Université de Fribourg

Phylogenetic signal in predator–prey body-size relationships

Naisbit, Russell E. ; Kehrli, Patrik ; Rohr, Rudolf Philippe ; Bersier, Louis-Félix

In: Ecology, 2011, vol. 92, no. 12, p. 2183–2189

Body mass is a fundamental characteristic that affects metabolism, life history, and population abundance and frequently sets bounds on who eats whom in food webs. Based on a collection of topological food webs, Ulrich Brose and colleagues presented a general relationship between the body mass of predators and their prey and analyzed how mean predator–prey body-mass ratios differed among...

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...