21. Range Size, Turnover, Body Size and Allometric Scaling  

What will you learn in this lecture:

• To understand what is meant by the Age-Area Hypothesis and Rappaport’s Rule, and how the limitation of these concepts in explaining real world range patterns. 
• Ability to relate what is meant by Distance Decay, and know how analysis of its two main functional forms (power law and exponential decay) and rates of change can illuminate ecological process.
• To understand the main shapes found in body size distributions for species and individuals, and relate how incongruence between them is related to sample latitude.
• Describe what is meant by Allometric Scaling.

Enrolled students of fall 2024 should watch this lecture before December 3.

What questions should you be able to answer now?

• What are the different "rules" for body size distribution?
• What is Distance Decay and what type of niche does it support?
• What are it's different functional forms and what do they imply about community scale?

Useful links and materials:
Nekola, J.C. & P.S. White. 1999. Distance decay of similarity in biogeography and ecology. Journal of Biogeography 26:867-878.
Nekola, J.C. & B.J. McGill. 2014. Scale dependency in the functional form of the distance decay relationship. Ecography 37:309-320.
Brown J. H. & Maurer B. A. 1989. Macroecology: The division of food and space among species on continents. Science 243: 1145-1150.

Featured image: "He said he was Totoro. With fur, and a mouth like this. One like this, and one about like this, and a B-I-G-G-G one like this..." - Mei Kusakabe. Can Bergman's Rule explain their body size distribution? (picture of Miyazaki's Totoro borrowed from site of cosplayer AllaboutAmi)