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Pawar et al. reply

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Abstract

replying to H. C. Giacomini, B. Shuter, D. T. de Kerckhove & P. A. Abrams Nature 493, 10.1038/nature11829 (2012)

Current studies assume that per-capita consumption rates always scale with body mass to an exponent of 0.75. We showed that, contrary to this assumption, consumption rates scale sublinearly (exponent of approximately 0.85) when organisms forage in two dimensions (2D), and superlinearly (exponent of approximately 1.06) when they forage in 3D1. Giacomini et al. argue that the superlinear scaling in 3D interactions we observed cannot be reconciled with life-history theory for maximal body size2. Consequently, they search for biases in our study that might cause this superlinear scaling. However, their comments do not challenge our central result that consumption rates scale superlinearly in 3D, and significantly more steeply than in 2D. We propose instead that life-history theory may need revision to include interaction dimensionality.

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Figure 1: Effect of ontogeny on scaling of 3D per-capita consumption rates.

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Author notes

  1. Samraat Pawar & Anthony I. Dell

    Present address: Present addresses: Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA (S.P.); Systemic Conservation Biology, Department of Biology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany (A.I.D.),

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomathematics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1766, California, USA

    Samraat Pawar, Anthony I. Dell &  Van M. Savage

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095, California, USA

    Van M. Savage

  3. Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, Mexico 87501, New, USA

    Van M. Savage

Authors
  1. Samraat Pawar
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  2. Anthony I. Dell
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  3. Van M. Savage
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Correspondence to Samraat Pawar.

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Pawar, S., Dell, A. & Van M. Savage Pawar et al. reply. Nature 493, E2–E3 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11830

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