, Germany

  2. 2

    IFM Theory and Modelling, Division of Theoretical Biology, Linköping University, S-581 83 Linköping, Sweden

  3. 3

    Institute for Hydrobiology and Fisheries Science, University Hamburg, 22767 Hamburg, Germany

  4. 4

    School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Bld 18, Vic. 3800, Australia

  5. 5

    Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

  6. 6

    Ecological Modelling Group, Systems Biology Research Centre, University of Skövde, S-541 28 Skövde, Sweden

*E-mail: riede@bio.tu-darmstadt.de

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 24 JAN 2011
  2. Article first published online: 27 DEC 2010
  3. Editor, Sergio Navarrete Manuscript received 11 August 2010 First decision made 20 September 2010 Manuscript accepted 7 November 2010

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Keywords:

  • Allometry;
  • body-size ratio;
  • ecological networks;
  • food-webs;
  • predation;
  • predator–prey interactions

Ecology Letters (2011) 14: 169–178

Abstract

Despite growing awareness of the significance of body-size and predator–prey body-mass ratios for the stability of ecological networks, our understanding of their distribution within ecosystems is incomplete. Here, we study the relationships between predator and prey size, body-mass ratios and predator trophic levels using body-mass estimates of 1313 predators (invertebrates, ectotherm and endotherm vertebrates) from 35 food-webs (marine, stream, lake and terrestrial). Across all ecosystem and predator types, except for streams (which appear to have a different size structure in their predator–prey interactions), we find that (1) geometric mean prey mass increases with predator mass with a power-law exponent greater than unity and (2) predator size increases with trophic level. Consistent with our theoretical derivations, we show that the quantitative nature of these relationships implies systematic decreases in predator–prey body-mass ratios with the trophic level of the predator. Thus, predators are, on an average, more similar in size to their prey at the top of food-webs than that closer to the base. These findings contradict the traditional Eltonian paradigm and have implications for our understanding of body-mass constraints on food-web topology, community dynamics and stability.

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