Body sizes of consumers and their resources

• Published in: Ecology
• Main Authors: Brose, U, Cushing, L, Berlow, EL, Jonsson, T, Banasek-Richter, C, Bersier, L-F, Blanchard, JL, Brey, T, Carpenter, SR, Cattin Blandenier, M-F, Cohen, JE, Dawah, HA, Dell, T, Edwards, F, Harper-Smith, S, Jacob, U, Knapp, RA, Ledger, ME, Memmott, J, Mintenbeck, M, Pinnegar, JK, Rall, BC, Rayner, T, Ruess, L, Ulrich, W, Warren, P, Williams, RJ, Woodward, G, Yodzis, P, Martinez, ND
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Ecological Soc Amer 2005
• Subjects: Biological Sciences; Ecology; Community Ecology; Weddell; Weddell Sea; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1890/05-0379; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/100510

Trophic informationwho eats whomand species body sizes are two ofthe most basic descriptions necessary to understand community structure as well as ecologicaland evolutionary dynamics. Consumerresource body size ratios between predatorsand their prey, and parasitoids and their hosts, have recently gained increasing attentiondue to their important implications for species interaction strengths and dynamical populationstability. This data set documents body sizes of consumers and their resources. Wegathered body size data for the food webs of Skipwith Pond, a parasitoid community ofgrass-feeding chalcid wasps in British grasslands; the pelagic community of the Benguelasystem, a source web based on broom in the United Kingdom; Broadstone Stream, UK;the Grand Caricaie marsh at Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland; Tuesday Lake, USA; alpine lakesin the Sierra Nevada of California; Mill Stream, UK; and the eastern Weddell Sea Shelf,Antarctica. Further consumerresource body size data are included for planktonic predators,predatory nematodes, parasitoids, marine fish predators, freshwater invertebrates, Australianterrestrial consumers, and aphid parasitoids. Containing 16 807 records, this is the largestdata set ever compiled for body sizes of consumers and their resources. In addition to bodysizes, the data set includes information on consumer and resource taxonomy, the geographiclocation of the study, the habitat studied, the type of the feeding interaction (e.g., predacious,parasitic) and the metabolic categories of the species (e.g., invertebrate, ectotherm vertebrate).The present data set was gathered with the intent to stimulate research on effectsof consumerresource body size patterns on food-web structure, interaction-strength distributions,population dynamics, and community stability. The use of a common data setmay facilitate cross-study comparisons and understanding of the relationships betweendifferent scientific approaches and models.