Habeck Christopher W, Meehan Timothy D
Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2008 Sep;11(9):898-903. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01198.x. Epub 2008 Apr 25.
According to the energetic equivalence rule, energy use by a population is independent of average adult body mass. Energy use can be equated with carbon flux, and it has been suggested that population fluxes of other materials, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, might also be independent of body mass. We compiled data on individual nitrogen deposition rates (via faeces and urine) and average population densities of 26 species of mammalian herbivores to test the hypothesis of elemental equivalence for nitrogen. We found that the mass scaling of individual nitrogen flux was opposite to that of population density for the species in our dataset. By computing the product of individual nitrogen flux and average population density for each species in our dataset, we found that population-level nitrogen flux was independent of species mass, averaging c. 3.22 g N ha(-1) day(-1). Results from this analysis can be used to understand the influence of mammalian herbivore communities on nitrogen cycling in terrestrial ecosystems.
根据能量等效规则，种群的能量使用与成年个体的平均体重无关。能量使用可以等同于碳通量，并且有人提出，其他物质（如氮和磷）的种群通量也可能与体重无关。我们收集了26种哺乳动物食草动物的个体氮沉积率（通过粪便和尿液）和平均种群密度的数据，以检验氮元素等效性的假设。我们发现，数据集中物种的个体氮通量的质量标度与种群密度的质量标度相反。通过计算数据集中每个物种的个体氮通量与平均种群密度的乘积，我们发现种群水平的氮通量与物种质量无关，平均约为3.22克氮·公顷⁻¹·天⁻¹。该分析结果可用于理解哺乳动物食草动物群落对陆地生态系统中氮循环的影响。
