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Similarities In Body Size Distributions Of Small-Bodied Flyingvertebrates, B. A. Maurer, J. Alroy, J. H. Brown, T. Dayan, B. Enquist, S.K. Morgan Ernest, E. Hadly, J. P. Haskell, D. Jablonski, K. E. Jones, D. M. Kaufman, K. Lyons, K. Niklas, W. Porter, K. Roy, F. A. Smith, B. Tiffney, M. R. Willig

Biology Faculty Publications

Since flight imposes physical constraints on the attributes of a flying organism, it is expected that the distribution of body sizes within clades of small-bodied flying vertebrates should share a similar pattern that reflects these constraints. We examined patterns in similarities of body mass distributions among five clades of small-bodied endothermic vertebrates (Passeriformes, Apodiformes + Trochiliformes, Chiroptera, Insectivora, Rodentia) to examine the extent to which these distributions are congruent among the clades that fly as opposed to those that do not fly. The body mass distributions of three clades of small-bodied flying vertebrates show significant divergence from the distributions of …