On the validity of Bergmann’s rule
نویسنده
چکیده
Aim We reviewed the occurrence of Bergmann’s rule in birds (ninety-four species) and mammals (149 species), using only studies where statistical significance of the results was tested. We also tested whether studies using different characters as surrogates of body size have a different tendency to conform to Bergmann’s rule, whether body size and nest type (in birds) have an influence on the tendency to conform to the rule, and whether sedentary birds conform to the rule more than migratory birds.
منابع مشابه
Regulation of animal size by eNPP, Bergmann’s rule, and related phenomena
Bergmann’s rule, which proposes a heat-balance explanation for the observed latitudinal gradient of increasing animal body size with increasing latitude, has dominated the study of geographic patterns in animal size since it was first proposed in 1847. Several critical reviews have determined that as many as half of the species examined do not fit the predictions of Bergmann’s rule. We have pro...
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Although Bergmann’s rule – stating that among closely related species, the bigger ones will inhabit the colder climates/higher latitudes – was formulated for inter-specific comparisons, most analyses that tested this pattern in mammals were on an intra-specific level. To date, no large-scale taxonomydriven cross-species evaluation of the pattern predicted by Bergmann exists. Here we show, in a ...
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