The predator-prey power law: Biomass scaling across terrestrial and aquatic biomes.
Ecosystems exhibit surprising regularities in structure and function across terrestrial and aquatic biomes worldwide. We assembled a global data set for 2260 communities of large mammals, invertebrates, plants, and plankton. We find that predator and prey biomass follow a general scaling law with exponents consistently near ¾. This pervasive pattern implies that the structure of the biomass pyramid becomes increasingly bottom-heavy at higher biomass. Similar exponents are obtained for community production-biomass relations, suggesting conserved links between ecosystem structure and function. These exponents are similar to many body mass allometries, and yet ecosystem scaling emerges independently from individual-level scaling, which is not fully understood. These patterns suggest a greater degree of ecosystem-level organization than previously recognized and a more predictive approach to ecological theory.
Department of Biology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec H3A 1B1, Canada. i.a.hatton@gmail.com.
Ian A
IA
Hatton
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
Kevin S
KS
McCann
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
John M
JM
Fryxell
Department of Biology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec H3A 1B1, Canada.
T Jonathan
TJ
Davies
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada.
Matteo
M
Smerlak
Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada. Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, P.O. Box 661, Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania.
Anthony R E
AR
Sinclair
Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modeling, Experimental Ecology Station, CNRS, 09200 Moulis, France.
Michel
M
Loreau
D000818:Animals; D018533:Biomass; D016208:Databases, Factual; D020387:Food Chain; D007448:Invertebrates; D008322:Mammals; D010933:Plankton