Testing Relationships between Energy and Vertebrate Abundance

• Main Authors: Chris Carbone, Nathalie Pettorelli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2009-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Ecology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2009/496175

Understanding what drives variation in the abundance of organisms is fundamental to evolutionary ecology and wildlife management. Yet despite its importance, there is still great uncertainty about the main factors influencing variation in vertebrate abundance across taxa. We believe valuable knowledge and increased predictive power could be gained by taking into account both the intrinsic factors of species and the extrinsic factors related to environmental surroundings in the commonly cited RQ model, which provides a simple conceptual framework valid at both the interspecific and the intraspecific scales. Approaches comparing studies undertaken at different spatial and taxonomic scales could be key to our ability to better predict abundance, and thanks to the increased availability of population size data, global geographic datasets, and improved comparative methods, there might be unprecedented opportunities to (1) gain a greater understanding of vertebrate abundance patterns and (2) test existing theories on free-ranging animals.