Impact of warming on aquatic body sizes explained by metabolic scaling from microbes to macrofauna.

ABSTRACT: Rising temperatures are associated with reduced body size in many marine species, but the biological cause and generality of the phenomenon is debated. We derive a predictive model for body size responses to temperature and oxygen (O₂) changes based on thermal and geometric constraints on organismal O₂ supply and demand across the size spectrum. The model reproduces three key aspects of the observed patterns of intergenerational size reductions measured in laboratory warming experiments of diverse aquatic ectotherms (i.e., the "temperature-size rule" [TSR]). First, the interspecific mean and variability of the TSR is predicted from species' temperature sensitivities of hypoxia tolerance, whose nonlinearity with temperature also explains the second TSR pattern-its ampl

SUBMITTER: Deutsch C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9282389 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature