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16 - Body sizes in food chains of animal predators and parasites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

By
Joel E. Cohen
Edited by
Alan G. Hildrew ,
David G. Raffaelli  and
Ronni Edmonds-Brown
Joel E. Cohen
Affiliation:
Rockefeller and Columbia Universities New York
Alan G. Hildrew
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
David G. Raffaelli
Affiliation:
University of York
Ronni Edmonds-Brown
Affiliation:
University of Hertfordshire
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Summary

Introduction

Food chains in which animal predators are bigger than their animal prey are called predator chains; those in which the consumers are smaller are called parasite chains (Elton, 1927; Hutchinson, 1959, p. 147). The purpose of this chapter is to display and test empirically some consequences, for predator chains and parasite chains, of assuming that the average mass of a consumer species (predator or parasite) is related to the average mass of its animal resource species (prey or host) by a power law with an exponent less than 1.

In 1858, as part of his development of the theory of evolution, Wallace (1858, p. 54) noted that animal predators are generally larger and less numerous than their prey. Among the many echoes of Wallace's remark, Elton (1927) observed anecdotally that animal predators weigh more than their prey in terrestrial food chains, Hutchinson (1959) analyzed some of the theoretical consequences of predators weighing more than their prey, and Sheldon, Prakash and Sutcliffe (1972) and others posited that marine animal predators outweigh their marine animal prey (see also Humphries, this volume; Woodward & Warren, this volume). Only recently have body sizes been studied empirically in parasite chains (Memmott, Martinez & Cohen, 2000; Leaper & Huxham, 2002) and parasitoid chains (Cohen et al., 2005). The study of parasitoid chains (e.g. Rott & Godfray, 2000; Memmott et al., 2000) appears not to have been considered by Elton (1927) and Hutchinson (1959).

Type
Chapter
Information
Body Size: The Structure and Function of Aquatic Ecosystems , pp. 306 - 325
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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