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Size-Abundance Relationships In An Amazonian Bird Community: Implications For The Energetic Equivalence Rule, Sabrina E. Russo, Scott K. Robinson, John Terborgh

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

We studied size-abundance relationships in a species-rich Amazonian bird community and found that the slope of the logarithmic relationship between population density and body mass (b= −0.22) is significantly shallower than expected under Damuth’s energetic equivalence rule (EER), which states that population energy use (PEU) is independent of species body mass. We used estimates of avian field metabolic rates to examine the logarithmic relationship between PEU and body mass and its variation among ecological guilds. The relationship for all species had a significantly positive slope (b = 0.46), indicating that PEU of larger species was greater than …