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Does consumption rate scale superlinearly?

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A Brief Communications Arising to this article was published on 30 January 2013

Abstract

Arising from S. Pawar, A. I. Dell & V. M. Savage Nature 486, 485–489 (2012)

A recent paper by Pawar and colleagues1 has provided important insights into the consequences of foraging behaviour for food-web dynamics. One notable pattern predicted by their analysis is that consumption rate (c) scales superlinearly (cm1.16) with consumer body mass (m) in three-dimensional (3D), but not two-dimensional (2D), foraging spaces. Although we feel that the authors should be applauded for this interesting contribution, we argue that their result is not consistent with established life-history theory. To resolve this contradiction, progress in both fields is probably required, including new empirical studies in which consumption rate, metabolism and dimensionality are examined directly under natural conditions.

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Figure 1: Scaling of consumption rates with consumer mass.
Figure 2: Effect of biased sampling of stages of development on the scaling of consumption.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. *Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord St., Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G5, Canada,

    Henrique C. Giacomini, Brian J. Shuter, Derrick T. de Kerckhove & Peter A. Abrams

  2. †Harkness Laboratory of Fisheries Research, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, 2140 East Bank Drive, Peterborough, Ontario K9J 7B8, Canada,

    Brian J. Shuter

Authors
  1. Henrique C. Giacomini
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  2. Brian J. Shuter
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  3. Derrick T. de Kerckhove
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  4. Peter A. Abrams
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Contributions

H.C.G. originated the idea for the paper, carried out the statistical analyses and coordinated the writing of the manuscript. B.J.S., D.T.de K. and P.A.A. helped to write the manuscript and contributed with all discussions that defined the content of this paper. B.J.S. also helped to design Figs 1 and 2.

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Correspondence to Henrique C. Giacomini.

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Giacomini, H., Shuter, B., de Kerckhove, D. et al. Does consumption rate scale superlinearly?. Nature 493, E1–E2 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11829

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