Abstract
Following Mandelbrot1, recent studies2–6 demonstrate that some natural surfaces are fractal. Here we show that transects across vegetation are fractal, and consider one possible consequence of this observation for arthropods (mainly insects) living on plant surfaces. An important feature of a fractal curve or surface is that its length or area, respectively, becomes disproportionately large as the unit of measurement is decreased1. This suggests that if vegetation has a fractal structure, there is more usable space for smaller animals living on vegetation than for larger animals. Hence, there should be more individuals with a small body length than a large body length. We show that this is the case, and that relative numbers of small and large individual arthropods collected from vegetation are broadly consistent with theoretical predictions originating from the fractal nature of vegetation7 and individual rates of resource utilization.
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Morse, D., Lawton, J., Dodson, M. et al. Fractal dimension of vegetation and the distribution of arthropod body lengths. Nature 314, 731–733 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/314731a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/314731a0
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