ABUNDANCE-BODY SIZE RELATIONSHIPS - THE AREA YOU CENSUS TELLS YOU MORE

The interspecific relationship between abundance and body size in anim als is often claimed to be strongly negative, with species abundance l imited by energetic requirements. This view has been criticized for a number of reasons, but is still widely accepted. Here, we provide evid ence of further fundamental difficulties with this relationship as der ived from compendium studies. We suggest that there is a potential art efactual component to these relationships resulting from variation in the areas over which the densities of species of different body size a re censused, and differences in the ways species use these areas. Whil e the interspecific relationship between body size and abundance is st ill likely to be negative after accounting for the artefactual compone nt, the slope of the relationship is unlikely to support energetic equ ivalence arguments.