Gjoni Vojsava, Altermatt Florian, Garnier Aurélie, Palamara Gian Marco, Seymour Mathew, Pontarp Mikael, Pennekamp Frank
Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Biology, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, USA.
Ecol Lett. 2025 Sep;28(9):e70208. doi: 10.1111/ele.70208.
Organismal abundance tends to decline with increasing body size. Metabolic theory links this size structure with energy use and productivity, postulating a size-abundance slope of -0.75 that is invariant across environments. We tested the robustness of this relationship across gradients of protist species richness (1-6 species), temperature (15°C-25°C) and time. Using replicated microcosms, we provide an empirical test of how temperature and biodiversity jointly shape the cross-community scaling relationship (CCSR). While our results support the expected slope of -0.75, we also found interactive effects showing the relationship is not invariant. Warming altered abundance scaling with size depending on richness; in high-richness communities, temperature favoured small protists, steepening the CCSR slope. These context-dependent responses emerged over time, suggesting a role of size-dependent species interactions in shaping responses to environmental change. Our findings demonstrate that cross-community size scaling is not fixed but shifts dynamically with ecological context.
生物体的丰度往往会随着体型的增大而下降。代谢理论将这种大小结构与能量利用和生产力联系起来，假设大小-丰度斜率为-0.75，且在不同环境中保持不变。我们在原生生物物种丰富度（1-6种）、温度（15°C-25°C）和时间梯度上测试了这种关系的稳健性。通过使用重复的微观世界，我们对温度和生物多样性如何共同塑造跨群落尺度关系（CCSR）进行了实证检验。虽然我们的结果支持预期的-0.75斜率，但我们也发现了交互作用，表明这种关系并非不变。变暖改变了丰度随大小的缩放关系，这取决于丰富度；在高丰富度群落中，温度有利于小型原生生物，使CCSR斜率变陡。这些依赖于环境的响应随时间出现，表明大小依赖的物种相互作用在塑造对环境变化的响应中发挥了作用。我们的研究结果表明，跨群落大小缩放并非固定不变，而是会随着生态环境动态变化。
