Université de Fribourg

Consumer-resource body-size relationships in natural food webs

Brose, Ulrich ; Jonsson, Tomas ; Berlow, Eric L. ; Warren, Philip ; Banasek-Richter, Carolin ; Bersier, Louis-Félix ; Blanchard, Julia L. ; Brey, Thomas ; Carpenter, Stephen R. ; Blandenier, Marie-France Cattin ; Cushing, Lara ; Dawah, Hassan Ali ; Dell, Tony ; Edwards, Francois ; Harper-Smith, Sarah ; Jacob, Ute ; Ledger, Mark E. ; Martinez, Neo D. ; Memmott, Jane ; Mintenbeck, Katja ; Pinnegar, John K. ; Rall, Björn C. ; Rayner, Thomas S. ; Reuman, Daniel C. ; Ruess, Liliane ; Ulrich, Werner ; Williams, Richard J. ; Woodward, Guy ; Cohen, Joel E.

In: Ecology, 2006, vol. 87, no. 10, p. 2411-2417

It has been suggested that differences in body size between consumer and resource species may have important implications for interaction strengths, population dynamics, and eventually food web structure, function, and evolution. Still, the general distribution of consumer–resource body-size ratios in real ecosystems, and whether they vary systematically among habitats or broad taxonomic...

Université de Fribourg

Body sizes of consumers and their resources

Brose, Ulrich ; Cushing, Lara ; Berlow, Eric L. ; Jonsson, Tomas ; Banasek-Richter, Carolin ; Bersier, Louis-Félix ; Blanchard, Julia L. ; Brey, Thomas ; Carpenter, Stephen R. ; Cattin Blandenier, Marie-France ; Cohen, Joel E. ; Dawah, Hassan Ali ; Dell, Tony ; Edwards, Francois ; Harper-Smith, Sarah ; Jacob, Ute ; Knapp, Roland A. ; Ledger, Mark E. ; Memmott, Jane ; Mintenbeck, Katja ; Pinnegar, John K. ; Rall, Björn C. ; Rayner, Thomas ; Ruess, Liliane ; Ulrich, Werner ; Warren, Philip ; Williams, Richard J. ; Woodward, Guy ; Yodzis, Peter ; Martinez, Neo D.

In: Ecology, 2005, vol. 86, p. 2545

Trophic information—who eats whom—and species' body sizes are two of the most basic descriptions necessary to understand community structure as well as ecological and evolutionary dynamics. Consumer–resource body size ratios between predators and their prey, and parasitoids and their hosts, have recently gained increasing attention due to their important implications for species'...