SynthesisOecologia2008
Scaling of offspring number and mass to plant and animal size: model and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Oecologia, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Differences in stem traits mediate the variation in trait relationships of grasses and non-grasses.Oecologia · 2026Article
- Negative allometry of egg size among 29 species of drosophilid flies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Quantifying maternal investment in mammals using allometry.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Genome Size Covaries More Positively with Propagule Size than Adult Size: New Insights into an Old Problem.Biology · 2021Article
- An identification of invariants in life history traits of amphibians and reptiles.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- A stochastic differential game approach toward animal migration.Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften · 2019Article
- Understanding reproductive allometry in turtles: A slippery "slope".Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Somatic maintenance impacts the evolution of mutation rate.BMC evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- TNFα is responsible for the canonical offspring number-size trade-off.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- An exploration of differences in the scaling of life history traits with body mass within reptiles and between amniotes.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- Breeding Young as a Survival Strategy during Earth's Greatest Mass Extinction.Scientific reports · 2016Article
- The marine diversity spectrum.The Journal of animal ecology · 2014Article
- Article
- Ecological interactions in dinosaur communities: influences of small offspring and complex ontogenetic life histories.PloS one · 2013Article
- Article
- Article
- Ontogenetic niche shifts in dinosaurs influenced size, diversity and extinction in terrestrial vertebrates.Biology letters · 2012Article
- Body size-specific maternal effects on the offspring environment shape juvenile phenotypes in Atlantic salmon.Oecologia · 2011Article
- Reproductive biology and its impact on body size: comparative analysis of mammalian, avian and dinosaurian reproduction.PloS one · 2011Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The scaling of reproductive parameters to body size is important for understanding ecological and evolutionary patterns. Here, we derived allometric relationships for the number and mass of seeds, eggs and neonates from an existing model on population production. In a separate meta-analysis, we collected 79 empirical regressions on offspring mass and number covering different taxa and various habitats. The literature review served as a validation of the model, whereas, vice versa, consistency of isolated regressions with each other and related ecological quantities was checked with the model. The total offspring mass delivered in a reproductive event scaled to adult size with slopes in the range of about 3/4 to 1. Exponents for individual seed, egg and neonate mass varied around 1/2 for most heterotherms and between 3/4 and 1 for most homeotherms. The scaling of the progeny number released in a sowing, clutch or litter was opposite to that of their size. The linear regressions fitted into a triangular envelope where maximum offspring mass is limited by the size of the adult. Minimum seed and egg size scaled with weight exponents of approximately 0 up to 1/4. These patterns can be explained by the influence of parents on the fate of their offspring, covering the continuum of r-strategists (pelagic-aquatic, arial, most invertebrates, heterotherms) and K-strategists (littoral-terrestrial, some invertebrates, homeotherms).
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