Da. Kelt et D. Van Vuren, Energetic constraints and the relationship between body size and home range area in mammals, ECOLOGY, 80(1), 1999, pp. 337-340
Recent theoretical developments to explain the unimodal and asymmetric dist
ribution of body sizes among species in higher taxa have yielded prediction
s for related demographic and life history traits. In particular, it has be
en predicted that there is an energetically optimal body size (M*) for terr
estrial mammals at similar to 100 g, and that the relationships of many bio
logical characteristics will change slope or even sign at this point. We re
analyze a well-known data set on the relationship between home range size a
nd body size in mammals. If the distribution of home range sizes as a funct
ion of body size is energetically constrained, then it is reasonable to ass
ume that the lower size limit of a home range for a given body mass will al
so be constrained. To evaluate this hypothesis, we predicted that the relat
ionship between minimal home range size and body size is nonlinear, and tha
t the smallest home ranges should correspond to species in the vicinity of
M*. Our data tentatively support both hypotheses but constitute a clear cal
l for more comprehensive analyses with larger data sets.