No general relationship between mass and temperature in endothermic species

• Main Authors: Kristina Riemer, Robert P Guralnick, Ethan P White
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 2018-01-01
• Series: eLife
• Subjects: macroecology; biogeographic rule; birds; mammals
• Online Access: https://elifesciences.org/articles/27166

Bergmann's rule is a widely-accepted biogeographic rule stating that individuals within a species are smaller in warmer environments. While there are many single-species studies and integrative reviews documenting this pattern, a data-intensive approach has not been used yet to determine the generality of this pattern. We assessed the strength and direction of the intraspecific relationship between temperature and individual mass for 952 bird and mammal species. For eighty-seven percent of species, temperature explained less than 10% of variation in mass, and for 79% of species the correlation was not statistically significant. These results suggest that Bergmann's rule is not general and temperature is not a dominant driver of biogeographic variation in mass. Further understanding of size variation will require integrating multiple processes that influence size. The lack of dominant temperature forcing weakens the justification for the hypothesis that global warming could result in widespread decreases in body size.