Are animal body mass patterns from structurally similar ecosystems similar?
Allen, Craig1, Holling, C2, 1 2 ABSTRACT- The Textural-Discontinuity Hypothesis proposes that discontinuous animal body mass distributions reflect discontinuous landscape structures available for animals at different scales. If body mass patterns reflect the cross-scale organization of ecosystems, then ecosystems that are structured by similar processes are predicted to contain animal communities that have similar body mass patterns. Mediterranean climate ecosystems are similar structurally, but contain animal communities with evolutionary distinct origins. There are more Mediterranean climate ecosystems than there are of other types of terrestrial ecosystem, and they therefore present the strongest test of the Textural-Discontinuity Hypothesis. We used the body mass distributions of the mammals of 5 Mediterranean-climate ecosystems and determined if the distributions were discontinuous, and if so we then compared body mass patterns among the systems. Discontinuities were determined wi
