Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
Introduction
A crucial requirement for the analysis of energy flow through freshwater food webs is the accurate and precise estimation of secondary production (Benke et al., 1988). The rate of production (or biomass-turnover rate) is often expressed as either annual production-to-biomass ratios (annual P/B) or daily biomass-growth rates (g, Appendix I). Invertebrate production and annual P/Bs have now been estimated on a taxon-specific basis for a relatively wide range of freshwater habitats, streams and rivers in particular, and often this has been done within a community context (see reviews by Benke, 1993 and Huryn & Wallace, 2000).
The relationships between body size and either daily or annual P/B for freshwater invertebrates have been assessed using empirical approaches (Banse & Mosher, 1980; Plante & Downing, 1989; Morin & Bourassa, 1992; Benke, 1993; Morin & Dumont, 1994). The results of such studies provide strong evidence that annual P/B is negatively related to body size (Appendix I; Fig. 4.10). However, recent efforts showing remarkably high P/Bs for some benthic macroinvertebrates in both warm-water (e.g. Benke, 1998; reviewed by Huryn & Wallace, 2000) and cool-water streams (e.g. Nolte & Hoffman, 1992) suggest that the results of these early studies – Banse and Mosher's (1980) still widely cited analysis, for example – greatly underestimate biomass turnover. Furthermore, because they are based on meta-analytical approaches incorporating comparison of populations taken from many different communities, these earlier studies do not allow the analysis of factors constraining patterns of P/B as a function of the body size of individual taxa within single communities.
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