Declining body size: a third universal response to warming?
- PMID:21470708
- DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.03.005
Declining body size: a third universal response to warming?
Abstract
A recently documented correlate of anthropogenic climate change involves reductions in body size, the nature and scale of the pattern leading to suggestions of a third universal response to climate warming. Because body size affects thermoregulation and energetics, changing body size has implications for resilience in the face of climate change. A review of recent studies shows heterogeneity in the magnitude and direction of size responses, exposing a need for large-scale phylogenetically controlled comparative analyses of temporal size change. Integrative analyses of museum data combined with new theoretical models of size-dependent thermoregulatory and metabolic responses will increase both understanding of the underlying mechanisms and physiological consequences of size shifts and, therefore, the ability to predict the sensitivities of species to climate change.
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Comment in
- Climate change responses: forgetting frogs, ferns and flies?Bickford DP, Sheridan JA, Howard SD.Bickford DP, et al.Trends Ecol Evol. 2011 Nov;26(11):553-4; author reply 555-6. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.06.016. Epub 2011 Jul 23.Trends Ecol Evol. 2011.PMID:21782274No abstract available.
- Climate change, body size, and phenotype dependent dispersal.McCauley SJ, Mabry KE.McCauley SJ, et al.Trends Ecol Evol. 2011 Nov;26(11):554-5; author reply 555-6. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.06.017. Epub 2011 Jul 29.Trends Ecol Evol. 2011.PMID:21802764No abstract available.
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